Visiting Texas for a road trip is probably the ultimate destination for those that love wide open spaces and historic places! There are plenty of historic places to visit in Texas during a road trip.
So, I have written this article to help you out and to explain what I did in Texas during my own driving holiday. My friends looked surprised when I told them that my next holiday destination would be Texas – they probably thought: “why on earth would anyone want to visit Texas?”
For me the answer was simple: I didn’t know much about Texas but I’ve seen a few movies and TV programs about the Lone Star State and I was intrigued by the amount of historic places to visit in Texas.
Having collected quite a few British Airways Avios points, I decided Texas would be the best place to spend them. I love driving and I enjoy going to vast open spaces and I couldn’t have picked a better destination than Texas! The Lone Star State is also one of the oldest in the United States, therefore Texas has many historic places to visit.
Suggestion: Scroll down to jump to the historic places if you want to skip my description of Houston
I booked my flight with British Airways and I used the points I collected during the years to rent a Mustang convertible for my ultimate road trip in Texas!
I booked this holiday in February when the weather was pretty miserable in the UK and I just couldn’t wait to get on the plane the following month. It was pretty much a decision of the moment and I’ve had absolutely no regrets ever since.
Places To Visit In Texas
During my road trip in Texas I visited the following places:
- Galveston in the south of Houston
- Goliad, a small town between Galveston and San Antonio
- Del Rio, a border town along Highway 90
- Langtry and the Jersey Lilly
- Sanderson, where I ate a really good burger
- Marathon where I turned left into Big Bend National Park
- Walked along the Marufo Vega Trail
- Slept in an RV in Presidio
- Walked around Frederickburgs, capital of the Texas Hill Country
Renting A Mustang Convertible In Texas
I landed in Houston late afternoon and the first thing I did was pick up the car from Avis. You can see the car on the left here – it was a red convertible Mustang, the latest model.
The back seat even had the plastic cover on! It was great driving the car and I really enjoyed the feeling of driving with the roof down, letting the air and sun in!
The car cost me 45,000 avios points for 9 days, which was quite expensive in retrospect but now it is too late to worry about that! I regularly fly between London and Budapest and a one way flight costs 15,000 points, so I could have got three single tickets there, but hey, I had a great time in Texas too!
In the previous year I rented a Mustang in California and really enjoyed it. This time I got the latest model, the 2015 convertible with all the latest gadgets. I couldn’t believe but everyone seemed to be commenting on my car wherever I stopped.
Some guys at the red, others at the gas station, shop car park – everywhere! They were like: nice car, is it a new one? Is it the latest? Drives fast, right? Another proof that they just love cars, especially if they are fast. If you are interested in my road trip in California, click this link!
This video below was shot by Brian Makse, explains everything about the car.
Houston in Texas is famous for Dr Nowzaradan’s weight loss surgery clinic. It is here that he helps morbidly obese people lose weight with the help of a gastric by-pass or a sleeve. Although I love the show, I visited Houston for an entirely different reason. I am a fan of cowboy movies and I love the wild west which is what brought me here.
Houston is also a big business center for the energy industry. So, if you are here for business then why not turn your visit into a leisure trip? You could extend your visit by a day or two and spend some time at the local space center, the holocaust museum or various other art exhibitions and galleries.
How to Get to Houston in Texas
British Airways flies to Houston direct from London and I paid £750 for a return flight. I spent my first night in Houston at the Marriott Energy Corridor, right next to I-10 Katy Highway. It had great reviews and they recently renovated the hotel, so I didn’t think twice before booking it.
I’ve always dreamed of staying in a hotel by the freeway, with views of the traffic rushing past. Most American soaps have shots of skyscrapers, the city sky-line and the freeway or the airport and I’ve always wanted to know what it’s like to see this in real life.
Luckily I had quite a few points from my business trips so I decided to book my first free night here. The hotel was great – it smelt super fresh and clean as if they built it yesterday. I paid for the night using my Marriott points, which made it feel even more special!
The Houston Energy Corridor
The Houston Energy Corridor is what many of the world’s most powerful energy companies call home. According to the neighborhood’s website, energy is more than a vital natural resource here. “It’s a unique, vibrant force that has empowered more than 300 multi-national, national and local companies to flourish.”
