I Tour Wink, Texas

    On March 1 I made 300 mile round trip to Wink TX to see where Roy Orbison, my favorite rock & roll singer, grew up. It has always seemed strange to me that his great, operatic voice came out of a remote, west Texas oil patch.

     Wink is 145 miles north of Alpine. The drive up was interesting enough.  First to Ft. Davis and then through the ruggedly beautiful Davis Mountains until I drove down into the oil rich Toyah Basin, passing though Balmorhea and Pecos before crossing the Pecos River into Loving County.

     Loving County was a secondary target of my trip, because, with only 82 residents, it is the least populated county in the United States. And now I can say I've been there. Take that you high roaders wintering in Palm Beach.

     And surprise, I read that Loving County is the richest county per capita in the U.S. because its 82 citizens have over 400 oil leases.

     I drove straight across the county on state highway 302, the only paved road in the county, and saw only flat, dry range land, all ranches and oil wells. There is only one town in the county, Mentone, pop. 19, the county seat. It contains the court house, the sheriff's office, a fairly nice school that has been closed since 1972 when enrollment fell to two pupils, a nearly closed tiny church (an out of town preacher holds services once a month), a convenience store that had nothing in it except beer, sodas and snack foods, a closed cafe, a scattering of sheds, small workshops and piled junk that looked like it was related to oil field maintenance, and handful of small, mostly dilapidated houses. In fact, the houses looked so bad I had to study each house for about a minute to decide whether it was lived in or abandoned. Until 1988 Mentone had no local source of potable water; water was trucked in from another county. I spent about an hour there, which was quite enough.

MENTONE - A hot, dry and dusty place, quasi ghost town Mentone TX (pop. 19) is a rather desolate oil patch town with unpaved streets. It is the county seat and only town in Loving County. It is a remote little berg, 30 miles across empty range land like above from Kermit, and we all know where Kermit is, right? Almost all the land in the county looks like this, flat and arid, recieiving only nine inches of rain per year. But there is oil under all that brush!

DOWNTOWN MENTONE - This lackluster convenience store is the only retail business in Mentone. The sand colored building beyond it is the Loving County Courthouse. There was a cafe across the street as well as other business around town, but they have all closed. The town's population is obviously much smaller than it used to be. And yet the oil fields around it are booming. It appears the fields are worked by companies and employees who commute from surrounding counties, thus leaving Mentone almost a ghost town.

     I was surprised when I crossed the famous Pecos River, which is Loving County's western boundary. The Pecos is over 900 miles long. Some 300 miles downstream from Loving County, where

PECOS RIVER - Only 4-5 ft. wide, a few inches deep and

flowing slowly, the famous Pecos River is shown here 600

miles from its source. Judging by the distance between its

banks - perhaps 30-40yards - it is never much of a

waterway in this area.

the Pecos runs into the Rio Grande near Langtry, it is a wide and deep river down in an impressively deep  and scenic gorge.  But in Loving County it is a measly, slow moving creek only four or five feet wide and a few inches deep, even though it has come 600 miles from where it rises in the mountains near Santa Fe NM. Yes it is dammed up in a few places, and raided by agriculture, but geez....you can jump over it.

     So okay. Least populated county in the USA. Been there, done that. Don't want to go back. Onward across arid range - dodging oil tank trucks all the way - to the next county east, Winkler, and the town of Wink, where grew up Roy Orbison, "the best singer in the whole world" according to Elvis Presley. Roy was not fond of Wink. He said there was "nothing there except oil, dirt, grease and sand," and he always counted himself lucky that he was able to get out of there.

     With Roy's appraisal in mind, I came to Wink expecting a very bleak and gritty place, something like a bigger Mentone. But wink is not like that at all. Though smaller than when Roy lived there, and certainly down at the heels, it appeared to be a proud little town trying hard to survive and get ahead. The preponderance of housing was dilapidated and had "lawns" of dirt, scrub and cactus, and many buildings along the main street were either closed or home to obviously marginal businesses. However, all the public facilities from sidewalks and streets to the schools and parks were clean and in good repair. I saw one nice neighborhood of mostly large, ranch style homes surrounding a pleasant green grass common with shade trees. The only thing hinting of Roy's "oil, dirt, grease" recollection was an oil tank farm on the western edge of town, but even it was a clean, nicely painted facility.

