February 2016 – Our RV Trip

San Antonio

By Jennie Simpson | February 24, 2016

Our plan was to spend two weeks in San Antonio, but we’ve found that bigger cities aren’t really our thing. So, we ended up cutting our visit to one week. We managed to get everything on our list done for this area in a couple of days. We’d been to San Antonio before so our list wasn’t very long. We wanted to check out the San Antonio Missions, see the Riverwalk, and have some good BBQ and German food.

There are five Spanish colonial missions that make up the San Antonio Missions World Heritage site. We got to visit three of them and the boys earned another badge for their collection!

My favorite of the three we visited is Mission San Jose y San Miguel de Aguayo. This one was the biggest of the Texas missions, but that’s not why it was my favorite.

I really loved the architecture here and the stone work.

This is the Rose Window of San Jose. Look at the detail in the stone work.

I was surprised by the number of people visiting this mission. I stood in this spot for what felt like an hour waiting for the front of the mission to clear some so that there wasn’t a huge gaggle of people in my picture.

We also visited Mission Nuestra Senora de la Purmisima Concepcion de Acuna. This one was my second favorite of the missions we visited.

The architecture and the details in the stone work were wonderful. There weren’t nearly as many people at this one since it isn’t as big or as well known.

The twin towers, barrel-vaulted roof and dome ceiling are virtually unchanged since the mission was built over 250 years ago.

Y’all might recognize the third mission we went to. Mission San Antonio de Valero is also known as The Alamo. This was actually the first one we visited, but it’s my least favorite of the three for several reasons. The biggest being the sheer number of people there. It was a little insane. When the mission era ended, the Spanish officials turned the mission into a military barracks and outpost.

Not far from The Alamo (right across the street) you’ll find stairs leading down to The Riverwalk.

What’s the Riverwalk? The Riverwalk is a series of walkways along the San Antonio River one story below the streets of Downtown San Antonio. There are shops, restaurants, and hotels. We walked a small portion of the Riverwalk to get the experience of it.

We were all so hungry we didn’t hang around the Riverwalk long. Yes, there are restaurants, but we were in search of something specific.

We ate at a little hole-in-the-wall place called B&B Smokehouse.

It was tiny, packed with locals, and the food was great!

We’d been looking forward to some German food since we ate at that great place in Phoenix! We found a place in San Antonio called Dresden Cafe.

Dresden Cafe makes all of their sausages and brats in house and they are some of the best we’ve had. We got one of each kind they offer and then ended up getting five pounds of our favorites to take with us. Yep, they were that good.

We found a German bakery called Schugga. You can get a meal there too and when we go back to the San Antonio area we will be heading back there to indulge in some of their nonbakery items! We met some new friends at Schugga and ended up standing there chatting for about an hour. We’re hoping to see Eric and Jacky somewhere down the road! Everything we got at Schugga was amazingly good!

We were only 45 minutes from Lockhart, home to the famous Black’s Barbecue.

We piled our plates with smoked meat and sides. It all looked good!

We wanted to be impressed. We tried. But…we probably won’t go back.

My favorite thing there was the pecan cobbler. It was so stinkin’ good!

If y’all go to Lockhart, make sure to stop by the courthouse. It’s impressive!

We really enjoyed being back in a Texas city and seeing some our favorite stores and restaurants!

See y’all down the road!

Pizza Roundup Long Draw Pizza

By Littlest | February 18, 2016

Long Draw Pizza is a really good pizza place in the Ghosttown of Terlingua, Texas.

There were only two people working the night we went and they did a good job keeping up with everyone’s orders. One of the rules at Long Draw is no cell phones. While I was taking the picture above, the waitress gave me a hard time about taking pictures (that’s why the picture is so blurry). She was smiling and laughing when she gave me a hard time so I’m not sure if they really stick to that rule or if it was because my mom told her about my blog posts.

I liked the names of the pizzas! They were all different instead of the usual names.

I got the Rio Grande!

We also got a Six Shooter and a Cactus Jack! The sauce here was so good! I mean, the whole pizza was good, but the sauce was different from what you usually get. It’s their secret recipe.

One of the neatest things about this place is the live music!

Between the amazing pizza, the live music and the clean bathrooms I give Long Draw Pizza a 5 star review.

If you have a cellphone out and are taking pictures, be sneaky with it!

See you next time on Pizza street!

Ghost Towns and Border Crossings

By Jennie Simpson | February 13, 2016

We spent two weeks in the Big Bend area and while Big Bend National Park was what brought us to the area, we were pleasantly surprised to find that there was so much more to do!