I got there quite late, around 10pm because I went for a drive around downtown first. I did not have a map of the city so I had to just use my internal brain-GPS to get to the hotel.
Fortunately, it was fine as the road network is so logical. In retrospect, everything else seemed to be so common sense in Texas. I memorized the map with the main arteries before the plane took off so that helped too.
Things to Do In Houston, Texas
Visit the Space Center in Houston. The Space Center is the official visitor center for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s center for human spaceflight activities. The center is open every day and tickets are from $29.95 for adults and you can easily spend 2-3 hours here.
Spend an hour in the Houston Gallery of Modern Art. The Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston is a not-for-profit institution in the Museum District presenting contemporary art of our time to the public. Admission is free and a visit will last about one hour.
The Houston Holocaust Museum is in the Museum District and it opened in 1996. The museum is the fourth largest Holocaust memorial museum in the United States. Admission is $12 and a visit should last about 2 hours.
Spend 2-3 hours shopping at the Galleria Shopping Mall in Downtown Houston.
The Houston Waffle House In Texas
The morning after I arrived in Houston I checked out of the Marriott and started to make my way to League City to visit my friend Heather from ICIS. On the way there I stopped to have breakfast at a Waffle House.
I used to eat at a Waffle House in Columbia, MO with my friends from uni, hence the visit. The Columbia Waffle House was outside town, open 24/7, and when clubs closed everyone ended up there.
Breakfast was huge as everything else in Texas, but I was starving so I finished it all! Nobody else left anything on their plates and like the saying goes, when in Rome, do as the Romans do!
League City, TX Outside Houston
I drove to downtown Houston after breakfast. Again, parking was difficult so I drove on – I was planning to spend the last day in Houston anyway. By this time I managed to fix my phone so I had GPS. I had a Three sim card and they have a special bundle called “Feel at Home”.
It includes the same minutes, messages and data at no extra cost in the US. Thanks to this, I was able to use the GPS wherever I went. I always set the driving options to toll free and off the freeway, so I got to see things instead of driving on the interstate.
I met Heather at her church (it was Sunday). The service was just about to start – and it was just something else. Nothing like in Europe where people sit lined up, all quiet and listening to the priest. They were singing, doing a couple of christenings and at the end the pastor stood at the hallway so that anyone who wanted to could talk to him.
A Typical Texan House
After the church we had lunch at Heather’s place. David, her husband made us some deep fried chicken strips with waffles and syrup.
It might sound like a strange combination but it tasted amazing, I still think about it sometimes! Heather’s house was just huge, but apparently that’s the “normal” size in the US.
Heather lived in League City, which is a typical suburb of Houston. According to the town’s website, by 1914, League City was on its way to becoming a dynamic community.
With a population of 500, the town was regularly serviced by four railroads, one of which was the Galveston-Houston Electric Railroad, known as the “Interurban”. These transportation venues were instrumental in creating a thriving commercial district in League City.
Visiting Galveston In Texas
After breakfast I drove out to Galveston. Galveston in Texas is a quiet seaside town with a pretty historic district. It is about one hour away from Houston, so if you are looking for a weekend break then just hop in the car and drive down Interstate-45. The beach here is sandy and the water gets nice and warm during the summer months.
My favourite pit stop on my way to Galveston was a Buc-ee’s gas station on I-45. I stopped at the Buc-ee’s to fill up my Mustang and to eat some local specialities.
Buc-ee’s is a unique Texas convenience store with petrol pumps along various highways. Buc-ee’s founder Arch “Beaver” Aplin is a Texas surfer who got fed up with dirty toilets along the highway and started his own business – with a special focus on clean toilets!
Aplin and his business partner Don Wasek opened their first Buc-ee’s store in Lake Jackson, Texas, in 1982 with a focus on cheap ice and clean bathrooms. The first Buc-ee’s was so successful that they decided to expand, and now have 27 locations around the state. They even won the cleanest toilets award in the US!
The World’s Largest Buc-ee’s
I headed down to Galveston on the I-45. I said I would avoid the Interstates but I wanted to stop off at a local wonder: Buc-ee’s. It is the largest gas station in the world with 120 pumps! They sell all sorts of weird stuff and the toilets are supposed to be super clean.
