February 13, 2016
Another day of travel ends weirdly. Of course.
Starting off this morning in Del Rio, we were awakened with chirping birds, cool temperatures, and a bright sunny day. We got all cleaned up, loaded the car and went next door to the pancake house for a late breakfast. Our waitress was from Thailand and felt it necessary to crack political jokes when we sat down. That was weird...but breakfast was good.
We headed west on Highway 90 and our first stop was at Seminole Canyon State Park. There wasn't much to see during our short hike with the dog. The indian petroglyphs along the canyon walls were too far away, so we turned around and headed back to the car, and promptly departed.
Our next stop was the awesome and beautiful Pecos River Bridge. We got a lot of great pictures and again proceeded west. We passed through Marathon, but not before stopping and taking pictures of the famous Gage Hotel. Beautiful place, and a wonderful restaurant.
Our next stop was Alpine, which was supposed to be our overnight spot, but as usual, that all changed. We wanted to stay there two nights and spend the next two days touring Big Bend National Park, seeing the Marfa lights, visit Ft. Davis, and go up to the McDonald Observatory, but all of the hotels in Alpine were either sold out or didn't allow dogs. We also checked other towns around the area, and they were all sold out as well. I'm guessing the night before Valentine's Day can be expected to fill up all the rooms. Also, while in Alpine, we learned that Justice Scalia died in Marfa, less then 30 minutes from where we were standing. It was really weird.
We ended up having to backtrack a bit and head north to Ft. Stockton and the La Quinta there. So much for hiking, photographing and enjoying my West Texas mountains. We'll get them next time.
Although we're somewhat disillusioned about not doing what we planned, I think being forced to take a different route may be to our advantage. We'll head out tomorrow towards San Angelo, over to Brady, Killeen, and on to Temple, where we might stay tomorrow night. A new route will hopefully force upon us new opportunities for photographs, antique shopping, and whatever else we can discover.
It looks like we'll get home a day early on Monday, and that's OK.
On a positive note, the La Quinta we're in tonight has dry carpet!
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