More Terlingua Pictures

Cynta's porch.

Rockin' the Open Mic in Terlingua.

At the top of the mountain! 9.7 miles roundtrip in 7 hours. A sandwich and a half each and one bottle of water between us. It was intense.

I can assure you she did not look this cheery in real life at the top of the mountain.

My birthday meal in the Basin right after our hike. Sooo worth it. That dessert is named after the mountain we climbed.

Viva Terlingua!

Monday we got on the road after saying our goodbyes to our good friends we made on the farm. It was a long drive to Terlingua. Meg had severe stomach issues and we stopped pretty frequently. Somewhere in the desert wasteland that is western Texas we were close to running out of gas and a kind Mexican man saved us with two gallons of fuel. This good fortune was soon countered by yet another speeding ticket. I tried to be charming and charismatic, but it was to no avail. Now I have a phone date with a judge that is no doubt going to end in a two hundred dollar deficit. By nightfall we had driven through a lot of flat, dry Texas and were driving into Big Bend national state park. What a stark comparison to the rest of Texas. Driving in at night was bizarre. Big mountains and plateaus, no lights, and an enormous sky filled with busy clouds doing strange things. Driving through the temperature sporadically dropped and rose, it would be fiercely raining and then completely calm, and it hailed chunks of ice just smaller than pingpong balls. At first we pulled over because we though the windshield was going to break, then we decided to roll through it at a very slow speed. It was concentrated little storms. It was real neat to see these clouds from a distance. Some of these clouds are eight miles high, and the lightning is constant. What a show.

Once we reached our host Cynta, we were exhausted. You would not believe her home. She built it up from ruins. Terlingua is a ghost town now with a population of twenty-nine people. It used to be a mercury-mining town that had a big Mexican population. Now there are many ruins left from the stone houses the Mexicans built. Many have been built-up and worked on to become functioning homes again. The all have dirt roads. It is a very neat little area. We sat on her porch and spoke for a bit while watching the lighting storm in the distance. She has an amazing view. During the day we can see as far as eighty miles. We can see Mexico!

The following day Meg was still feeling shitty and I was pretty content being out of the car. So we just loafed around the oasis that is Cynta’s home. I have never admired a house more than this one. Love. Her home aside, Cynta is a lovely person. She is very nice, very trusting, and very easy to be around. She has great stories and a good delivery when she’s telling them. She’s got a great variety of interests and I very much enjoy her company.

We originally were going to stay with Cynta for a night or two. We spoke with Cynta and decided we would leave Friday morning. There is a moonrise Thursday night after all. Meg’s birthday is Thursday the 27th and had originally wanted to spend it in an urban setting in Tucson, AZ dancing or something of that venue. We were going to jet over there in a matter of days. She now wants to spend it hiking a mountain! I’d say that’s a one hundred percent better way to spend the day. Good job Meg. Here’s hoping ya have a good one.

The sky is so much bigger here than anywhere else I’ve been, every morning and evening I’ve seen here leaves me wanting more. It is absolutely breathtaking.

Leaving the Farm

Well we had a great time at the farm, made some really good friends and laughed until we hurt on a regular basis, but it was time to leave after 2 1/2 weeks in Austin. So on Monday we said our goodbyes and I actually teared up when we left. But on the upside we made plans to meet up with our farm friends Tabitha and Rohan in Portland later this summer and I also made plans to visit Bek in London when I have the money and we (Me, Heath and Bek) might all travel South America together next summer if it all works out. So it's not good-bye forever, the world is very big and small.

This was "Girl's Night Out in Mansville" - we got Mexican food and fake mustaches.

The incredible good-bye meal Bek made us. Lemon Sugar Pancakes - best pancakes I've ever had, best cook I've ever met.

Us with Milo who fixed our car. He's a saint, just an all-around glowing, amazing person. Heath painted him a really cute card from the two of us.