I bought some beaver nuggets, beef jerky and sausages and some other local weird stuff then refilled the Mustang. Even when I got back to England I thought about Buc-ee’s sometimes so I started searching online and found this video below:
Driving to Galveston from Houston
The drive to Galveston was super nice and it was hot so I let the roof down and just drove nice and easy. Galveston is like the Hastings of Texas: it looked like a hippie place to me. Loads of run-down industrial sites, old houses and wide roads leading to nowhere – just how I like it!
Driving into Galveston I turned left off Broadway into the side streets. It looked just like out of some crime movie: gangster-looking folk sitting on the porch smoking pot, kids running and cycling across the road lined with boarded up houses, a school and factories.
Some of the houses were quite nice and I imagine they used to belong to the better paid families in the heyday of the town.
Historic Downtown Galveston, TX
Here is what I did in Galveston: I parked up the car in downtown and walked around the historic district. I popped into a couple of bars and walked down to the seaside, after which I sat in a Popeye’s for dinner.
Imagine driving past a completely run down industrial estate, ravaged by Hurrican Kathrina. You stop at a junction, facing a truck stop at the red light.
A massive SUV then drives past just as you hear a huge passenger ship honk its horns. It was quite fascinating for a first timer. The downtown area was not very far from here, but parking was a pain again so I had to drive around twice before I could find a good spot.
Most of downtown was built around the second half of the 19th century or early 20th century, so it’s a mix and match of styles. The roads are nice and wide everywhere and the whole place is so airy, not claustrophobic like most European old towns.
What I just can’t get my head around is why everyone needs an SUV? If everyone had a Volkswagen Golf, the US’s fuel consumption could easily drop to a quarter of its current levels.
Stopping Near Freeport, Texas
I spent the night in the car near Freeport as all the motels were fully booked in the area. I have to say the new Mustang is much more spacious on the inside than the old one from 2014.
The silver Mustang was tiny on the inside but looked much more masculine, while the new is more spacious but looks more like a BMW. In the new Mustang
I just pushed the seat all the way back and I could stretch out completely. I slept a good couple of hours then I decided to drive on. It was another fascinating night drive, with nobody else on the road except me.
Obviously, I tested out the engine on those empty roads in Texas too and it was great! When I couldn’t go any further, I pulled over on a small country road and slept until dawn.
The Dow Chemical Plant In Freeport, TX
The Dow Chemical Company’s Freeport plant is the largest in the world. Dow first came to Texas in 1940, building a plant in Freeport to extract magnesium from seawater.
The company’s presence in the state has continued to grow through the years and now it calls the state home. I have a connection to Freeport myself. I used to speak to a guy here about epichlorohydrin once a fortnight during my ICIS days. Now I can put a place to it at last!
By the time I arrived in Freeport I was absolutely exhausted so I started to look for a place to stay. Unfortunately, I could not find anywhere as the nearby nuclear plant was under annual maintenance and they brought in about 1,000 people to rebuild the place.
That meant that they booked everything up in Bay City. My last hope, a small motel told me they had no rooms either, so I ended up sleeping in the car in their car park.
The next morning I drove towards Goliad, a very important place in the history of Texas. It was here that Texas declared its independence from Mexico and became a state of its own. Unfortunately, the uprising was crushed by the Mexicans and 300 people were massacred at Goliad.
The Goliad Massacre In Texas
Goliad in Texas has entered the history books thanks to the fact that the First Declaration of Texas’s Independence was declared here on December 20, 1835.
However, it was also here where the Goliad Massacre took place on March 27, 1836 after the Mexicans retook the place. The revolutionaries initially attacked and took Goliad in 1835, but the returning Mexicans decided to massacre them all when they eventually surrendered in 1836.
Nowadays, the locals frequently reenact the massacre during historic events. My Lonely Planet guide book said that it is well worth a visit so I drove there first thing in the morning.
Goliad Market Days
Goliad is also well-known for its market days, but unfortunately I arrived on the wrong day so I missed it. In case you want to be kept up-to-date on market events, follow their Facebook page here. If you cannot be bothered, here it is: the Goliad Market Days are every month on the second Saturday from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. featuring more than 170 booths and vendors.
