Rebecca Henderson

A couple of weeks before my final research trip for West Texas Interlude, a friend sent me a one line email: Hey, have you ever heard of dearphotograph.com? I think you should do one on your March road trip!

Not content to stop with one, we printed out a few shots from my grandfather’s slides to take along with us. Here’s what we came up with…

Monahans Sandhills, fall 1957

Judge Roy Bean’s place in Langtry, November 1957

sign at the Pecos River Bridge, November 1957

Kit Carson rock outside Fort Davis, 1958 or ’59

The last one is kind of fudged — we never found the exact spot, although we thought we were close.

This…

and this…

are what it looked like when we scoured our locations for just the right angle. No one really asked what we were doing, although one girl napping on a picnic table beside the road gave me a dirty look, presumably because I interrupted her by climbing on a rock a hundred feet away. Oh well.

P.S. We’ve submitted a photo to Dear Photograph — I’ll keep you posted if they use it. In the meantime, you should check out their site.

The day after Thanksgiving in 1957, Bob and Ann piled the kids in the station wagon and drove from Sanderson, Texas, to Big Bend National Park. Sanderson to Jacksboro was too far a drive for the family to make for the holiday, so they stayed down on the border and made a true holiday of it by visiting the park.

Santa Elena Canyon, 1957 (notice the height of the people standing by the river, on the right)

For the last leg of my West Texas Interlude trip with Pat and Randy, we ended up at the Chisos Mountain Lodge in the national park — Bob and Ann had made a day trip of it, going all the way to Santa Elena Canyon on the west side of the park and back to Sanderson in one day, but we opted to stop for a couple of nights in the mountains. Shortly after we arrived, we went out for a 1.5 mile loop hike near the lodge and visitor’s center, taking in views of the Window below us. As we set out on the loop, we paused at the map posted at the trailhead, and I recalled a vivid memory of standing in that place with Jen and Janel a year and a half ago, after we’d finished our 5 mile hike to the Window and back. I remembered looking at the dotted lines on the map for the South Rim and Emory Peak and hoping that I would get to come back and see more of the park.

And in that moment of remembrance, I decided that I needed to make it happen. I needed to climb up to the top of Emory Peak. So the next morning, I took my laptop out of my backpack, put in a few snacks and a couple of water bottles instead, and I set off. I tried not to focus too much on the signs posted several times in the first mile of my trip, warning that this is bear and mountain lion country.

I’ll be very honest — I hope I never, ever see a bear or mountain lion. My fear of them is very rational (they’re predators!), so it’s not at all a phobia. Pretty much every step of the way to the top and back I was certain that something was about to lunge for me from the forest. I heard growling a few times (maybe). I also heard something swishing along in the brush beside me once or twice, in step with me, stalking me, stopping when I stopped. It turned out to be my ponytail swishing against the top of my backpack, but for a few moments I was sure my time was up.

Texas Mandrone and agave, on the Pinnacles Trail leading to Emory Peak Trail

For more than an hour, I hiked without seeing another soul coming or going. I was beginning to wonder if I’d made a mistake in coming up there on my own — Pat and Randy and I all felt that it would be crowded enough on the last weekend of spring break that I wouldn’t actually be hiking alone all day. Nine miles is a long way by yourself, just you and the predators. During that first hour I sang to myself and the trees and the Mexican bluejays that hopped along the trail in front of me. After that, I leapfrogged with a couple of families and passed a few other people on the way to and from the top, solitary no more. My thoughts changed from certainty that I was being stalked, to wondering will my size in comparison with the others make me easy prey, or will it make me look less appetizing (I don’t exactly have a lot of meat on my bones)?

Four-and-a-half miles later, I reached the top of Emory Peak. Technically, I didn’t go all the way to the highest point. The last 20 or 25 feet are a scramble up some rocks where you get a 360 degree view — but I and a few others in the groups I’d arrived with were satisfied to watch the brave few climb up there while we enjoyed our slightly-less-than 360 degree view. I am unashamed that I only made it to 7800 feet and not 7825.

view from Emory Peak

I sat down on a rock to snack and rest and chat with the others before heading back down, when I realized I got a cell signal for the first time since we’d arrived in the park. I had received text and voice messages, and with my phone to my ear I heard the guy next to me say, “You’re getting a signal up here? Is that why you made the hike?”