When we planned this part of our trip, we didn’t plan to cross the border to Mexico, but when everyone (including the Park Rangers) kept mentioning that it was a fun and safe part of the experience in the Big Bend area…well, we decided to try it. We crossed over at the Boquillas Crossing which is right in BBNP.

We went through the Border Patrol building where we learned what to expect and what we wouldn’t be allowed to bring back into the U.S. and then we headed out the back door to the Rio Grande River where we rode in a row boat across the river to another country.

We rode burros up to the town. Now, we could have ridden horses or in a truck or even just walked…but come on…look how cute those burros are! And, we felt like it would add to the whole experience.

When you cross the river, you get assigned a tour guide. We got Omar. There was a slight language barrier, but we got a long fine. He stayed with us the entire time, showing us his town and telling us a little about it. The entire town pooled their money and have switched to solar power!

We got a tour of the town, then stopped for lunch at Jose Falcons. The food was amazingly good!

We had to try the sopapillas. They were crisp and covered in cinnamon and sugar and they were gone fast.

They’ve set up souvenir stands along the road usually right outside their homes and the prices are very fair. We bought several souvenirs on our way back to our burros on the edge of town.

It was one of the boy’s favorite days. They ranked it right up there with Alaska, so y’all know they had a great time!

In the mid 1800s the discovery of cinnabar, the metal mercury is extracted from, brought miners to the Terlingua area. Today, as you drive through the tiny town, you can see one of the largest concentrations of mining architecture in the area.

I’ll admit that when we first pulled into the “ghost town” I got a little worried. I’d heard the stories of Terlingua being unsafe. It’s a good 80 miles to the nearest city and it’s right next to the Mexican border and we’ve all heard the stories about border towns being violent. When we got to BJs RV Park where we had reservations …we immediately felt a since of community.

Don’t blink. If you blink, you’ll miss the town. What I found so interesting is the fact that people still live in this “ghost town”. They build their homes right out of the ruins of the homes left there by the past residents so you’ll have ruins hooked to newer structures.

The blend of old and new-ish gave the town an old movie lot look, but there’s a real feeling of community here. People come for the novelty of seeing a ghost town and maybe venturing into Big Bend or to cross the border into Mexico, but they come back to Terlingua for the community.

There are a few businesses in Terlingua. The Starlight Theatre is a great little place to eat.

Make sure to stop by on Mondays when the whole town shows up for the 2 for 1 burgers! The burgers are good, the decorations are quirky, and the locals are friendly…and there’s live music later in the evening. There’s a great pizza place too, but Littlest will be doing a post about that so I’ll let him give y’all the details on the Long Draw.

If you’re looking for a place to stay while you explore the area…

I would suggest BJs RV Park where the hookups are good, the wifi is excellent (and you’ll need it with no cell service), and the community is welcoming. Some of our favorite memories of our time in Terlingua are of the nightly community campfires at BJs. We never once felt that we weren’t safe while we were in the area. I know a lot of people shy away from coming here because of things they’ve heard or seen on television, but we didn’t feel or see anything but a small close-knit community that welcomes any and all to come visit them.

I can’t leave out the sunsets. They were absolutely breathtaking.

See y’all down the road!

Big Bend National Park

By Jennie Simpson | February 3, 2016

Big Bend National Park is harsh and unforgiving and isn’t apologetic about it at all. If you want someplace soft, lush, or easy, this is not the park for you. But, if you’re into adventure, you want some fantastic views that you have to work to get to, and you love a park that’s diverse…this is definitely your park.

This park stretches out over 800,000 acres, includes massive canyons, vast desert expanses, forested mountains, and part of the Rio Grande Wild & Scenic River!

We spent a day driving the Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive.

The drive is only 30 miles, but we stopped several times to get in some hiking. We did the Burro Mesa Pouroff Trail and found this really cool area that has a dry waterfall until one of the flash-floods comes through.

We stopped by the Castolon Visitor Center to have a picnic lunch and gaze at the cliffs of the Santa Elena Canyon we were heading to. Castolon used to be a Military Outpost and you can see some of the old equipment that was used during that time.

In Big Bend National Park, the roads end at the river. The Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive takes you down to the Santa Elena Canyon where you can get out and hike through the U.S half of the canyon.

Everything I found about the Santa Elena hike said you cross a small creek. I really thought there would be a bridge. And…I was right…kind of. See those sticks? Yep, those are the “bridge” and no, they’re not held down by anything. One wrong step and splash!

