In order to visit the park I got a train from El Paso, Texas (pop. 800,000) to Alpine, Texas (pop. 5,786). Alpine is what they used to call a 'one-horse town', and on the night I arrived it was a zero-taxi town, which meant I had to walk a couple of miles from the station to my motel, complete with backpack. It was a proper old-school American motel like you see in the movies, basically a small car park with a single level of adjoining lodges all around it.
Alpine is a nice place, but I can't help observing that I have entered the Realm of the Banjo. In one shop I actually overheard someone referring to an absent friend as 'Cleetus'...
I did at least manage to hire a car, my third in the USA (this one's a Chevy Cobalt, a bit smaller than the Impala) and spend a day driving all the way round the park, followed by a day doing a couple of moderate hikes. I wanted to do one big hike, but my feet hadn't quite recovered from Guadalupe and then the walk from the station to the motel only made my blisters even worse.
Also I got quite badly chapped lips from the sun and the wind while out hiking. The swelling made it look like I was wearing lipstick. By the time I'd finished a very hot plate of tacos, I was beginning to resemble Pete Burns.
Nice tacos though (see picture), and nice locally-brewed beer to wash them down. This was the High Sierra Bar and Grill, part of the same establishment as the El Dorado motel, in Study Butte-Terlingua (pop. 267), where I spent my second night. Shortly after I finished eating there was a fight in the bar, and I couldn't figure out why the barman was just standing there until I realised that the chief aggressor in the fight was the guy who actually owned the place. Fortunately no guns were pulled.
Later on I went upstairs onto the roof terrace, and that was a bit of a special moment: the mountain skylines clearly visible by moonlight alone, the bats flitting around the neon signs, unspoilt nature stretching to the horizon in every direction, and no sound but the chirping of the cicadas. Really, it's a shame to be travelling by myself at times like that. But seeing it alone is better than never seeing it at all.
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| Santa Elena Canyon |
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| View from the top of the Lost Mine Trail |
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| Tuff Canyon. It's rock. |
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| Edd vs Food, #2. Tacos de alhambre at the High Sierra Bar and Grill. |
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| When I woke up in my Alpine motel, I discovered that I hadn't been sleeping alone. Credit-card size room key included for size comparison. |
