Homeward Bound

6 am departure from Marfa

We left the Union Pacific string of pearls towns (Valentine, Marfa, Alpine, Marathon, Sanderson, and Comstock) and headed northeast to Lake Colorado City State Park (what a mouthful).

Our first stop was Fort Stockton, formerly a real cowboy town. Annie Riggs Memorial Hotel Museum preserves some of the more colorful parts.

Annie had some experience running a hotel. When the railroad came by, the town boomed and she got financing to build a hotel in 1901. She was a devout Catholic, married, had six kids, but had made a poor choice for a husband. She divorced him (shudders!). After the divorce he got elected sheriff, was abusive to others (not just his ex-wife) and was assassinated in his office. The desk on display still has his blood. Nobody was ever charged.

Her second husband had killed somebody in Arizona, was "acquitted", and told to get the hell out of Arizona in case they changed the verdict to guilty. She fell for him and had five more kids, but he kept getting into trouble. She divorced him, too. (Two divorces for a Catholic that went to a mass every Sunday without fail).

His son-in-law (Annie’s daughter’s husband) shot him for messing around and trying to steal from Annie. At the funeral, one of the eulogies said he had shot six men, but “they all deserved it.”

The museum mentioned a bunch of other shootouts and kills, but I don’t remember the details. 

This ballot box seems so à propos compared to today's problems and attempted insurrection.

She was quite the hotelier. She bought the first electric stove in town in 1911. Her hotel served the best food in town, and she always carried a gun. 

The museum briefly discussed segregation, which I assumed meant Black vs White. The segregation was Anglo vs Hispanic. Division St. divided the town in half, so Hispanic entrepreneurs were not allowed to have shops on the "wrong" side of the street. The Catholic church built a separate chapel to help enforce segregation so the Anglos and Hispanics didn't have to pray together, all in a town of less than 400 inhabitants. Ditto for schools. 

Fun little museum, worth a visit.

The actual Fort Stockton was built to help subjugate or eradicate the indigenous people. Most of the soldiers were Buffalo Soldiers. It was abandoned in 1886 ("Mission Accomplished", no more Injuns), and has been partially reconstructed.

Ft. Stockton (6th paragraph) was known for the important Comanche Springs, which were destroyed by irresponsible overpumping, and upheld by the Texas courts.  We saw some water, which must be much less than earlier.

The weather got cold, again; we could have stayed in New England. Trailers are supposed to be winterized, ie, drain all the water and refill with antifreeze, so nothing gets damaged. This freeze (#3) caught us by surprise, and dropped to 19˚. Nothing we could do: the pump froze and the drain valves were frozen. The daytime highs got up to just 28˚ over two days.

We were supposed to get to the Harvest Host winery about four pm, so got off before 6 aM. Very cold weather makes air more dense, so there is much more air resistance. Very cold weather also means the battery discharges less electricity. We were on I-10, so we could stop at a Supercharger and get an additional charge, but that took about an hour. The weather sprinkled rain, which froze on the windshield. In the South, windshield washer fluid is rated to only 32˚ (unlike in New England), and unfortunately I had refilled the washer fluid while in Florida. Squirting washer fluid to get rid of schmutz made it worse since it froze. 

I had to stop several times to scrape the crud off. Once I tried using windex to clean. It froze in a fluffy, sticky white snow that was nuisance to get off the windshield. Most of the time ice covered a lot of the windshield, so I drove extra slow, the really slow lane.

Did I mention that Texas has almost no salt trucks? As wanna-be-dictator Governor Abbott said two years ago that winter storms were only once in hundred years. Just like last years. And this years. No need for salt, real Texans have their own salt, or something like that. Or, like Ted Cruz, just go to Cancun. 

It was a long, 12 hour day of careful, slow driving. We made it to the winery (and overnight stop) just before closing (6 pm), enjoyed two flights of wines, and enjoyed a bottle with dinner.  

The next day warmed up, we thawed, and we had no freeze damage. While parked charging the next morning, we say three unrelated crashes happen as the road ice melted. Guess they forgot their own salt.

We exit Texas and return to the USA.