All our friends! <333

This morning started with a cup of coffee and toast. I drink coffee now, that's new. We all had a slower start than usual because we went into town last night. We had a third load of horse manure that didn't get around to being unloaded yesterday. It was very humid and I could feel the heat rising off the pile of matter. It was hard work but with the six of us shoveling it was done pretty quickly.

Germain, her partner Ivan, and his brother Milo run and live on the farm. Then there's six woofers staying here. Sean is from long island oddly enough, and has been here three weeks. Then there's Tabatha and Rohan, a young married couple who are traveling in the opposite direction as meg and I. They've been here since Sunday. Meg and I got here Tuesday morning. Then last night we drove into Austin and picked up Rebbecca, who is from England.

We all sit down at a big table and have our meals together. Who ever prepares them rings a bell when it's ready then we all come together and eat. I quite enjoy our meals together. The food is all organic and delicious. Germain is a very good cook and makes fantastic pies. Rohan and Tabatha have been making meals which are also very yum, and Rohan makes very good cookies. The eats are good.
On the property there are a few horses and cows, a donkey, four very friendly dogs, one less than friendly dog, three cats, and way too many ducks. There are some herb and vegetable gardens, a big pond for the ducks, and a lot of empty field used for grazing.

Sean's staying in a trailer and the rest of us are staying in a converted convenient shop. We've been spending a lot of time with Tabatha and Rohan. I really like them. They're really funny and we all get laughing pretty easily.
After spreading the manure Tabatha, Meg, and I took a wheel barrow and shovels and started for the fields to do some cacti removal. There are these really big, I don't know if they're telephone wires or what, going above and across the field. They buzz. Then the neighbors have peacocks making these silly peacock calls. Then it's just us out in the middle of this vast field digging up these pretty little cactus plants. It's super humid and I've worked up a good layer of sweat. Looking out over the landscape, we were watching as the storm clouds rolled in. It was a pretty surreal change. Heavy warm dark blues and violets push above while the ground's got all these cool greens and golden yellows. Then the air got real cool and breezy where it was still and humid before. Then it rained. And you could smell it. Cold rain, I wasn't expecting it to be so cold. It was great, and the smell was amazing.

Austin

Waiting for our CS host in front of the capitol.

This is where we slept when CS fell through.  Yeah, life is rough.

 

That's Austin.

Heath washing her hair in a park because the public showers are closed.

The skinny jeans and asymmetrical haircut was working for me, but I needed a big Austin tat to really blend.  I figured a Segway and bats would be appropriate.

There ya go, Mom, more peechurs! Happy Mother's Day! xoxo

Texas is hot.

We Picked up our ride share Harriet Wednesday morning in NOLA(New Orleans, Louisiana). She's a very nice middle-aged woman we found on craigslist to share the gas cost. She was easy to get along with and had a really colorful personality. The drive to Houston was around 5 hours long. Harriet made arrangements to stay with a friend there for the night. Meg and I made couchsurfing arrangements for the evening. We were going to stay with Renee and her two housemates. They were hosting a little Cinco de Mayo get-together. It was a lot of fun, many laughs were had. Fran, one of Renee's housemates, prepared a delicious meal. We drank cheap Mexican beer and met a lot of cool people. I really enjoyed our time there and felt a little sad we were only staying the one night.

The following morning we said our goodbyes, picked up Harriet, and set out for Austin. Our next host had work until later evening so we headed down town to check out the city. I haven't mentioned our little hang up with the car. It does this thing were it goes into cooling mode and starts to overheat. Meg's mom told us this useful trick to pull the heat off the engine blast the heat in the car. It only has this problem when we're in stop-and-go traffic and city driving. So we ended up driving around Texas with the heat blasting in 90 degree weather in city traffic.
Later we met up with our host Charlie. She took us to a place called Spider House and we got to meet here friends who were fire spinning there. It was a great show. Then a few of us went downtown to a place called Shakespeare's and experienced the wild drunks of Austin.