Del Rio to Alpine. 205 miles 16th October 2025
After a leisurely breakfast we loaded the cases in the car, tuned the radio to the local country music station and hit the road towards the Big Bend National Park. The road was long, straight and very quiet. Occasionally a car appeared in my rear view mirror overtook and disappeared in the distance. The speed limit on most of the roads is 75 mph and we were quite content to stick to this, others were more impatient.
Our first stop after about an hour was the small town of Langtry to visit Judge Roy Bean’s museum.
Roy was a local bar tender who became justice of the peace for the area and was known as the “Law west of the Pecos”. He held court in the saloon of his bar and was known to have stop proceedings just to serve the next round of drinks. The bar and court room are still pretty much as they were in the late 1890s when Roy was around ……..
………..and his rules are still on display.
Roy Bean’s other obsession was the singer Lily Langtry, known as Jersey Lily, and he wrote to her on several occasions asking her to perform in the town. Legend has it that the town was named after her although the railroad company insist it was named after one of its foremen. Roy even named his house the Opera House to persuade Lily to come.
She did visit the town but unfortunately for Roy it was some 10 months after he died.
Also on the site was a butterfly garden which under today’s beautiful sunshine was absolutely swarming with butterflies apparently getting ready for their migration south to Mexico. The bright yellow ones in the photograph are called Sleepy Orange but there were many other varieties flying around. A magnificent sight.
Apparently butterflies are not the only creatures around as notices warned of snakes…..
………so I took particular care as I crossed the road to take a snap of Mexico across the scrubland.
Returning to the highway the roads were as quiet as they were previously but now the terrain started to become a little hillier with mountains appearing on the horizon. This so reminded us of the western movies we had seen when we were younger.
We reached Alpine a little before 2pm and finding it was too early to check-in to the hotel we decided to quickly explore the town taking in some of the many murals that adorn the walls.
We stopped in the local tourist information to pick up a few brochures and we were treated to a complete breakdown of all the main sights by a most enthusiastic guide. We left armed with brochures, leaflets and maps that will keep us occupied for the whole three days that we are here.