“Yeah, I came up here to check my voicemail.”

view of the Chihuahuan Desert from Emory Peak

I made it back down to the lodge without seeing any bears or mountain lions, nor any prickly pear in bloom (almost, but not quite). Sitting at the restaurant patio with cold drinks later in the afternoon, Randy told me about this article about a mountain lion attacking a 6-year-old kid in February, causing them to close all the Chisos Mountain trails while they tracked the lion — which they didn’t find. Turns out the kid was attacked between the lodge and the restaurant. I later dug around on the NPS website and found a listing of mountain lion sightings in Big Bend for the month of February — one of the seven sightings for the month was at “Chisos Mountains Lodge, room 206, top of stairs.” I was sitting on my bed in room 215 when I read this. I guess I’m just as safe on Emory Peak as I am on the way to breakfast.

(For anyone who ended up at this blog because you’re looking to hike Emory Peak, I did the 9 mile round-trip hike with a 2500 foot elevation gain in 5.5 hours — and I highly recommend it, especially if you’ve already been on a lot of the other trails in the park. It’s amazing to stand at the top and look down at the places where you’ve already hiked.)

Several years ago a friend gave me a Chinese scroll for Christmas. On it are a painting of a tree in delicate lines of green beside a small stream and the words of Isaiah 58:11 in Chinese calligraphy:

And the LORD will guide you continually

and satisfy your desire in scorched places

and make your bones strong;

and you shall be like a watered garden,

like a spring of water,

whose waters do not fail.

A few of my wall hangings became moldy after enduring the steamy heat of several rainy seasons in Jinghong, and they had to be thrown away — but my scroll from Isaiah survived and hangs on my wall on the desert side of Washington today.

I was reminded of the words and the image of the tree by water as I drove through the desert between Balmorhea and Fort Davis in West Texas. Looking out across the landscape, I saw the foothills of the Davis Mountains covered in brush and cactus and yucca, rolling up from Balmorhea at 3,100 feet to Fort Davis at 5,050 feet. Much of this land still bears the charred black evidence of last April’s wildfires that burned more than 310,000 acres.

Here and there along the way a short line of cottonwoods would appear in a burst of bright, fresh green upon the brown and grey and dull yellow of the desert backdrop. From my far-off vantage point, it was hard to tell how a stand of trees could suddenly show up in the desert, how something so tall and so green and so evident of spring could exist in a land parched of moisture. Cross that distance to look up close, however, and you’ll find a small creek or an irrigation canal carving a curve in that corner of the desert. Where there is water, tree roots dig deep.

This afternoon the roots of my heart dig deep and search for Jesus, the living water that satisfies my desires in scorched places.

“We crossed the wild Pecos,

We forded the Nueces,

We swum the Guadalupe,

And we followed the Brazos”

from Texas River Song by Townes Van Zandt

Well, on this trip so far we’ve only crossed the wild Pecos and gazed in the distance at the Rio Grande, but this song keeps going through my head. As does this quote I recently read in Three Dollars Per Mile by the Texas Surveyors Association:

“The Pecos is a remarkable stream, narrow and deep, extremely crooked in its course, and rapid in its current. Its waters are turbid and bitter, and carry, in both mechanical mixture and chemical solution, more impurities than perhaps any other river in the south. Its banks are steep, and, in a course of two hundred and forty miles, there are but few places where an animal can approach them for water in safety. Not a tree or bush marks its course; and one may stand on its banks and not know that the stream is near. The only inhabitants of its water are catfish; and the antelope and wolf alone visit its dreary, silent, and desolate shores. It is avoided even by the Indians.” 

— Captain S.G. French’s description of the Pecos River from an 1849 exploratory mission for the U.S. Army

The Stone Village Tourist Camp in Fort Davis is to quirky hangouts and people-watching what the Eleven Inn in Balmorhea was to peace and relaxation.

Before Pat made our reservation, she called me to let me know what the sleeping arrangements would be like. She and Randy got a little motel room at this renovated 1935 facility, and I got a “camp room.”

My camp room reminded me of rural guesthouses I’ve stayed at many times in China, with a separate public bathroom a few doors down from where I slept. Well, that’s not an entirely fair assessment — the Stone Village camp rooms are clean and have an aesthetically pleasing decor, so the comparison to a Chinese guesthouse does eventually break down. My room had concrete floors and stone walls, while Pat and Randy’s room (with private bath) had wood floors and finished walls.

The thing that caught me off guard when I first saw my camp room was the entryway. There wasn’t a solid door — the entire front of the room was a screen. One section of the screen opens, and a thick curtain pulls across to give the semblance of privacy. The curtain doesn’t shut all the way, and since my room faced the main driveway leading to the highway, I felt a bit like I was on display the entire time I was in the room. I was also a little concerned at first that I might get cold at night, since the desert sky was mostly clear and the temperature would drop with the sun, but the down comforter on my bed kept me very toasty all night. Overall, I had a comfortable stay and would recommend the camp room if you’re wanting to sleep in a bed instead of a tent, but don’t want to shell out the money for a private bath.

