We got word early in the morning that someone had held up the evening stage in Terlingua so we put together a posse to find the culprit and string him up. Unfortunately, our posse leader just took us through an area of old mine tailings, a historical dump and an abandoned golf course. The robber got away.
Awesome horse riding sound and you can hear how impressed I am with the posse leader’s tales of past exploits.
Posse Assistant Joe gave us all some training on how to steer a horse. Yes, I know I pretty much look like Teddy Roosevelt in his Rough Rider days. Joe was on the front porch of the stables working on writing a new song when we pulled up.
Abby had been beside herself for days in anticipation of going riding. The posse organizer made her wear a helmet, but by all indications, she had a great time.
The posse leader (whose name I can’t remember) had a specific order in which we had to ride and the horses were not to pass each other. She didn’t tell us, but we were not to dismount the horses, either. Gramps found out about that secret rule the hard way. That put me behind Abby and I exclusively got shots of her back while she was riding.
I did somehow manage to get a nice horseback portrait of Gramps.
This dog greeted us every morning at the duplex. We took to calling him Morning Dog. Gina liked him so much that when she got home she invented an imaginary dog named scout based on Morning Dog. Except Scout wears a bandanna around his neck.
That evening we went to the Starlight Theater, the hub of the local tourist industry, located at a historic abandoned mining village known as Terlingua Ghost Town. The restaurant/performance hall and associated souvenir store is just funky enough to not scare the tourists away while keeping the locals coming back.
The place has a few works by local artists for sale.
This is a confusing situation because a couple days later in the town of Lajitas we saw a live goat in a pen with a sign proclaiming it as “Clay Henry the mayor of Lajitas”. Some research reveals that this is the original Clay Henry and he’s had an interesting go of it in both life and death.
I don’t know this duo’s name, but I saw the guitar player playing a coffee can on the front porch of the store on our first day in town. He must really love music.
I had a filet with some sort of demi glace and mashed potatoes and a locally brewed beer. I gave the meal the extremely rare Golden FPW. It was that good.
Terlingua seems to have a certain type of dog – very laid back, but looking like they are very experienced. I’m sure they all have tangled with a skunk or two and rolled around in the carcass of a road-killed deer and narrowly escaped a rattlesnake bite. See that our-of-focus guitar player in the background? That’s Joe from the posse mentioned earlier. He said he had played his new song and had gotten compliments on it. I’m sorry I missed it.
Behind the store and restaurant in the ghost town proper, there’s an old Catholic church that is still in use. It’s got great details.
A minute before I took this shot the entire sky was on fire. I was too busy jacking around and missed it.
