Wild Texas West

We were hardly an hour into our motoring tour of West Texas when the words “check engine” flashed from the dash of the rented Hyundai Sonata.

I scanned the desolate landscape.

“Is that a town?” Emily, my traveling companion, wondered, pointing.

Calling Cornudas a town is stretching things, since the population is five people--all of whom work at the roadside cafe. Still, owner May Carson does make that claim and others. Handing over a menu scrawled on a paper bag, Carson said, “I’m famous for that burger with the green chili, but the chicken fry is a killer.”

In tight pants, her blond hair sprayed up, Carson resembled former Texas Gov. Ann Richards. Every bit as tough, she pulls in 200 to 300 customers a day--truckers, ranchers, innocent travelers and people who have seen the restaurant in “Hot on the Trail! With Sunny Conley,” a PBS documentary.

I was still working off breakfast in El Paso, a plate of huevos rancheros suitably grande to inaugurate my Tour de Tejas, so I ordered iced tea. Some patrons chowing down nearby were generous with testimonials about Carson’s menu: “The secret,” one said, “is never unwrap the chili burger.”

The rental company promised an auto swap within two hours. Punctually, a flatbed truck delivered a Ford Focus. We were ready to resume our tour of far West Texas, or what other Texans call, with a fling of the arm, “out there.”

I grew up in Texas, but aside from rafting the lower canyons of Big Bend National Park, I hadn’t ventured west of the Pecos River, which separates the wedge of West Texas from the rest of the state. I wanted to explore, to discover the land’s beauty and some of the embellishments that people had brought in the name of art--high art, low art, land art--kitschy or quaint, cerebral or sublime.

We would start with a bit of camping in the Guadalupe Mountains, about 100 miles east of El Paso, then swing south to the Big Bend country of the Rio Grande; in between we’d stop wherever curiosity led us.

As we left Cornudas behind and drove east on U.S. 62/180 in the Chihuahuan Desert, mountains began to loom above the flatlands like gumdrops on the Candy Land board game. It was May; the sun glared, but the temperature was fair. Soon the prow of El Capitan peak rose temple-like above the desert floor, announcing our first stop: Guadalupe Mountains National Park.

On a 1921 trip to West Texas to buy oil leases for Humble Oil Co., geologist Wallace Pratt hiked the Guadalupe Mountains and bought 5,000 acres for himself. He later donated the property as part of the national park, which was established in 1972 and then more or less left alone.

This is not a park for softies. There are no services, no cafes or gas stations, few paved roads. Most visitors enter at Pine Springs on U.S. 62/180, where there’s a ranger station and a campground. We passed that turnoff and kept going to the entrance to McKittrick Canyon.

As soon as I set foot on the canyon trail, I saw a rare Texas madrone tree, its trunk blood-red and sinewy. Deeper into the canyon, across several small streams, maples began to crowd out cactus and agave. I made a note that this would make an exotic fall hike.

Pratt had heard the canyon described as the most beautiful spot in Texas. He went there and agreed; after buying the property, he built a summer retreat for his family.

Wending through a jumble of cubist limestone formations, we arrived at the Pratt lodge, a handsome home of limestone walls and slate roof, built in the 1930s. It was being renovated, but usually it is open and staffed by volunteers. The path continued for about a mile, greener and wetter at each bend, to “the grotto,” a deep glade of maples with three stone picnic tables.

We made the six-mile canyon hike in less than four hours. With daylight to spare, we decided to camp on the north side of the park, which butts up against New Mexico. But we missed a shortcut and arrived, in violation of the universal code of good camping, after sunset.

Packing with herds of Homo sapiens is not my idea of a vacation, so I was delighted to find Dog Canyon Campground completely, utterly empty.

Putting up a tent in the blinding twilight of West Texas would have been material for a comedy act. Fortunately, the tidy, low-impact campground sported tent platforms. On the box of tamped sand, on a double-wide air mattress, I slept under a glimmering firmament, while Emily listened for all things slithering and creeping.