The next morning, I wandered from my bed to the Stone Village Market across the courtyard — a fun little whole foods store where you can sit on the front patio under dried chilies and wildflowers and watch the town wake up. I drank a couple of cups of the West Texas Wildfire roast from Big Bend Coffee Roasters in Marfa (with agave nectar and organic half-and-half added), wrote a few postcards, and savored the lazy morning before getting back in the car for our next destination: Sanderson, Langtry, and the Pecos River Bridge.

It took me approximately 5 minutes after our arrival at Eleven Inn in Balmorhea to decide I wanted to come back and stay a few more days. We weren’t even planning to stay in Balmorhea when we first marked out our itinerary for this trip for West Texas Interlude, but every hotel in Pecos is currently booked solid by oil companies doing new drilling. Ironic that I’m taking a trip to visit towns once prosperous in the 1950s that have supposedly been in decline for decades because of the end of the West Texas oil boom and the building of I-20 to replace old Highway 80…and we couldn’t find a hotel on I-20 because of a new oil boom.

The boom worked in our favor by sending us to Balmorhea for the night. There are eleven rooms at Eleven Inn, each with its own quirky furniture and chenille bedspread. My room had a fuzzy stool at a wooden desk, two “distressed” nightstands (certainly not distressed to make them appear shabby chic, but distressed naturally over the years), a comfy bed, and a tiny tv perched on the top shelf of the closet. I never turned on the tv, but opted to listen instead to the glorious quiet of a motel courtyard located away from the highway. This morning I heard a rooster and what I think might have been the motel owner singing in the yard.

We made a stop at the state park and the famous pool filled by San Solomon Springs — 1 million gallons of water per hour gurgle out of the spring into the 3.5 million gallon pool, whose overflow heads to Balmorhea Lake and nearby irrigation channels. Tiny fish bumped against our toes when we dangled our feet over the concrete edge into the water that maintains a constant 72-76 degree temperature year-round.

Before leaving this morning for Fort Davis, I checked with the owners of Eleven Inn to see if they would have space for me to come back the following weekend. No worries — spring break will be over by then, and I should be able to come and sit for a while. Pat and Randy will head back to Denton on Sunday, but I think I’ll stay behind and enjoy the quiet, write in the mornings, hike in the Davis Mountains in the afternoons, and stare up at the star-filled sky at night.

You really should roll down a sandhill if you get a chance. Afterwards, be prepared to find sand in your pockets, in the cuffs of your rolled up jeans, in your ears, in your belly button, in between your teeth, and stuck to the chapstick on your lips — but it’s worth the experience.

photos by Randy Hatcher

We brought along a cardboard box and a couple of lids from plastic containers to use as sleds, but had no luck getting them to slide down the dunes. Everyone else we saw (including a girl in a styrofoam box) had a similar problem: you get going a little ways, and the edge of your sliding device plows into the sand and gets stuck.

The visitor’s center has plastic disks and surfboards available for rental, but they also have a sign posted saying they cannot guarantee disks or boards will slide. I’m just not willing to risk attempting a slide on rented gear without such a guarantee.

It snowed again the week I left Washington, but spring was evident when I arrived in Texas. The backroads of Jack and Wise Counties are lined with wild plum trees in blossom, and at my grandparents’ 0$ Ranch the redbuds, peach trees, daffodils, irises, and lilac bush are blooming.

My grandmother and I spent some time looking through a dresser drawer full of memories and came across a few stray papers of interest. One was the hospital bill from my father’s birth, July 27, 1951 in Pecos, Texas. The other was a receipt for the Pontiac Catalina my grandfather purchased new in 1952. The car cost a little over $3100. My dad cost $123.

This weekend I head out on the big road trip that will be my last hurrah for research on West Texas Interlude, the nonfiction book I’m writing to accompany my grandparents’ photos of life on the road working for Conoco in the 1950s. On the itinerary are Monahans, Pecos, Balmorhea, Fort Davis, Sanderson, Langtry, and Big Bend National Park. My aunt is determined to roll down one of the sandhills at Monahans — I’m still undecided as to whether I’ll join her or stand at the bottom to take her picture. At the end of a long week of driving, we’ll end up at the Chisos Mountains in Big Bend, where I’d wanted to stay in 2010 when my friends and I were diverted to the campground on the Rio Grande instead. This time we have a reservation at the lodge, so hopefully nothing will keep us from a couple of nights in the mountains to end our trip. I can’t think of a nicer place to debrief and write notes on a week’s worth of travel and research — and hopefully sneak in a couple of good hikes while we’re at it.

