Alpine-Big Bend

Bob & Cindy's 2016 Travel Web Site

Big Bend & Georgia Trips
February & April of 2016

So I'm combining two trips in this section. In late February, after a very mild winter, we went to Alpine to attend the Cowboy Poetry Festival in Alpine, Texas (see 2015 trips for an overview of this). This was our second trip and our family still thinks we're nuts. Actually, this is a very fun event with Cowboy storytelling, original music, and actually some poetry also. We go to meet up with friends, enjoy meals out on the town as well as a potluck dinner, and a small amount of adult beverages are usually consumed. We're going again in 2017 and combining it with a trip to Big Bend (if the weather cooperates).

The second part of this page is about a short trip to Georgia to visit Cindy's family. Along the way we visited an old friend in Memphis, took the coach by the factory in Red Bay, Alabama (a true experience), Gainesville, Ga where Cindy's family is, Jekyll and Sea Islands on the Georgia coast, Lake Seminole, and Gulf Shores, Alabama.

But first, one of our favorite places .. Big Bend National Park

There are not many places like Big Bend. Dark skies at night, vistas that go forever, unique plant life, mountain vistas, and clean air.

There is a lot of history in the area with early settlers, this was a homestead. Not sure what they survived on. There is no water, it's 110+ in the summer, and a lot of rocks and dust.

One of our first stops is usually Santa Elena Canyon where the Rio Grande has carved out a deep gorge. Unless you take a raft trip from upriver, you can't see it. The trail only goes in about 1/4 mile before it runs out.

We had always wanted to do the River Road, which runs through some rough country along the river (actually, not much of it is along the river). Anyway, it's an isolated place ... we saw only one other jeep in the whole 50+ mile stretch.

Along the River Road .. the Rio Grande that is soon going to have this "gigantic wall" to keep all people out (we never saw any sign of life on the Mexico side).

Looking across at the Chisos Mountains. We've hiked in the basin on several trails, including the South Rim Trail (which is this side of the mountains).

Just a whole bunch of nothing

This is an old quicksilver mine which was common back in the early 1900's.

"Housing" for the miners that worked the mine. No electricity and the closest town was over 100 miles away.

Trip to Georgia - April 2016

We stayed in an RV County Park outside of Brunswick, GA. The whole area is full of old live oaks and hanging moss. Kind of has a mystical feeling.

We also toured a couple of old plantations. All of these grew rice which was very labor intensive crop to raise and required slaves in order to make it go. Living conditions were not good for anyone, despite how this picture looks.

This is the side of the Jekyll Island Hotel .. a very high end place. Jekyll Island was an exclusive enclave for the top business leaders back in the late 1800's (think Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, etc). They formed this club for their use with golf, tennis, and hunting. They would bring their families down in the winter months for R&R

This was part of the old hotel where their guests could stay

These were where they lived when visiting ... called cabins. We few are open for a tour, most are still under some renovation. This was probably the largest one.

But they all have that "very rich" feel. Even today.

From Brunswick, we journeyed across Georgia to get to Seminole Lake, close to the Georgia/Florida state line in the SW part of the state. This was a Corps of Engineer lake and was a great place to stay. In the future, we'll revisit when going from Gainesville down to the Florida coast.

No trip to the swamp lands would be complete without seeing an alligator. This one was fairly small but definitely used to getting handouts from tourists.