Goliad Market Days is an open air market which combines an arts and crafts fair, farmers market and community festival.
“Market Days aim to relive Goliad’s traditional role as a crossroads for commerce, beginning with the 1700s’ Spanish-colonial trade from Mexico to Nacogdoches.”
The tradition continued throughout the 19th century, as travellers included Goliad on the routes for oxcarts, freight wagons, and stagecoaches. Today, Goliad Market Days is one of the largest and most popular street markets in South Texas.
Waking Up Near Goliad
I woke up to a truck driving past and the sun rising on the horizon so I got myself ready and set off for Goliad, which is an old Presidio. Goliad is basically a small town between the Gulf coast and San Antonio where most people live off agriculture.
For me the main interest was to find out more about the independence movement as it really surprised me when I found out that Texas used to be an independent state! Once I found out about this, I made sure to go to as many historic places as I could during my visit.
The Goliad Presidio Massacre In Texas
On October 9, 1835, in the early days of the Texas Revolution, a group of Texans attacked the presidio in the Battle of Goliad. The Mexican garrison quickly surrendered, leaving the Texans in control of the fort. The revolutionaries signed the first declaration of independence of the Republic of Texas here on December 20, 1835.
The Texans held the area until March 1836, when their garrison under Colonel James Fannin surrendered at the nearby Battle of Coleto. Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, then President of Mexico, executed all the survivors. On Palm Sunday, March 27, 1836 all 303 soldiers that surrendered died in the Goliad Massacre – the historic name of the execution.
The presidio looks like any other Spanish building from the outside with massive stone walls. The bells rang every quarter hour and it smelt amazing with all the flowers blooming.
Goliad’s town centre was also very pretty but quite small. The court and the surrounding square are the only tourist attractions. I even witnessed a young chap going to court in chains.
The below images are of the hanging square where they used to hang the convicts. After the court hearing they would lead the people out to the tree and hang them up on the branches.
Sitting there I could imagine riding up from my farm on horseback to the post office or the store once a week. On the odd occasion I would even find one or two bad guys hanging from the tree.
I arrived in Goliad a bit too early so nothing was open, otherwise I would have stayed for breakfast at least. A bit further down the road I stopped at another presidio near the Fannin Monument. By then I was getting very hungry so I didn’t go inside and instead drove on to Kenedy.
More Places To Visit In Texas – Kennedy
Kennedy is a small town at the junction of seven major roads with only about 3,000 residents, yet there are a myriad of shops, malls and hotels. I imagine it’s because all those roads meet there.
The strip malls basically line both sides of the roads, one shopping mall after the other. I wonder how many hundreds of acres of land they covered over with concrete.
I took this photo below at the local Walmart, open 24/7 near a Best Western, Holiday Inn, Courtyard, a massive McDonalds and a dozen other shops. Of course the car park was full of pick-up trucks as if no other vehicle can tackle the wide and paved roads of Texas.
Visiting a Walmart is a recurring theme in my US trips. Not only it is the cheapest option but I also have a small connection to it. I studied at the University of Missouri in Columbia and the founders of Walmart also live in Columbia.
So I normally stop at Walmart to reminisce. I checked out some tents in store in planning for my trip to the Big Bend National Park. In the end I decided I would wait until later in case I ended up not going to the park.
Instead of a tent, I bought a pillow at the Walmart and had a snooze in their car park. When I woke up I had some Buc-ee’s beef jerky and beaver nuggets for lunch then I drove off.
San Antonio is a tourist Mecca in Texas with its own canal and various museums, including the Alamo Monument. I really enjoyed my visit here during my road trip around Texas. Although I only stayed for one afternoon in San Antonio, it was enough to find plenty of things to do in the downtown area.
The number one attraction is obviously the canal system and the Alamo Museum, but there are plenty of architectural beauties to see. They are the local masonic monument, the post office and various other public buildings from the last century.
San Antonio’s King William District
I arrived in San Antonio around lunchtime and parked the car in King William District, a quiet, leafy suburb. It was so beautiful there, I would happily move there any time! Downtown is only a short walk away, yet the whole place feels like it is somewhere on the outskirts of town. Look at some of the photos below and you will immediately feel like you are on a self-guided tour around King William District!