Monday morning, the volunteer campground manager showed up. When I complimented the accommodations, he whined about how little use they get.

“Might as well flood the area,” he said, scowling.

I said we were planning to hike up Tejas Trail toward Lost Peak. He replied: “You know about mountain lions? Had kills all through this campground last winter. Closed it down.”

We adjusted our backpacks and, eyes darting, set off.

“Or maybe you’ll see a bear,” he called out. “Had a group of Girl Scouts in here couple of weeks back, and they saw one.”

Tejas was markedly different from McKittrick. Instead of hiking into a contained area on a relatively smooth and level path, we climbed a saddleback through pine and Douglas fir, then over scruffier terrain to open vistas. Mule deer showed their rumps, but we were spared the sight of lions and bears.

Back in the car, we cruised south on Texas Highway 54, a two-lane with little traffic. The Delaware range to the east was ridged with wind turbines.

The highway skidded to its terminus at Van Horn, a town just off Interstate 10. We ventured down Broadway, taking in the broken-down, rusted-car aesthetic and weighing one cheap motel against another. Suddenly Emily braked before a sign that boasted “Texas’ ONLY Van Gogh Gallery.”

The gallery and used-book store was open, but the windows were covered with brown paper that crackled in the wind. Inside, Glen Campbell’s greatest hits were playing. While Emily perused the gallery for her very own Van Gogh knockoff, the artist introduced himself: “Ran Horn of Van Horn.” He showed me a fairly recent issue of Texas Monthly. There, in a photo feature on Texas townsfolk, was Horn, jeans slung low and bare torso painted Gogh-ishly.

“This is a town of eccentrics,” Horn said with a grin.

We spent the night at the Budget Inn. It wasn’t up to the standards of a renovated Motel 6 in terms of price, cleanliness and eco-friendly features, but, as Emily noted, the shower did have fluctuating water temperatures in case one wanted the hot-cold effect.

In the morning we went in search of El Capitan Hotel, designed around 1930 by Henry Trost, a celebrated architect who worked out of El Paso. Instead of importing architectural styles to the new boomtowns of West Texas, Trost updated the Southwestern vernacular.

The Pueblo Revival hotel had been reincarnated as Van Horn State Bank. As we admired the classic hand-painted tile and interior wrought iron, secretary Vicky Jones invited us into her office to look at pictures of what was once “the finest hotel between San Antonio and El Paso.”

The vivacious Jones proceeded to other topics--the local water war, a ranch that was reintroducing bighorn sheep, Van Horn’s fame as a movie location. She suggested we drive a couple of miles north of town to the McVay Ranch, where Larry McMurtry’s “Dead Man’s Walk,” released in 1996, was filmed.

Darice McVay gives tours of the ranch by appointment. She was out of town when we arrived, but Julian Fuentes, her gardener and handyman, graciously offered us a custom excursion. He cleared space in his van and gave us a dust-kicking tour of Turtle Mountain, Little Hobo rock formation, a talc mining operation and the ramshackle movie set where the made-for-television prequel to “Lonesome Dove” was shot.

We finished off Van Horn with a viewing of Gerald Scott’s welded metal sculptures at Los Nopales on Broadway. Then we had lunch--chile con carne and chiles rellenos--at Toni’s Place, across the street from a tastefully barren courtyard with chickens scratching in the dirt. That’s when I got the picture: The whole town is a folk art installation.

Next on the Tour de Tejas was Balmorhea State Park, home of San Solomon Springs, where sweet water flows out of the ground at a million gallons an hour. Here Apaches watered their horses. Then pioneering Mexican farmers dug irrigation trenches. And modern Texans excavated a swimming pool almost two acres across and 25 feet deep.

Rendezvousing with two friends, we rented a campsite and a room with kitchenette in the park’s motor court, built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s.

We unpacked, then jumped back in the car and drove off to see Fort Davis.

The terminally cute town is a hub to several stellar attractions: Ft. Davis National Historic Site, where the celebrated “Buffalo Soldiers”--African-American troops--were deployed after the Civil War; Indian Lodge State Park with its pretty pueblo-style hotel; a scenic loop through the cool, green Davis Mountains; and the University of Texas’ McDonald Observatory.

