Don’t call it a ghost town, unless that’s what they call it…
The last post was all about my first experience out in Big Bend country and the impression it left on me. I had a unique opportunity to go back right before my son was born. My brother in law had been looking into the area as well and found a land auction. Land so cheap we couldn’t NOT go! Being able to have a piece of this place was actually achievable so we made plans to go. Neither of us had ever been to this area and knew very little about it. When my wife and I went out there 3 years prior we had been told about it but it never made the list, especially after driving past the outskirt of it. We judged it on face value only. Which looking back on it I am glad we made that quick judgement because we really didn’t have the time to appreciate it for what it really is. Had we rushed through it to say we did it, more than likely we would’ve been left utterly unimpressed maybe never going back.
It was in the Terlingua area of the region. This town is famous for being a functioning ghost town with an amazing annual chili cook off (so I’ve heard, still want to go to it one year). My brother in law and I found the tracts of land we wanted to check out and pinned them in a GPS for location once we got there. We had a tent, some food and our dogs. The Terlingua Ranch is another massive area of privately held tracts of land with off grid homesteads. The Ranch Lodge has cabins and campsites and it is of course really far off the main highway down a dirt road. But once you get back in the valley it sits you forget all about the drive.
The quiet sets in and the darkness overtakes you. There is no cell service and the only lights you see are the small porch lights on the cabins lining the hills around you. We spent the night sitting with a bottle of whiskey in between our chairs watching an amazing storm that was probably miles away. We could see each lighting strike perfectly as it illuminated the dark clouds and rain that was overtaking the skyline. We sat in total silence for what seemed like hours in complete awe of what we were witnessing. Time didn’t really exist because it could’ve only been 30 minutes. I just sat and thought about the piece of land we might have in a couple of days. What it would be like sitting out there and enjoying moments like this whenever we wanted. But that soon faded as we tried to sleep in a noisy tent and two restless dogs that jumped up at every sound. The wind kept blowing the flaps on the tent every time I was close to falling asleep starting the cycle all over again.
The next morning we looked around the site we set up in and it was just some dirt and gravel. We wanted to be out on the ranch all day and didn’t want to take the dogs with us and we surely couldn’t just leave them in a tent in the hot afternoon sun. So we opted for a cabin, cranked the AC and put the dogs in there with some food and water and took off to find our land! We drove around and it took us a while to find it even with the GPS pins. There were road names for these paths that you could barely call roads but there were no signs. We finally found a sign posted on a tree on plywood covered by some desert brush. This was one of the 5 acre plots we liked. Obviously you couldn’t be exactly sure where the boundaries are without a survey, but there is no one, nothing, not a sound or a site of anyone so we weren’t worried about trespassing. We got a general idea and kept exploring the vast 200,000 acre ranch. Then we wanted to go to the actual town.
This was a lesson in what life is really like out here. The gift shop is one of the original buildings standing out there. The desert and just time has eroded the steps, the exterior walls and the tin metal roof, but its a wonderful place. With benches and rocking chairs on the covered front porch you can grab a beer inside and sit out there looking out at the Chisos Mountains. In the off seasons all the locals hang there and drink all day interacting with the few tourists that come out that way when the temperatures are upwards of 90 degrees. My brother in law and myself were part of that crowd and every local we spoke to tried to sell us their off grid spot out that way. There was an old cowboy who claimed to have build a house out of tires and lived quite comfortably in it. We were also educated on how you handle waste without running water, sewer, or a legitimate septic system. We literally met these people 10 minutes prior to that and that’s the conversation.
We spent a good portion of the day just sitting and talking to different people in that same spot. Not once did we get bored because we were reminded of where we were whenever we looked out across the landscape. A small private plane flew overhead and the locals all speculated as to who it was and what they were doing. There’s and airstrip but no one works there so you can fly in and out at your discretion it seemed like (could be different now). According to the residents if Terlingua there is one sheriff or police officer and if he knows you he wont mess with you. That’s the kind of place this was.
As we got back to our cabin we decided to hit up the pool and grill some dinner and ended up meeting a couple from England. They had flown all the way to the United States and then drove all the way to the ranch lodge as their vacation. The car they were set up in to navigate the desert was a bright red Mustang. Seriously. They were really nice and we shared some of our smoked sausage and taught them about HEB tortillas (if you know, you know). We ended the night playing ping pong in what I am pretty sure was a storge room that happened to have a ping pong table in it. But that tracks out there where anything goes.
Long story short we didn’t end up getting the property. We got out bid by like $75, completely ridiculous. The word is out about this place though and during the pandemic people started buying up this land in bulk. Gone are the days of cheap land auctions where stuff starts at $100 per acre. There is still nothing there though and it has maintained that captivating feel. It is a funny position to take where a place gains popularity and you begin to resent that. But at the same time the popularity is what keeps it alive and provides employment for the people that actually live there.
While the dream of having a simple place out there is fun to imagine the reality of it just doesn’t make sense. How often would we actually get out there? Would we feel some sort of obligation to return just because we have it? In actuality, what in the world could we feasibly achieve there?
I want to keep the excitement I feel when we are out there. Maybe one day I will have a piece of the place but for now I am perfectly content to tell stories and visit when I can.
