A Visit with the Judge

April 23, 201

Today we continued our drive toward Big Bend National Park, leaving the Buzzard Roost around 11 am. We first headed to WalMart to gas up and get some groceries and supplies, as we were told that there ain’t much between here and Big Bend. We also stopped at a propane place near the campground to fill up the tank, to run our refrigerator and furnace (it gets pretty cold at night around here). The pleasant fellow who filled us up told us that Lake Amistad, the large nearby reservoir, was down about 50 feet, due to their 5-year drought. I wondered how deep the lake was, if it was down 50 ft, and looked it up. It’s 100 square miles and normal depth is 217 ft. It’s created on an international dam on the Rio Grande, managed by both the U.S. and Mexico for irrigation, flood control, hydro power and recreation.

We cross over the lake shortly after beginning our drive—it provides some stark but beautiful scenery. It’s still a big lake but obviously way down.

 

Major dam on the Rio Grande

As we head southwest, we soon are seeing more rolling terrain, with small mountains and buttes appearing.

 It’s starting to look like a place where you expect to see Clint Eastwood ride over the nearest ridge.

We stop at a lookout to read the historical marker and eat lunch (sardines—I was inspired by the visit to the Chinatown market, not bad). At this spot, a section of the overland Union Pacific was completed in 1881, the accomplishment celebrated by hammering in a silver spike. The railroad tracks parallel the highway we’re on (US 90) and we see several long trains going by.

 I see on the map that we are approaching the town of Langtry and the Judge Roy Bean Museum and we decide to stop. 

We’ve seen the Paul Newman movie The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean a couple of times and thought it was hilarious. As it turns out, a lot of stuff in the movie is true! 

 

Photo of the Judge outside his court room in his horse and buggy transportation.

This is a wonderful museum—definitely over-delivery. It’s actually run as a state visitor center, and it’s free. For those who don’t know about Judge Roy Bean, he was a shady but humorous character who ran a saloon and somehow got himself appointed Justice of the Peace in this area at a time when thousands of railroad workers were pretty much running amok. He appointed himself “The Law West of the Pecos” and held farcical trials of wrongdoers at his saloon. He was also noted for his big crush on a famous English actress of the time, Lily Langtry. He continuously wrote her fan letters trying to get her to come to Langtry. She finally did—about 10 months after Bean had died. The museum has a couple of the original buildings on site, including the saloon where the “judge” held his trials, and his house, along with a lot of Bean artifacts and memorabilia. 

 

Carol outside the actual preserved "courthouse".

They also maintain a beautiful cactus garden—who knew there were so many varieties of cactus?? And the Indians and Mexicans have apparently found multiple uses for all of them, from eating them to making dye, beverages, baskets, medicine…even chewing gum! There are 12 different species of prickly pear cactus alone! 

 

Carol in the lovely cactus garden.

We highly recommend this place to anyone coming this way.

We finally pulled ourselves away from Judge Bean’s world and headed back on the road. The mountains and buttes are getting bigger now and the scenery is spectacular, with layered rock formations of different colors. 

 

The start of the Texas mountains.

We decided not to drive all the way to the park entrance, as it was getting late, and stopped at a nice little motel and RV campground in Marathon, TX, one of the gateway towns to the Big Bend area. It’s a picturesque and quiet little town, except for the trains going through…

Our RV park and motel has a beautiful garden. This covered picnic area is part of it.

State count: 8 [Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas]

Odometer count:

Surber, VA: 107,435

Marathon, TX: 110,563

Average accommodations cost, 19 nights: $15.58/night 

Where we are: