We decided to leave early this morning so we could avoid the heat of the day. As I was preparing the trailer for hook-up the stargazing couple came by as if they were stalking terrorists, but it was only javelinas or peccaries, a close relative of the wild pig. A herd of four was grazing within 100’ of our trailer, giving us an ample opportunity to photograph them.
We left the park via the northeast entrance, and we were running low on fuel. I knew we’d have enough to get us to Marathon, about 70 miles north. Just as we pulled into town the low fuel light came on. Unfortunately the only station in town was charging $3.50 per gallon of diesel, about 50¢ more per gallon than we had been paying in West Texas, but I guess that’s the price one must pay when you’re in the middle of absolutely nowhere.
Lunchtime found us at a cute café in Sanderson, TX. It had once been the roundhouse for the railroad switching yard, but roundhouses were no longer necessary. I had the Rueben sandwich but Marianne had the carne asada plate, which looked more like goulash to me, but then that must be the difference between Tex-Mex and the Mexican food we’re used to in Southern California.
Just past Sanderson was Langtry, the late 19th century stronghold of Judge Roy Bean. Since I was here, I decided to pull the one mile off the main road to see this bit of the American West. Langtry is now a half dozen buildings, the most modern is a State of Texas welcome center which encompasses Bean’s Jersey Lilly Saloon as well as his opera house. Old Roy, the “Law West of the Pecos” was infatuated with the famed English actress, Lillie Langtry, whom he never met, but who would visit the town he claimed he had named after her, shortly after he died.
Roy was a character, one of the first cases he tried as the area’s justice of the peace was that of an Irishman accused of killing one of the thousands of Chinese workers helping build the railroad in the area. The other Irishmen threatened to lynch Bean if he were found guilty. So after looking through his one law book, Bean ruled that "homicide was the killing of a human being; however, he could find no law against killing a Chinaman". Bean also had a connection to San Diego, he moved here in 1848 to join his brother, who would become the city’s first mayor.
That evening we pulled into Del Rio, TX not far from the huge man-made Lake Amistad, which straddles both the U.S. and Mexico. In the parking lot of the first RV campground we looked at, we met a couple from San Juan Capistrano, practically neighbors, who were on day four of their very first RV trip. They were pulling a Jeep with their Class C motorhome; it was the Jeep that attracted them to me. The sign on the door of the “resort” said to pick out a site and come back in the morning to pay for it. We took a quick tour of the place and found it to be seriously lacking in what has now become our RV standard.
We drove off to find the next RV campground only a mile further down the road. Although this one wasn’t much to look at either, at least it did have a person working their office and was only $21.55 at night. Though the temperature was still hovering around 100°, we decided to call it a night after having driven about 225 miles since Big Bend. We walked the dogs and stayed in the trailer all night watching static-laden cable TV.
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