Most houses were tiny compared to Houston, but back then property developers were not building houses on steroids. They also look much more liveable and easier to maintain with a beautiful front porch and a nice garden. The place is apparently full of hippies on a crusade to save the area from property developers looking to build high rises here. On most houses there is a flag and in the window a sign calling to save King William District.
I got myself a day ticket for the bus but then it turned out it was absolutely pointless because downtown was only a 15 minute walk away.
Walking Around San Antonio’s Canal District
The city council decided to regenerate the entire city center in the 1930s and built the current river walk in San Antonio. At the time slums came to dominate San Antonio’s downtown area due to the depression.
So the town council came up with the idea to create a canal to make San Antonio look like little Venice. It is pretty close but much more spacious and less crowded in places.
The San Antonio canal walkway has various entrance points and it goes around in a loop so you can reach the entire downtown area from it. Bars and restaurants line both sides of the river walk and there are a number of piers for the tour boats.
At a few places it was quite difficult to walk because there were so many tourists. There is also an amphitheatre with live shows and plays during the summer.
The Alamo Monument in San Antonio, TX
Most people come to San Antonio to visit the Alamo Monument. Home of the famous 1836 battle, it offers living history demonstrations and special events throughout the year.
The Alamo is a beautiful 300-year-old former Spanish mission turned fortress, open year-round. It is free for families, school groups and everyone to visit, experience the battlefield first hand and “remember the Alamo.”
I went inside the buildings and watched a video, but I didn’t want to queue up to enter the main building. The queue must have been 500 feet long. The Battle of the Alamo was one of the most important battles of the war of independence. I am not going to go into too much detail, there is loads about it online.
San Antonio’s Downtown Area
San Antonio has quite a few amazing edifices. These are from an era before the war when they cared about the appearance of public structures. Have a look at the pictures below for some nice examples.
Highway 90 is probably the easiest way to get to Del Rio from San Antonio. The road is a long straight stretch all the way to Del Rio, after which it hugs the US border all the way to Marathon, the entrance to Big Bend National Park. Naturally, Highway 90 is full of border patrols checking for illegal aliens.
Not UFOs – Mexicans trying to cross the border. When I was alone on the road I revved up the engine again but I never went faster than 125 mph. The road was straight but it wasn’t completely flat so I didn’t want to risk crashing into someone after the next “bump” in the road.
Arriving in Del Rio, TX
Del Rio is not exactly a tourist haven, so I did not spend too much time taking photographs. I also arrived quite late in the evening so it was already dark for me to take good pictures.
This one above is from Google Maps. Imagine driving in during the evening: the roads are full of massive SUVs and there is a forest of advertising towers crowned with neon lights! It was like in the movies driving into Las Vegas, only I was driving into Del Rio, Texas!
The motel was just as I expected. I’ve always dreamed of staying in a motel like Mulder and Scully do in the X-files. The front door opens into the courtyard with my car parked in front. By then I was so tired of walking in San Antonio, Goliad and the rest of the places that I simply could not be bothered to leave the room. And I wanted to watch American news.
I will always regret not having bought a TV while I stayed at the halls in Missouri. Some of the other students would congregate in each other’s rooms to watch TV together, but because I was on a different floor from those students, I never knew when they were doing it – so I got left out.
I sometimes think if I had bought a TV the other students would have come to my room to watch news, drama, soaps and all the other trash. So nowadays whenever I am in the US I try to spend some time in the evenings watching news and all sorts of other programmes.
Del Rio Texas Leisure Activities – Cultural Scene
While I was searching for Del Rio’s history I came across this video below. For the balance I am going to include it in the post, as apparently Del Rio has a lot more to offer than I discovered.
The Studio 6 In Del Rio
The bed was quite comfy and it was dirt cheap. I booked an apartment in a Studio 6, which is part of the Motel 6 chain. It was only like 40 bucks! It had a fully equipped kitchen with a microwave oven, a fridge, cutlery, cupboards and everything else for a long stay.
There was a shower room and a separate wash basin and the bedroom. The living room and kitchen were open space. And there were two TVs! One in the bedroom and another in the living room. I just couldn’t believe how cheap it was. And everything was spotlessly clean.
