The Savage Traveler: Winter Trip 2015: Fort Davis

Tues. Feb. 3: After another lovely breakfast everyone packed up to leave. Brenda and Caare were driving the 6 hours back to their home in San Marcos and the four of us continued on Highway 17, the old San Antonio to El Paso road, up into the Davis Mountains. We took time to stop at Fort Davis, a National Historic Site. The Fort was placed here to fight the Cherokees and defend the road, one of two routes leading to the Gold Fields of California, in the 1850s; briefly held by the Confederates during the Civil War; and then abandoned for two years. When it was reopened after the war it was the home of one of the two cavalry units of Buffalo Soldiers, all black soldiers with white officers. They served well until the 1880s when it was closed for good. The Park Service is renovating and rebuilding parts of the fort. We watched the video about the fort and then wandered the area, enjoying the barracks, commissary, officers’ quarters, and hospital amongst many foundations that won’t be rebuilt. It was thrilling to see the 7 Springs outpost on the old maps, having just been there. It was surprising to find out that they had really good medical care at the fort, the Army having gotten top Doctors to serve there. We drove on to Alpine where we put together a quick picnic lunch, bought gas and bought groceries before driving the rest of the way to Big Bend National Park. The entrance on the northwest side is Maverick Junction. As we drove east towards the Visitors Center at Panther Junction we could see the famous Window spillway in the Chisos Mountains, the only mountain range completely within a National Park. There were interesting cloud formations among the peaks of the Chisos that changed as we drove. We made a quick stop at the Center to get more information and to make a few phone calls since we had phone signals there. As we left the Center we could see a level of low clouds that seemed suspended above the desert floor. Eventually we drove into the clouds and visibility dropped to a few hundred feet. And then it started raining. We were surprised by the rain and the temperatures in the fifties in the Chihuahuan Desert. But there is a severe drought here and the aquafers are depleted to the point that it will take thousands of years to replenish. So we know the rain was welcome. The desert in the rain smells of the creosote that grows everywhere and we could see a profusion of white and lavender flowers that came out in the rain. We later learned they are Bi-colored Mustard. Our destination was Rio Grande Village, in the south east corner of the park. Ann and Shelby were going to stay in the concession RV Park so they could have electricity to save on the battery time of their new catalytic heater that would be needed when we moved to the Chisos Basin campground. We went to the National Park campground about a mile away because Marv wanted to see how the new furnace he installed would hold up using the battery that we can recharge with our solar panel. We each spent the evening getting set up in the rain and eating dinner after agreeing to meet the next morning at 8:30.