Alpine, Texas

Our big day in Alpine was spent visiting Big Bend National Park.  This next day was spent not less, but locally.  Jesse our driver arrived with the yellow cheese wagon again to take us around his home town.  Some of the best Tex-Mex food sandwiched between two more great sites made for another exciting day.

The Chihuahuan Desert Nature Center & Botanical Gardens
Russell our guide takes our group on a hike down a rocky canyon to discuss the geology, flora and fauna of the area.  The flora was beautiful and the fauna limited but the geology was tremendous.  The canyon was made of igneous rock on one side and metamorphic the other and made for some very aggressive hiking conditions.

Three of our most intrepid hikers - Ami, Anika & Kerry.

Led by Patty and Jen, some of our ladies hiking through the gardens. This trail was rated as easy and short, something every member of the group questioned over and over.  Ninety minutes later with scrapes, cuts, sunburn and sweat we did finish it.

Westward Ho!!!
Frack and Frick (or is it Frick and Frack) with our long lost sisters - Anika and Ami.
We visited Fort Davis, a military outpost along the San Antonio to El Paso trail.  It provided shelter for settlers heading further west as well as a government presence against Indian tribes in the region.

Much to his displeasure, Frick has not recovered from his Pricklious Pearus Cacti injuries from the Rio Grande/Big Bend.  Here, nurse Anika tries for a second day to rid him of the pricks in his arm.  As gentle as she is, one can see from the look on his face that those little pricks can be painful.

After a rifle firing demonstration, we were able to check out the heavy uniforms and primitive weaponry of the soldiers stationed at Fort Davis.

And lastly, as we spend our waning moments in the Chihuahuan Desert city of Alpine, Texas, Frick delights in the perfect souvenir for his home back at the beach.  What better way to relive this trip daily than by having a life size Texas longhorn in the yard along with one of his favorite new plant species he's discovered - the cactus!

By 9PM, we were on the Sunset Limited heading towards New Orleans.  Because AMTRACK did not have us listed on their manifest (we had tickets in hand), we got to sit wherever there were open seats.  We learned very quickly that the upstairs coach seats were a higher quality clientele while the rail level folks were of the "Lower Level" (AMTRACK's words, not mine) type.  Five of us were forced into the Lower Level since they were the last five seats on the train.  Frack had a wonderful seat next to Florence who was heading to San Antonio to visit family - but I was truly the lucky one.  The rest of our group was meeting new friends who really didn't care to meet new friends nor share the empty seat beside them that minutes earlier was their  kitchen/closet/double bed.  Soooo, instead of sharing blankets and pillowtalk, most of our party found their way forward to the scenic car to spend the next hours playing card & dice games.

By 3AM, we were exhausted from all the new games we learned and made our way to back to our seats to sleep next to some of America's finest.  Though the train was kept cold for a reason, unique smells were quite common around our seat/bed.  By 4AM, we arrived in San Antonio and with the departure of lots of passengers, our group was able to relocate upstairs to the higher quality seating, get our double beds and finally get some shut-eye.

On to the Big Easy!!!