In the end I left a very good review and a week later the owner emailed me to say thanks: “Thank you for sharing your comments regarding your recent stay at the Studio 6 – Del Rio, TX #5055. Your feedback will be shared with the team to serve as recognition and encouragement; as we strive to continuously improve our guest experience. Thank you again for sharing. We hope your next visit will be even better.”
It might sound like a robot has written it but it still felt good to receive it! I gave five stars for everything. Having worked in hotels for three years as a receptionist, barman and room inspector I have quite high standards when I walk into any room, but this was just spotless.
No hair, no smell, nothing. And I had an amazing sleep – I didn’t want to get up in the morning. Enough of the hotel review for now, above are some photos of my room from the outside, number 113, with my car in front.
Buying A Tent In Walmart
Since there was a Walmart right in from on the Motel I stopped there to fill up and to buy a tent. I also took the below shots of some of the local “delicacies”.
Fuel was also the cheapest there so whenever I had the opportunity I filled up at Walmart as it was 10-20 cents per gallon cheaper than Shell or the others. I bought the cheapest tent there was with a camping mat which came to $38 all together.
I already had a sleeping bag from my trip to Australia, which I brought with me to sleep in the car. With that I set off on Highway 90 towards the junction at Marathon.
The drive from Del Rio in Texas to Marathon, the entrance of Big Bend National Park takes about three hours. If you stop at the various tourist attractions along the way then it can easily turn into a day trip, which is what happened for me. I decided to drive on Highway 90 to take in the scenery and not to rush along the Interstate.
After Del Rio I headed to Langtry to visit Judge Roy Bean’s house. My first stop after Del Rio was not very far from the Del Rio city limits. It was near the Amistad Reservoir just down the road.
Amistad, meaning friendship in Spanish, is famous for water-based recreation, camping and hiking. The area is also home to a wide variety of plant and animal life above and below the water.
The History Of Amistad Reservoir
According to Wikipedia, a 1944 treaty between the United States and Mexico proposed the construction of a major dam and reservoir on the Rio Grande. It provides flood control, water conservation, irrigation, hydroelectric power and recreation in the area. Its construction on Rio Grande began in December 1964 and ended in November 1969.
It is right next to the border, in fact the border cuts it in half. It is huge with a massive road and rail bridge crossing it as you can see on the images. The water has a nice blue hue but the levels have dropped quite drastically. This is a huge worry for people around there as they use it for agriculture and as drinking water.
On the photos you can see the old water levels marked by a thick white line in the rock. That’s where the water used to ebb and flow but now it’s several meters shallower. The rail and road bridge was so tall and the surrounding area looked absolutely amazing. What I liked most was when those huge American trucks crossed, the entire bridge was rattling.
As I was driving out of Del Rio I saw a train coming, but unfortunately it stopped before crossing the lake. I waited a good 20 minutes but it didn’t seem to be in a hurry.
Having given up on the train, I drove on towards Marathon. The picture above shows how straight the road was and what a vast expanse of land it is with hardly any trees around. In fact, there were only some bushes and cacti and lots of rocks.
Pecos River High Bridge
About half an hour after the Amistad Reservoir came another massive, and even more impressive, bridge. It spans the River Pecos just before Langtry. Before the mid-20th century, travellers had to negotiate a two-lane switchback to descend the canyon walls to reach the first highway bridge across the river.
The original bridge stood there until a flood washed it away in 1954. The current bridge is 400 meters long and 83 meters above the water level, making the Pecos River Bridge the highest highway bridge in Texas. I took the photos below at the overlook alongside a pullout on the northeast end of the bridge.
The water was light blue and birds were chirping away with cacti and aloe vera surrounding everything. The only noise that sometimes broke the silence was trucks crossing the bridge.
I find it amazing how, in the middle of absolute nowhere, they built such an engineering marvel. But even here the water levels have dropped drastically in recent years, demonstrated by a clear white line at the bottom of the canyon.
The Law West of the Pecos
My next stop was at Judge Roy Bean’s house in Langtry, also known as the Jersey Lilly. I think this was one of the best parts of the holiday, like something from the cowboy movies.
