Howdy, Lone Star State “Texas”

Big Bend Dessert Off Road.

Since we decided to make the additional 3000 Mile drive to YellowStone we took some days out of our Texas travel plan. Instead of staying multiple days in either Austin and or San Antonio and visiting Houston we decided slightly different, and we picked up the travel pace to YellowStone.

Both toasted from our stay in Caddo Drive Arkansas, we crossed the border with Texas in the city with the very original name “Texarkana”. Nothing special there. We drove to Dallas, and along the way for our Dutch Readers we quickly waved to the famous Cow Ranch from Farmer “Olke”. Who, by our sources, has found a new lover 😊. If you are reading this and you don’t live in the Netherlands or watch a show called “Farmer searches wife” this will probably make absolutely no sense.

Our stay in Dallas was pleasant, the AirBnb we stayed in was very comfortable and on the day of our arrival our host recommended us to have lunch in the best BBQ house in Deep Ellum. Traveling for 27 days in the US and eating BBQ for most of the times we went for dinner (at least when we went out for dinner), the question raises how do you decide which one is the best. A good BBQ restaurant closes when the meat is sold out. This one closed at 3 PM in the afternoon, since everything, well the most of it, was sold out with still lines of people who wanted to order. We ordered one plate to share with everything they had (usually for one person). We didn’t eat that night!

Visiting the Dallas highlights can be done in an afternoon, which we did. Of course the place where J.F.K. was shot and a couple other things. Most fun we had in Dallas was in the neighbourhood Deep Ellum, where we visited a Honky-Tonk bar!

A good combination to make when visiting Dallas is to visit Forth Worth. Every major city in Texas has something with cattle, but in Forth Worth there is a major section of the city still set in the old style (slightly tourist oriented though, but good place to get the picture). Little bit of history from my side: After the civil war, Texas was broke. They had cattle and prairie, but no railroad. When they sold a cow in Forth Worth it would make the farmer 2 USD. Where as in Oklahoma, where they had a Railroad to the East, that same cow would make them 40 USD. That’s why they started to drive the cattle from Texas North and transport them from there. These days there is still a lot of cattle in Texas, but much of the land is getting to dry to keep cattle so ranches are moving more north. But no worries if you visit Texas, still cows everywhere!

From Dallas we went to Austin where the city slogan is “Keep Austin weird”. On our way we made a stop in Waco, famous from TV duo Chip and Johanna (Fixer Upper). They created a large outdoor food court which was nice to visit and good for an affordable lunch. In Austin we decided that it was too hot to walk, so we signed up for “Bird”. This is a system available in many Texas cities offering electric scooters to travel around the city. Austin is a little to hilly, but on the more flat parts of the city it works great! We visited the largest Capital building in the US and spent the early evening waiting on a bridge to see 50k bats fly away from under the bridge to find their evening dinner. Very spectacular thing to see and worth the wait.

Driving Through the City on Our Bird

Only one night in Austin and we were of to San Antonio, after three hot Cities (Dallas, Fort Worth and Austin), we started off with a swim in the second oldest city park of the US. In San Antonio for the first time we found fresh baked bread in a US supermarket. That was amazing, and we are both hoping that this a Mexican influence 😊. In the early evening we took a “Bird” to downtown, visiting a Mexican Market, drinking beer in the America Tower, which is a left over from the world expo many years ago, going to an old fort “The Alamo” and of course walking along the Riverwalk. To compare it for Dutchies, Utrecht Channel district or for world travelers a little like the Italian Venetia, without the old buildings though. San Antonio is definitely one of the nicest cities we visited and a great surprise. Tomorrow is day 30 of our travel so we decided to do some reviewing in the car:

Nicest City until now – NashVille

Nicest Campsite until now – Blue Ridge – Toccoa Valley Campground

Nicest Tourist Attraction – Okefenokee Swamps

Nicest Texas City – San Antonio

Day 30 was not really eventful. We visited Bandera which is the world capital of Cowboys, but if you haven’t seen it you didn’t miss a lot. We had a nice scenic drive to Del Rio. On our way there, most cars on the road were border patrol. Del Rio is a border town and both me and Hester had never been so close to Mexico. From here we would make our way to Big Bend National Park.

The next morning we travelled to Big Bend, again passing many Border patrols and actual stops where we had to show our ID’s. One of the border patrol guys wished us good luck with camping in the big bend. At that point unclear for us why he whished us luck?! After many hours without serious traffic (a car every 30 min) we reached the entrance of the park. The drive was very beautiful, with stunning views of the desert and Chisos mountains. Peak season in the park goes from Nov to April, the other months are considered too hot. Well we are here in July, so you can do the math! But our first night was decent, a dust storm blew around a lot of sand, but kept us fairly cool. The next morning we would travel a long distance off road to the Mexican border. Here Mexico and the US are separated by the amazing Rio Grande! Which, during this time of the year is only a small stream of about 2 meters wide. A beginner fierljepper would easily jump over this creek. But the views were amazing. We will upload a movie shortly, so you can see for yourselves! In the early afternoon we made our way up to the higher parts of the park, where the temperature drops significantly to 32 degrees. We decided to do a 3 hour walk to a place called the Window. In these three hours we walked, we drank 5 liters of water. But it was well worth the effort. The sunset was beautiful, as was the view prior to the sunset. On our way back to the campsite we saw a rattle snake and many bats. We already noticed that the temperature on the campsite didn’t drop and it stayed 35 degrees all night, not great for your night rest. But now it makes sense that main season is Nov-Apr, and we were the only ones on the campground.

The Rio Grande (Or Small better said)

Leaving the Big Bend we went to El Paso, passing the Prada Store in Marfa (maybe 100 citizens), which is a pure tourist trap. But who cares? It’s fun and everyone makes a picture, and they go all over the world. So how stupid is it really to put a store here? Also during the past couple days we saw many roadrunners. Look them up on Google. I’m not so sure that they are that much smarter/faster as a coyote in real life. They are surprisingly small. I have to admit that a youth fantasy created by Warner Brothers died during these days, seeing a Roadrunner in real-life. Going to another time zone we of course arrived way too early at our Airbnb again, so we actually visited downtown El Paso. 85% of the people here are Hispanic and many of them don’t speak English. Ending up in a typical Mexican restaurant, there was no English menu, the waitress didn’t speak English and we could pay in both Dollars or Peso’s. I think this was the point where I realized that I had to learn some Spanish, so the next morning on the border between Texas and New Mexico I installed Duolingo and started my introduction course Spanish! Never too old to learn: “Yo soy un Hombre”.

Also, Radio Hester is back on, until now it was acceptable, but with the long-distance drives and the limited changes in the landscape, Hester’s focus is switched to singing along with the radio. Where I typically spent some time writing down my daily notes and studying the map for the current and future route. Maybe it’s a typical difference between Hester and me. Not saying that Hester doesn’t do both and that I don’t sing along with the radio!

Overall our visit to Texas was amazing and it should be on everyone’s travel schedule who is considering an autumn trip. If I can opt for one suggestion, I would consider changing the Texas “Lone Star State” Slogan to “Crazy huge highway flyover state”. You aren’t a city in Texas if you don’t have one of those 100-meter-high highway flyovers!

That’s it. Howdy, and we are starting our extra loop to Yellow Stone National Park! With some great stops prior to our actual visit of the park.

Some numbers:

Travel Days when finishing the blog: 34

Miles driven: 5200

Gas Used: No clue :-P

Spanish words learned (Timon): 15! (Party)