WINK, TEXAS - Although it has seen better days, Wink appears to be a proud little town that keeps itself tidy and presentable as possible.  Though the main street has many vacant lots and buildings, it still has a pulse. The building at left behind the white pickup truck is the town grocery store. Next along the street is a little white buidling containing the Roy Orbison Museum. Past that there are three empty brick buildings, the largest of which is the burned out movie theatre. The chamber of commerce is in the white building just beyond it.

ROY ORBISON MUSEUM - As small as it may be, there is

here than meets the eye. The museum only takes a a thrid

of the little building. The remainder is meeting space and

storage for the annual Roy Orbison festival.

     I quickly found the Roy Orbison Museum on the main street. It was a small, white cape cod style, cinder block building that was probably a little store or office once upon a time And it was closed. I walked along the street from there past three empty brick buildings, the largest of which, an old movie theatre, was not only empty but burned out, arriving at what appeared to be a combination town office and chamber of commerce. It was staffed by one busy woman. I asked her when the museum was open. She told me it was open when anyone wanted to see it, and she immediately set to work calling a list of museum volunteers at home until she found someone to come and let me in. Small town Texas at its best!

     In about 20 minutes a 20-or-so-year-old Chevy coupe pulled up and out clambered a petite, lively, platinum-haired octogenarian woman with her walker. She apologized for taking so long. Had to get dressed, she said, because she gets out of the house so seldom anymore she often doesn't bother to put clothes on. She was precious.

     In a moment she had the museum unlocked and me inside, and she commenced showing me just about everything they had, and there was no getting away. There were mostly newspaper and magazine clippings, album covers, show bills and pictures of Roy with this famous person and that. It was a shabby, small town, homemade affair operated with very little money, but they're trying. There were very few items authentic to Roy. They had the canceled $100 check that financed Roy's move from Wink to Memphis in 1956. They also had a pair of his sunglasses, which my dear little hostess insisted I try on. Boy were they thick! Made me seasick. Roy was nearly blind. And I thought this was funny: They had an old, badly beaten up old acoustic that had belonged to a neighbor boy or Roy's. It was in the museum because Roy tuned it up for the kid.

     After two hours, which was one hour more than necessary, and after the dear lady had sold me Roy's biography, two CDs, a replica pair of Roy Orbison sunglasses and seen to it I put my change in the donation jar, she turned me loose and I headed "home" to Alpine.  It was a good day.

FAMOUS TEXAN - This state historic marker stands in a vacant lot in Wink where the

house where that Roy Orbison grew up used to stand.

Cookies In Terlingua

     My friend and Ann's cousin, Tom Shortt of Alpine, invited me to the Cookie Chill-Off held March 3 in Terlingua (tur LING gwah), Texas's most famous and liveliest ghost town. It was a pleasant day.

    Terlingua is located deep in the Big Bend a few miles from the Rio Grande and the west gate of present day Big Bend National Park. It was born in the 1890s as a mercury mining town, owned lock,

ROAD TO TERLINGUA - Passing clouds throw shadow

patterns on Rte 118, the road from Alpine straight south to

Terlingua. Most of it is like this, 70 miles of arid ranchland

with almost no sign of humans nor cattle. A trustworthy

vehicle, full gas tank and drinking water are advisable.

Fortunately, the speed limit is usually 70 or 75 mph.

stock and barrel by the Chisos Mining Company, which in turn was owned by a man named Howard E. Perry from Portland ME. Perry and a handful of hired American-born engineers, supervisors, clerks and storekeepers and one doctor ruled over the mines and town and the nearly 2,000 Mexicans who worked and lived there until 1942 when it was sold. The buyers operated it another three years after which it closed due to mineshaft flooding, and Terlingua soon became a ghost town.

