“Dusk in Big Bend”
On Saturday, March 15, 2009, my grandson, Nathaniel Duban, and I drove 620 miles from Houston, Texas to Big Bend National Park. The first night we stayed in the Big Bend Resorts Motel and RV Park in Study Butte, a tiny village just outside the park boundary on the western side. Since their restaurant was closed for the evening, we decided to go back into the park and eat dinner at the restaurant up in the Chisos Mountains. As we started back, the sun was setting and we stood a good chance of seeing some wildlife along the way. It would be about twenty five miles to the restaurant.
Just at dusk, as we were turning onto the Green Gulch Road, we saw this young two-year old mule deer buck and a doe that were coming out for the night. The scene in this painting is of the Chisos Mountains as seen at dusk from the Green Gulch Road. This is the road that goes up through Panther Pass to The Basin in The Chisos Mountains.
The square-topped mountain in the upper right of the picture is Casa Grande Mountain, elevation 7,325 feet, at the east side of The Basin. Panther Pass, where the Green Gulch road goes through, is in the saddle just to the right of Casa Grande. That is where Nathaniel and I saw the big Black Bear on the last night of our visit to Big Bend. The mountain at the right edge of the picture is Pulliam Peak , elevation 6,850 feet.
The Lost Mine Trail (that I wrote about in the last issue) goes up this side of Casa Grande from Panther Pass to near the top of Lost Mine Peak, elevation 7,835 feet, which is to the left of Casa Grande. On this trail, there is a place to stop and rest which is in the saddle just to left of Casa Grande. Here you can sit down enjoy the view back toward this scene. The peak in the upper left of this painting is Panther Peak.
Seeing the beautiful golden colored evening sky brought back memories of another visit to Big Bend many years ago. At that time, my wife, Corinne, and I lived in Uvalde, Texas. I had been working too much and was getting near the breaking point. The doctor said I had to get a break from all my worries. He suggested that Corinne and I go somewhere for a few days. So we packed up and drove to Big Bend National Park. The first day of this trip had an unusual ending that has stayed in my memory and will be there until they put in the ground.
On that trip, which was back in the early 1960s, after lunch at the restaurant in The Basin, I went to the desk to get a room in their motel. The clerk said they had no vacancies. I thought that we would wait around awhile and there might be a cancellation. At 4 PM, the clerk said there would be no cancellations. So I suggested that we go west for an evening ride up the river road to Presidio, Texas, and spend the night there. It should be an easy drive of about 60 scenic miles up along the Rio Grande River valley.
On the way, at Terlingua, just outside the western park boundary, there was a country general store there then where the old cinnabar (quicksilver) mine buildings are. We stopped there and visited with the owner of the store who was from Sabinal, Texas. I recall that his name was Davenport. Since we were from Uvalde, Texas, only twenty miles from Sabinal, we knew a lot of the same people and families. Since it was now after 5 PM, we decided to have a cocktail or two and enjoy the late afternoon view of the setting sun on the Chisos Mountains about 30 miles away. We stayed too long and enjoyed too many cocktails talking to Mr. Davenport. It got dark so we decided we better go on up to Presidio and get a room for the night and get something to eat.
We got to Presidio after nine o’clock. We were very hungry and very tired. We were surprised and dismayed to find that there were no rooms available in any of the motels and there was no café or store open. There was only one option and that was to drive another 60 miles up to Marfa and hope to get a room and something to eat there. After having too many cocktails in Terlingua, we desperately needed food in our stomachs and a bed to get in to get some rest.
We got to Marfa after eleven o’clock that night. The good news was that The Hotel Paisano had one room left, however the bad news was that their coffee shop was closed. This was the hotel that the Hollywood stars stayed in when filming the movie Giant. In putting our luggage in the room, I could see the ghosts of Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson “doing it” in our bed.
After checking in to the hotel, we started the search for something to eat. Marfa , Texas , at that time, was a really small one-street-town on US Highway 90. We drove to the western edge of town on US 90 and there was nothing open. So we turned around and drove to the eastern edge and there was nothing open. Defeated and in trouble, near midnight, we turned around and started back toward the hotel. I looked over at Corinne to say an apology and through the passenger side car window I noticed a small dim blue neon light up a side street in a very poor neighborhood. We checked it out and found a very small Mexican Café in an old unpainted four-room house that had a blue neon beer company sign in the window that said the magic words “OPEN.”
We stopped on the dirt road in front of the tiny café and went in. What had been a living room was now the cafe dining room. There were four small tables and a nickelodeon. A teenager, the son of the owner, was standing at the nickelodeon studying the songs that he did not have the money to play. We sat down at a table. A man came out of the back room and seemed to be shocked to see us. He handed us a hand-written menu that only had a few items on it. Greatly relieved to find food, we each ordered several things.
Very soon, he returned and started putting bowl after bowl of food on our table. Soon, our table was covered with all kinds of food. Confused and alarmed at the potential cost, I told him that we had not ordered all of this food. He stood at the corner of the table holding another bowl of food and with tears forming in his eyes, he said, with a breaking voice, one of the most memorable statements I have ever heard in my life. He said:
“Senor, this is the first day to open my café and nobody came. You and your wife are my first customers. I think God asked me to stay open tonight so that He could send you to me (and he crossed himself) to give me faith. I have all this food in my kitchen and now it is yours.”
Cheers,
Acree
P.S. These paintings and their stories, which we have named Art and Tales by Acree, has been a surprise success for me. If you know someone that would enjoy receiving them, please feel free to invite them to sign up for future issues on my web site, www.wildlifeartbyacree.com. As you know, there is no charge to receive them.
Also, a number of the people that receive the images of the paintings tell me that they use the painting images for their computer monitor screen saver that is sometimes called Desktop Background.
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