Judge Roy Bean lived back in the days when a public house owner could become the justice of the peace! Apparently there was so much crime in the area that the people around here decided to make Roy Bean the justice.
He held court on the porch of his pub and had only one volume of a 30 year old law book to put away the criminals! He normally just made decisions by his own rule book as he was “The Law West of the Pecos”.
he pictures show the pub from the outside as it was back 100 years ago. The original was much larger but his enemies burned it down, so he built this smaller building where he died on March 16, 1902.
It was almost the anniversary of his death the day I visited. Inside I could still smell the oil and paint they used to varnish the wood!
They even had some original bottles and pictures of his love: an English singer Lillie Langtry. Amazingly, he fell in love with the actress whom he’s never seen and named the town after her!
Judge Roy Bean’s Playground
The surrounding area around his house is now a live exhibit. On one of the images there is a pump to pull water from the ground and many cacti and wild flowers. I bought a couple of stamps and cards at the tourist office, but then ended up keeping them because they were so beautiful.
The postman has lived in the village for 25 years, having been the postman ever since. He has not regretted moving there at all and he recommended I move too. It was so tranquil and friendly – I was almost ready to stay.
Something that I cannot describe is the sweet smell of flowers and the scent of the air. Every flower smelled so sweet and they were super colorful. In memory of this I decided I will turn one of the corners in my garden into a Texan corner!
It will be full of bluebells and other flowers from Texas. A few miles outside Langtry the land became even more arid and the river that the next bridge crossed already dried up. It was only a seasonal river that fills up during the rainy season.
Sanderson is a small town in Texas, literally the middle of nowhere, but this is where I had the best burger in my whole life. The lady that owned the burger joint had lived her entire life in Sanderson, making food for the school kids and the other locals. I ordered a burger and chips and went for a walk while she was preparing the food. The name of her restaurant is the Eagle’s Nest, right on Highway 90 on the way to Marathon.
The Prairie after Sanderson
After Sanderson the roads were straight as an arrow so I went a bit faster. As a test, I went up to 110 mph and set the cruise control to that level to see the average fuel consumption.
Amazingly for the Mustang, the computer still calculated an average fuel consumption of about 19-22 miles per gallon. That’s not bad for a gas guzzler like the Mustang! And it only cost $30 to fill up!
About half an hour after Sanderson the countryside became more like the prairie with tall grass and some trees and bushes. I was absolutely fascinated by the roads, they were so wide and straight, almost inviting you to be naughty. The odd border guard drove past but they weren’t slow either. The speed limit was 75 mph, which is quite comfortable already.
The speed limits were set so logically in Texas: in urban areas 35 mph, suburban 45 mph, extra urban 55 and then as the population becomes scarcer the speed limit goes up. The farther you are from town the faster you can drive. On some of the freeways the limit was 85 mph, which is faster than in any European country apart from Germany.
Marathon: a Junction with a Gas Stop
I arrived at Marathon around 3 pm and turned left off on Highway 90. Marathon is the last gas station for about 65 miles so it’s best to fill up here to avoid disappointment. I had an almost full tank as I topped up in Sanderson already.
The best practice is to never let the tank go below the half mark as in the wide open country in the US, Australia or South America the next gas station might just be too far away.
After Marathon the clouds started to break up so I managed to take some more nice photos with the mountains in the background and the clear blue skies poking out from behind the clouds. The road to Panther Junction is Highway 385, taking visitors to the park head offices, but I will go into more detail in the next post.
Big Bend National Park is one of the largest, yet least visited National Parks in the US. In fact, it is larger than the state of Rhode Island itself! I had a tent with me and decided to get a back country pass to discover the Marufo Vega Trail. The trail is very difficult and it took me two days to do it – and I nearly died of dehydration as I did not take enough water with me!
From here I made my way up north towards Marfa where I saw this beautiful landscape with the horses and rolling hills, reminding me of Scotland. After Marfa I entered hill country, famous for its wine, tree orchards and flowers.
My next stop on the road trip was Austin where the South by Southwest music festival took place during my visit. It is one of the largest music events in the world with hundreds of bands showing off their talents. From here I made my way back to Houston to catch my flight back home.