GHOST CHURCH - This long abandoned Terlingua church

was one of the many amenities in the Chisos Mining Co.

owned town. There were well provisioned stores, a movie

theatre, school, farms to provide fresh food, festivals and

dances, a cemetery, even a jail. Terlingua was nearly 70

miles by wagon road to the nearest railroad, so it had to

be pretty self-suffcient. The majestic Chisos Mountains

are in the distances behind the church. The Chisos are

a large mountain range, up 7,800 ft. high, entirely

contained in, yet only a minor part of, gigantic Big Bend

National Park.

     Over the ensuing years, of course, the town built mostly of adobe slowly crumbled, but large areas of it remain as ruins. Also over the years, a small community of independent minded desert rats took up residence, some in little houses they built, mobile homes or even fixing up an adobe ruin. With the opening and increasing popularity of next door Big Bend National Park, it has become a tourist town. A few people retire there and some keep second homes there. These late comers have rehabilitated a surprising number of the ruined adobes. Now the town is an odd scattering of mostly struggling restaurants, bars, unusual little stores, camgrounds, even a bank amongst a few miles Terlingua adobe ruins.

     As might be expected with so many independent spirits living in a spirit town, there are lots of interesting and humorous stories. One of my favorite involves the Starlight Theatre, which is a popular rough and ready bar that attracts surprisingly good entertainers considering Terlingua's remoteness. The bar was actually a movie theatre built when the Chisos Mining Company owned the town. When the town went ghost, the theatre was abandoned and fell to ruin, most notably in that the roof fell in. Nonetheless, the handful of desert rats that lived among the ruins took to watching movies in the old, now roofless theatre. Thus the name: Starlight Theatre. Eventually the Starlight was bought by an entrepreneur who turned it into a bar with occasional entertainment. As is often the case in Terlingua, if not all of West Texas, the new business was not richly capitalized and had to "make do" with certain things. A new roof was put on the place, but the sloping movie house floor was left as is. A bar was built in the middle of the place, but in order to make it level it was waist high at one end and chin high at the other. I was told the sloping floor and inversely elevated bar were fairly confounding to many drunks.

     Terlingua is home to the internationally famous Terlingua Chili Cook-Off each November. It draws thousands of chili heads, which I can't imagine because I doubt there are as many a 100 motel rooms combined in Terlingua, pop. 58, and nearby Study (STOODY) Butte, pop. 233). There actually is a serious chili cooking contest at the center of it all, two competing contests in fact, but the vast majority of the crowd is there to ride motorcycles, drink, whoop it up and sleep wherever they drop. Many Terlingua residents hide until its over.

     Which brings us to the Cookie Chill-Off. In answer to the famous, mobbed chili cook-off, the people of Terlingua, just for themselves, are now holding a dessert contest with a name that plays off the international event. It is was held in the Boathouse, a bar that did, indeed, used to be boathouse for a Rio Grande River outfitter. An L shaped bar now sits on the concrete floor where boat trailers and other river gear used to be stored. There is an overhead garage door that is opened to let in fresh air and a view of the mountains. Oars, ropes, a kayak or two and other accoutrements from the building's previous life hang from the rafters or lay about haphazardly.

     A big crowd for a ghost town, about 80 people attended, including a the local Justice of the Peace, which in Texas is a real judge. Everyone dressed casually as if they had just come from working on the lawn, except there aren't any lawns. In his salad days Tom lived in Terlingua for a few years, and he still has a sturdy and spacious one-room cabin there. He knew lots of the folks at the Chill-Off, and I enjoyed meeting them. There were about eight dessert entries in the Chill-Off, they were taste tested by the bar customers and the winners named. Everything ran about an hour late, which Tom explained is considered dead on time in Terlingua. Then it was back to beer drinking, strumming guitars inside and out, singing along, lots of friendly conversation, horse shoes and - would you believe? - bocce ball. All of this and a beautiful mid 70s afternoon made for a mellow, perfectly enjoyable time.