We had dinner at the Hotel Limpia, where, despite the advance billing in guidebooks, neither the food nor the service was haute . Then it was time for the Tuesday night “star party” at the observatory.

Despite my carefully plotted midweek timing, we had the company of 130 others at the half-dozen telescopes set up on the patio of the visitor center. (Expect more people at star parties when the new $6-million visitor center opens later this year.)

It’s one thing to look up at the night sky (assuming you can see it, no easy feat in populated areas) and feel the neighboring warmth of our own Milky Way stars. But a peekaboo of the Sombrero Galaxy, 50 million light-years distant, lifted me from the crowded patio and set me momentarily on the deck of Starship Enterprise ... Ensign Bryant.

Wednesday was a day of down-to-Earth discovery. Behind the motor court at the cienaga , or desert wetland, we saw vermilion flycatchers, scaled quail, black phoebes, Bullock’s orioles and roadrunners. Then we swam with turtles in the Texas-size pool. If you avoid Balmorhea at peak times, the serene grounds and old-fashioned buildings are reminiscent of a sanatorium or a state park that the state forgot.

Thursday morning it was bon voyage to our friends and on to Marfa, another place where the past is precious.

The main street, Highland, promenades up to a gorgeous courthouse in the Second Empire style. We circled and returned to El Paisano Hotel, another Trost legacy, which bears a plaque stating that it was once the best hotel between El Paso and San Antonio.

It was closed for remodeling, but the front door was ajar, so we went in to admire the foyer with its Spanish Baroque flourishes and tile work. We continued through the dining room to an enclosed courtyard housing a kidney-shaped swimming pool, dance floor and bar. Emily pointed to a balcony where a young Elizabeth Taylor gazed down at James Dean, fooling around in the pool with a studly actor. Yes, George Stevens filmed “Giant” near Marfa in 1956, and here the cast caroused.

Marfa has been spruced up with bed-and-breakfasts, a couple of decent restaurants--none was open in the afternoon--and a classy bookstore. If you’re into paranormal kitsch, stick around for the Marfa Lights, an unexplained phenomenon of bright orbs that often dance along the skyline of the Chinati Mountains after dusk. If you’re into high art, proceed a few miles out of town to the Chinati Foundation.

Bring the proper reverential attitude to Chinati, described by New York Times art writer Michael Kimmelman as the Lourdes of Minimalism.

Minimalism strips art to its bones so that you can appreciate the elements of design. Chinati, founded by Donald Judd in the 1970s, showcases minimalism in Judd’s seminal aluminum boxes, along with Dan Flavin’s epic fluorescent study of color and space, John Chamberlain’s crushed cars, and more.

From Chinati we drove south past the fabulous Cibolo Creek Ranch, a restored private fort built by a 19th century land baron and now a luxury resort for bicoastal epicures, past the ghost town of Shafter and smack into what has to be one of the ugliest towns in America: Presidio.

If Presidio had any redeeming qualities, Emily and I didn’t see them. After a pathetic dinner at the only restaurant we could find, we checked into the only hotel we could find. Our room came with a hole in the curtain, a hole in the lampshade and a hole in the shower.

Friday morning we were poised for the last phantasmagoric binge Texas had to offer. We launched down Route 170, the river road along the Rio Grande. After a slow start, following a languid current that hardly seemed to merit attention as a Western icon, let alone an international boundary, we were squeezed into a chute by a jumble of mountains and austere cliffs and disgorged at an overlook. Below, the Rio Grande was swathed in green, the color echoed by a verdant tint on the surrounding desert, which was gilded by orange-tipped ocotillos.

The river road has been a trade route for a thousand years or more, bearing turquoise and copper east from New Mexico. It ends at Lajitas, a prim, orderly counterpoint to Presidio.

Along the road’s north side sprawls Big Bend Ranch State Park, which claims to be--you guessed it--the largest state park in the country.