Let me show you the high tech set of stairs we used to get up the side of the creek. Now, can we stop and appreciate the fact that I am only 5′? I got up! It wasn’t graceful, but by golly, I made it!

And Holy Jumpin’ was it worth it! Santa Elena Canyon is only 8 miles long, but is 1,500 feet deep and in some places only 30 feet wide.

The canyon was the end of the line for the scenic drive so we back tracked a couple of miles to this dirt road (we seem to always find ourselves on dirt roads) that would allow us to make a loop of the drive instead of having to go back the way we’d already seen. We found this old farm house. The Big Bend land is dotted with old farms and ranches.

We also found this section of badlands and climbed up over a small hill for the view above. There wasn’t a trail, we just caught a glimpse and got out to explore.

We took a drive down to do the Boquillas Canyon hike one afternoon. That’s the Rio Grande River and the border you’re looking at in the picture above.

The Rio Grande River winds south and makes the Texas/Mexico border. It makes a big horseshoe shape and it’s within that horseshoe shape that Big Bend sits. On one side of the river is the US and on the other sits Mexico.

We had been warned that some of the Mexican citizens liked to cross the river (border) illegally and put out “tip jars” and “souvenirs”. We were also told by Rangers that they considered any of these things contraband and would seize them if found. On our Boquillas Canyon hike we found both “souvenirs” and “tip jars for the singing Mexican”. I dunno…seems kind of harmless to me. We didn’t purchase any souvenirs or leave a tip, but I really don’t see the harm in it. In the photo above you can see the home of one of the Mexican citizens that was hoping for a “tip”.

Boquillas Canyon isn’t as well known as Santa Elena Canyon, but it’s still a neat hike and is quite something to see the river disappear into the canyon itself.

One of my favorite spots in the park is the Hot Springs area. We got there right as the sun was trying to sink, but we had just enough light to get a quick look before we headed on down the road. In the early 1900s J.O. Langford heard about the hot springs and set out to own it under the Homestead Act. Eventually, he opened it up to the public where they could soak in the 105° water for 10¢ a day.

We found the hot springs surprisingly full considering the time of day. We didn’t get in, we just wanted to see them.

The rocks of Big Bend are…complex. If a rock can be complex. Two seas, one right after the other, flowed in the Big Bend region hundreds of millions of years ago. They left thick deposits of limestone and shale in their wake. The Chisos Mountains rose about the same time as the Rockies and at the same time a wide strip of land sank along a fault line and in the center of it all was volcanic activity. Complex.

One of the best hikes in the park is the Grapevine Hills hike that takes you to the balanced rock you see above. It’s not a long hike, but the last quarter mile has some truly Harding Icefield Hike worthy parts. Funny, those parts are turning into our favorite parts.

If you want to see a mountain lion or a black bear, you’ll need to head to the Chisos Mountain section of the park. We went into the visitor center there and they have a board with all of the wildlife sightings. There were more than I thought there would be. We didn’t get to see any, but we didn’t get to spend much time in this section of the park. Two weeks isn’t long enough to really see this park.

I couldn’t leave out the flowers. I didn’t see many…it is winter.

I know, I know…these aren’t flowers, but they’re pretty enough to be! I saw just as many pink and purple prickly pears as I did regular green ones. I like the pink the best.

I was surprised by how many ocotillos we found at this park. Several had pretty red buds at the tops.

Since The Dude is pretty busy with school right now, I’ll go ahead and throw in the wildlife we saw too. We found this huge bee hive in Tuff Canyon. It was extremely active.

We also finally got to see a javelina up close! This little guy wouldn’t turn around for me to get a better shot so you’re stuck with a picture of his tushy. We didn’t push it since these guys are rumored to run in packs of 15-25. We didn’t want a stampede on our hands. We also saw roadrunners, bobcats, and coyotes!

There are those that will simply drive the paved roads of this park and call it good. They’ll miss most of the striking rock formations, the craggy ravines, spectacular vistas, and amazing river canyons. Maybe they’re intimidated by the stigma a desert carries of being a barren wasteland or perhaps it’s that all of the plants and animals aren’t soft and inviting.

Big Bend National Park isn’t really visited by the usual national park goer and that’s a shame because you can look at all the pretty, glossy photos of any place you want…but you’ll never truly understand the sheer size of the canyon walls or the wide open expanses unless you’re there. We will definitely go back to Big Bend. We feel like we found a diamond in the rough.

See y’all down the road!

#goseedoexplore

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