We rolled into Alpine, Texas last Sunday, March 12th for the West Texas Heartland Owners Club rally. We had a great turnout. There were a couple rigs already in before Sunday, and others filtered in during the first part of the week.
Our site at Lost Alaskan RV Park
We visited with those that arrived on or before Sunday, then relaxed outside during the evening hours. On Monday, Malcolm worked most of the day and Val worked on some of her sewing projects. On Tuesday, Malcolm worked up until lunchtime, then we headed to downtown Alpine to wander around town and to eat lunch.
One of the many murals downtown
We had lunch at a restaurant called Reata. It was a little pricey, but good food. Early in the week, there wasn’t much else open downtown for lunch. We wandered through a few shops before heading back to the trailer.
On Wednesday, our Heartland neighbors across from us invited us and several others over to have hot dogs for lunch.
Impromptu Hot Dog Lunch
On Wednesday evening, many of the club members loaded up in vehicles and headed up to the McDonald Observatory near Fort Davis. We didn’t get any reservations and Val didn’t feel too well, so we decided to stay back at the park. The others said it was a very good program.
On Thursday, Malcolm worked in the morning, then we headed north to visit Fort Davis (both the town and the National Historic Site). We had lunch at the Fort Davis Drugstore and Hotel. The food was really good. We ate our meal in relative quiet in the upstairs dining room.
Downtown Fort Davis
After lunch we shopped for a bit at several of the stores along the main street, then we headed over to the Fort Davis National Historic Site.
Fort Davis
We arrived just in time to see a demonstration on different firearms that would have been used in the 1800’s.
Firearms Demonstration
After the demonstration, we wandered around the grounds and checked out some of the buildings. We also stopped and talked to this gentleman about the mounted cavalry and their lives.
Mounted Cavalry
After visiting Fort Davis NHS, we stopped across the street and had some excellent ice cream treats from Herbert’s Caboose.
Time for Ice Cream
On Thursday evening, several of the club members drove out to the Marfa Lights viewing area to see if we could see any of the Marfa Mystery Lights (see sign, below). We didn’t see any while we were there, but it was a nice outing.
Marfa Mystery Lights Sign
We headed downtown to Alpine for a short while on Friday afternoon and did a little looking around. On Friday evening we had a rally meet-n-greet pitch-in and got to sit down with a lot of friends, both old and new.
On Saturday, we headed downtown to Alpine again. We stopped at the farmers’ market. There weren’t many fresh vegetables or fruits, but a lot of homemade items. We also stopped by a thrift store we had seen as well as walked through a couple more neat stores we missed the previous visits.
We ate lunch at the Holland Hotel in downtown Alpine. The actual restaurant is The Century Bar and Grill. They were only serving bar food for lunch, but it was great tasting food.
The Holland Hotel
After lunch, we met a group of rally-goers at the Museum of the Big Bend on the campus of Sul Ross University in Alpine. There were many neat and informative exhibits about the area. One place we did not visit and probably should have was Big Bend National Park, about 100 miles south of Alpine.
Museum of the Big Bend
After the museum visit, many of us traveled over to the other side of town to visit the Big Bend Brewing Company. We took a brewery tour and Malcolm sampled some of their beers. He said they were pretty tasty.
Big Bend Brewing Company
After the brewery tour, it was back to the campground to get ready for a tasty dinner of smoked bar-b-que meats from the grill. The food was great. After the dinner, many prizes were given away or auctioned off. We won a big outdoor collapsible trash can. After all the food and prizes were spoken for, we headed back to the trailer. Malcolm had some emergency work (overtime!) he had to take care of and we made sure we had everything packed up to hit the road on Sunday (today).
We stopped by the rally hall and grabbed some breakfast pastries and visited with those that were there and said our goodbyes. We hit the road this morning and are stopped in Junction, Texas for the night tonight.
We had to change plans a couple days ago as Malcolm had a crown on one of his teeth pop off. It appears to be in good shape, so we put it in a baggie. We’re heading back to Wetumpka so that Malcolm can go to the dentist in Montgomery and have it put back on. We’ll head back out from Wetumpka next week to attend the Louisiana Chapter Heartland Owners Club rally.
Traveling Talleys 