Since starting my research for West Texas Interlude in earnest, I’ve had to think of some creative ways to start piecing together a timeline of my grandparents’ life in the 1950s so I can plan the itinerary for the road trip portion of the project. I’ve gone through the hundreds of slides, only a portion of which have notes with them so far, and plotted out locations and years based on the number of candles on birthday cakes for my dad and his siblings. I’ll work more on the timeline and maps with my grandmother when I go to Texas in a couple of weeks, but it’s been fun to get started with this part of it.

To further my excitement, I found a couple of Texas road maps from 1954 on eBay for super cheap. I love that one of them is from Conoco (my grandfather’s employer at that time) and has a family standing in front of a 1950s model car — it perfectly captures the essence of this book I’m working on and its journey.

I can’t wait to sit down and pore over the maps and think through the differences between then and now when driving across Texas. One major difference is that I-20 from Fort Worth to El Paso was not in existence when my family lived out in far West Texas — the 1954 map shows the route they would have taken along Highway 80 to get from home to work. How cool that on this upcoming road trip I can look at the same type of map my grandfather might have used, rather than trying to guess at the old roads using my current atlas or GPS.

I guess I had that old map in mind when I went to the book sale at the Kennewick library this weekend — I came home with a book of sketches and trip notes from 1971, Back Roads of California. Later in the day I commented to a friend that I bought the book because it is “inspirational,” garnering a puzzled look and a question from her. Yes, old 1950s road maps and sketches from back road journeys in the 70s are inspirational. So many places left to see, so many roads left to travel. Sketches and trip notes have the potential to send me into a daydream lasting an entire afternoon, the outcome of which might shape the next spontaneous two weeks worth of travel. You never know.

On the drive back from Vancouver in May, my friends and I took a side jaunt through the Yakima River Canyon Scenic Byway. It was a gloriously sunny afternoon, a lovely day for a side jaunt, and as we enjoyed the drive through the canyon, I mentioned that I prefer to take scenic byways rather than the interstate whenever possible time-wise.

“You should come home with me to Challis, then,” said Sarah.

“I would love to,” said I.

And earlier this week, I did. Sarah needed to make a quick trip home and asked if I would like to keep her company on the 8-hour drive. I do love a good road trip, and I’ve been eager to see the scenic byways of Idaho, so off we went.

The drive from the Tri-Cities to Boise is decent. Boring at times, lofty views of the high desert at others. But once Boise is behind you, the real fun begins. You take the Payette River Scenic Byway to the Wildlife Canyon Scenic Byway, to the Ponderosa Pine Scenic Byway, to the Salmon River Scenic Byway. And then you’re in Challis, Idaho.

picnic stop in Stanley, Idaho

While Sarah worked at home, I spent my morning in Challis ambling around, looking at log cabins built in the late 1800s, standing in the middle of Main Street to take photos, no danger of being hit by a vehicle.

Main St, Challis

I stopped in at the Maddog Gallery, which also houses the Challis Arts Council and the Chamber of Commerce. I talked for a while to a friendly lady named Melissa, who works part time for the Chamber, part time for the Arts Council, all from the same desk. “You have to wear many hats in a small town,” she told me.

Which explains why we had breakfast that morning at the bowling alley. The lanes weren’t up and running, but the espresso machine at the snack bar was. I went back for coffee the second morning, and the lady behind the counter remembered me, as well as how many shots I wanted in my latte.

Challis, Idaho

At the visitor center for Land of the Yankee Fork State Park, a park ranger suggested I drive 40 or 50 miles on an old mule road to see some of the mining ghost towns in the area. “It’s really worth it to drive out there,” he said. “You should go — hey, how good are your tires? You want a good set for this trip. I got two flats at once out there, and that’s no fun.”

Pass. I was driving Sarah’s husband’s car, had no idea how good his tires were, and figured it wasn’t something I needed to do on my own without cell coverage, regardless of the tires. Instead, I went to the nearby bison jump, a section of several cliffs where the Shoshoni would stampede bison and drive them over the cliffs to their death.

Bison Jump

After lunch at the house with Sarah, I hiked up the mountain behind Challis to get a view of the town and to work up a sweat before our float trip down the Salmon River. Sarah called up a couple of friends — one had a raft, the other had a house with river access — and we were set. It’s a great time of year to float the river, to see the scenic byway from a different point of view.

where we launched our raft