Reflections From the Fence: Fort Davis Texas

Showing posts with label Fort Davis Texas. Show all posts

Monday, January 7, 2013

THE Trip, THE Encore' :: Fort Davis Texas to Las Cruces New Mexico, the Wahhoooo Ride!

December 6, 2012

Time to leave Texas behind and start heading west. Today we, err, Man, gets to push Jolly a bit, we are going to take 118 from Fort Davis all the way to I-10 at Kent. No problem, right?? Well, concerns: We will leave Fort Davis on the shy side of fuel. There are a LOT of hills, steep, with lots of turns between Fort Davis and Kent, these kinds of hills and such burn up a bunch of fuel quickly. The last part of the ride on 118 will be on narrow, no shoulder type roads. This is vast empty land, as in few or no fuel stations. For today, this part of the trip IS the goal, driving 118.

Let's roll! That is the McDonald Observatory up there! We went up one evening, and enjoyed a presentation.

We will see a number of these road signs, curves and low speeds.

This was about as high as we got, give or take a few feet! LOL Note the speed is posted at 55 and we are doing 39 MPH. Also note the curves ahead. GPS looked like that a lot until we hit I-10.

Now, I know you are thinking, OK Carol, why post a photo of some trees?? Well, this is the section of 118 that is narrow with no shoulders. The interesting part of this story is actually that tree at the curve, the one that has the lower limbs and leaves sorta chopped of, but still hangs over the road. On roads that are traveled frequently enough the cars and trucks beat off the new growth. Usually we can take Tana under those trees with no issues, issues would be, are those tree limbs going to hit Tana on the roof and do damage.

Well, on this section of 118, we could not go under, we had to go down the middle of the road and around those low hanging trees. Tells me, few trucks ever drive this section of 118. A tad bit concerning to be driving on roads that trucks do NOT frequent. The word "isolated" keeps coming to mind. No traffic is NOT a bad thing, we like driving alone on these huge expanses of road, as long as no trouble comes a callin', eh?? I imagine a call for a tow truck would involve quite a wait! LOL Today's trip, wonderful, even though we are still watching that fuel gauge.

I have said the vistas are vast, right?? Look how far that road goes, on and on and on.

And, this was our fuel station, well, it was supposed to be our fuel station. Out of business. We still had a bit of fuel, so we jumped on I-10 and went west and found some! Still, Man was not exactly smiling when he pulled in here! LOL

New Mexico! YA!!

And that night a nice sunset, setting over the RV's and, mmm, a utility pole, still, not bad for just walking out the door of Tana and snapping away!

We will spend two nights here in Las Cruces, we relive many memories from our one month stay here two years ago, we are even in the same campground.

THE Trip, THE Encore' :: Fort Davis, Texas

December 5, 2012

Fort Davis, Texas was a key post in the defense of west Texas from 1854 to 1891. It was located on the San Antonio - El Paso Road. The fort was named after Secretary of War Jefferson Davis. The fort was not always occupied during the almost 36 years of it's existence. During the Civil War it was abandoned, occupied by Confederate troops, once again occupied by Union Troops in 1862 and promptly abandoned again for the next 5 years. Buffalo soldiers played a large role in the history of Fort Davis. Second Lt. Henry O. Flipper served here, he was the first black graduate of West Point. He was dismissed from the Army in a controversial court-martial. His story continues well into the next century as it was not until 1976 that he was given an honorary discharge. He also received a full presidential pardon in 1999. There is an interesting article on Flipper on Wikipedia.

Below, the Squad Room, Troop H, 10th Calvary bunked here ca 1884, the building housed about 26 men. Man and J noticed the interesting layout of the vents and exhaust pipes on that stove. Those are long horizontal runs, first time I have seen a solution like that. Appears there is another stove on the other end of the room.

Many of the buildings are represented by partial walls and ruins of buildings.

The inside of one of the buildings, you can see stucco on the brick walls, and the basic structure of bricks and lumber. (Yep, looks like some modern graffiti doesn't it? SIGH)

This building had exhibits inside. The National Park Service has been restoring and preserving buildings at Fort Davis since 1963.

Below: the road from San Antonio to El Paso was here, yes, right there, that dirt road, according to signage. And, yes, I made sure I went and stood right on it for a moment, just to say I had done so. Silly Carol.

Remnants of the church, and two two-story officers quarters homes tucked up against the hill. The home on the far left was not open, but, we could peak through fencing covering the doors and windows to see the adobe painted walls inside and the bricks used to build the outside walls. We could even see the straw in the bricks. Due to the condition you could see the construction of the dwelling, the wooden structure, the hand made bricks, the stucco that covered the bricks.

This beautiful chest of drawers was in the servants quarters furnished building. It reminds me of a piece of my own furniture at home.

Commanding Officer's Quarters Row. We noted the surrounding mountains and beautiful rock structures. Not bad to look at early in the AM, eh?? Or maybe at sunset??

Inside one of the Commanding Officer's Quarters, we found these lovely furnished rooms. This particular home was built starting in 1867 for Colonel Wesley Merritt, who also oversaw the construction The furnishings are from the time of Colonel Benjamin H. Grierson, who lived here from 1882 to 1885. He was the commander of the Black Tenth U.S. Calvary.

I took this photo through the window, and it is one of my favorite captures of the day.

Fort Davis and the Buffalo Soldiers gave us a glance into a piece of Texan and American history that I knew little of. It was an enjoyable afternoon, slow, quiet (as we were almost the only visitors this day). Perfect.

Sunday, January 6, 2013

THE Trip, THE Encore' :: Next Stop, Fort Davis Texas

December 3, 2012

We moved from Study Butte to Fort Davis Texas, just a little over 100 miles. More vast, beautiful, huge scenery.

Lots of road down there, with a pretty view from up here.

Now, this photo does not tell the story well, so you will just have to trust me on this one, we were in a very steep section of roadway, long, LONG, grades, steep grades, and these 3 were riding UPHILL! GULP! My knees hurt just looking at this photo!

When we got set up in our campsites, we had a few visitors, really tame. You can see them over at Flora and Fauna. Sneak over and have a look, they sure were brave souls. I could walk out of Tana chattering away at Man and they would just look at me, from 10 feet away!

At sunset we went to the top of a mountain in the campground, it was a great place for the sunset, a geo-cache (yepper) and this view,

Wow, wow, wow!