Our next stop was Terlingua, an 1890s quicksilver boomtown dissolved into a rubble of adobe and rock. I had been looking forward to bellying up to the bar at the Starlight Theater with some of the local desert rats, slugging down a beer, having a good dinner and hearing some tunes. Unfortunately, the theater was closed for a high school event.

We lingered next door at the Terlingua Trading Co. store while the sky bruised up and threw down lightning bolts.

Dinner was down the road at La Kiva, a restaurant and bar with an outdoor patio and live music. For the first time on this trip, my taste buds were appeased--but not my appetite. The batter-fried catfish and barbecued chicken were excellent, but the portions weren’t exactly Texas-size.

Alpine, 80 long, unpopulated and mesmerizing miles north, was our last port. The “mountain belle” town is home to a university (Sul Ross), a baseball field (Kokernot Park) rated one of the best in the U.S., a premier music venue (the Railroad Blues Club) and a classy art gallery (Terlingua House).

One of the landmark buildings downtown is the restored Holland Hotel. A brochure extolling the hotel’s history boasts: “An extensive addition, added in 1928 under the guidance of the famous architects Trost & Trost, created the finest hotel between El Paso and San Antonio.”

It was late, and we were tired but not ready to turn in, so I suggested a nibble at the Reata. The restaurant (it has offshoots in Beverly Hills and Fort Worth), is thick with cowboy memorabilia, an ode to “Giant” and the story’s centerpiece, the Reata Ranch. The dining room was about to close, but a waitress generously offered to serve us coffee and something from the desert menu. The wild berry flan sent me into rapture; it almost vanquished the trip’s culinary disappointments.

Sipping my coffee, I thought about the Rock Hudson character who, early in the movie, expresses the ethos that I grew up with: Texas is different, unlike any other state, almost another country.

That sounds arrogant and empty now, when so much of the land has been lost to development. My week affirmed that Far West Texas, at least, is holding against the trend, its landscape largely unsullied, its stars undimmed.

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Guidebook: Offbeat West Texas

* Getting there: Southwest flies nonstop from LAX to El Paso, Texas; America West flies direct (one stop, no plane change). Both lines, plus Delta, American and Continental, have connecting flights. Restricted round-trip fares begin at $219.

* Where to stay: Holland Hotel, 209 W. Holland Ave., Alpine, TX 79831; telephone (915) 837-3844, Internet https://www.hollandhotel.net. Doubles in this restored early 20th century hotel start at $45.

Balmorhea State Park, P.O. Box 15, Toyahvale, TX 79786; tel. (915) 375-2370, https://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/park/balmorhe/balmorhe.htm. Doubles in the motor court run $50 to $60. Reserve through the Web site or through the central state park service, tel. (512) 389-8900.

* Where to eat: Cornudas Cafe, U.S. 62/180, Cornudas; local tel. 964-2409.

La Kiva, River Road (FM 170), Terlingua; tel. 371-2250. “Texas-size” barbecue platter is $12.

Reata, 203 N. 5th St., Alpine; tel. 837-9232. Dinner entrees range from $12 to $28.

* Other stops: Guadalupe Mountains National Park, HC 60, Box 400, Salt Flat, TX 79847; tel. (915) 828-3251, https://www.nps.gov/gumo/.

McVay Ranch, Van Horn; tours by appointment. Tel. (915) 283-7800.

McDonald Observatory, P.O. Box 1337, Fort Davis, TX 79734; https://vc.as.utexas.edu. Call (877) 984-7827 for star party times (summer only) and prices. Tours of the observatory given daily 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Chinati Foundation, P.O. Box 1135, Marfa, TX 79843; tel. (915) 729-4362, https://www.chinati.org. Open for guided tours at10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Thursdays through Sundays; by arrangement Dec. 15 to Jan. 15.

* For more information: Department of Economic Development, Tourism Division, P.O. Box 141009, Austin, TX 78714; tel. (800) 888-8TEX (888-8839), https://www.traveltex.com.

-- Rebecca Bryant