     I was very surprised at the make-up of the crowd. I expected to see mostly wrinkled, dried up old desert characters, but nay nay. At least half of them were very fit and attractive young people in their 20s. Friendly and laid back. I suspect a lot of them were doing an "Into The Wild" sort of fling to "find themselves". Just not ready to settle down. Among the crowd I was very surprised to meet a young couple from Maine. She had just graduated from Bates College and was able to talk intelligently about the pros and cons of Sam's versus Luiggi's Italian sandwiches. She was also knowledgable about Fergies, but unfortunately did not have any with her. Her boyfriend reminded me of our own Mike Smith, big, easy going and likable. They are from Boothbay Harbor where he guides sea kayak trips in the summer. In the winter he becomes a guide on various southern rivers. I had a great time talking with them.

DESERT BOATHOUSE - Terlingua is home to three river outfitting and guide services who peddle trips through the three nearby deep, narrow and winding canyons of the Rio Grande. The outfit that put up this building sold out and now the building is a bar. It is even rougher looking inside than it is outside, but it is loaded Telingua atmosphere and, the day I was there, with laid back friendly local folks, as many women as men, and several dogs that were just as friendly and laid back as their owners. An overhead garage door on the back of the building is opened on nice days to let in clean dessert air and a view of the mountains.

PARTYING AMIDST RUINS - The 50 or so people and modern day Terlingua business reside amidst the ruins of the old mining ghost town, which was virtually all built of stone or adobe. The ruins dot and in some places crowd the landscape over a couple of miles. Indeed, there is roofless ruin in the parking lot of the bar, about 50 ft. from the front door. Everyone simple parks around it and occasionally chucks dead soldiers into it as if it were a big ol' trash can. The picture above is one of several ruined homes located across the street from the Boathouse, which can be seen on the horizon at right. (If you look carefully through the bush beside the house, you can see my van parked outside the bar with the folks.) The picture below was taken from the Boathouse parking lot looking across the street. The house on the left is built of local stone, the one on the right of adobe. It's easy to see which one last longest. The Chisos Mountain range is in the background.

Home On The Range

RV PARK - Actually established by an Alaskan but since sold to others, the Lost Alaskan RV Campground contains 95 RV sites plus a "deluxe" tent ground and a couple of kamperkabins. The building above is the campground office and gift shop. I've already gotten acquainted with some of the staff and enjoy sitting and chatting with them on the office porch.

MY TINY HOME ON THE RANGE - My little Aliner pop-up is definitely the smallest RV in the park. It has drawn a lot curious attention from owners of class A motor homes and fifth trailers who are the typical clientele here. Since my trailer has no bathroom, I asked to be placed near the men's room. It is in the near corner of the club house just 50 ft. behind me. Real convenient.

     After a three-day, 1,700 mile drive from home, I arrived in Alpine TX Feb. 17 and parked my little pop-up in The Lost Alaskan RV Park on the Ft. Davis road just north of town. It is 1.6 flat miles from the RV park to the middle of town, so I can easily ride my bike into town.

     Many, many RV parks in Texas are desolate, shadeless sand lots, but The Lost Alaskan is nicely landscaped with 35 ft. wide RV sites, grass, red pine, Texas oak and a few cactus. Alas, the grass is now brown and sad due to a two-year drought in West Texas, but the cactus is right at home and the trees are doing well because, since they are not native to the Chihuahuan desert, they were installed with an underground irrigation system that quietly pumps water to each individual tree.

     The campground also has a modern and very clean club house with wonderful showers and laundry facilities. So I am set for the duration. I plan to stay here until early April and either take one or two day trips in my van or just kick back in my recliner and read.

     Alpine is a fairly remote place roughly half way between SanAntonio and El Paso and about 80 miles north of Big Bend National Park. With almost 6,000 residents, Alpine is the county seat and by far the largest town in Brewster County. In turn, Brewster is the largest county in Texas, having more land area than Connecticut and Rhode Island combined, yet it has only 9,232 residents, including Alpine. Furthermore, the counties surrounding Brewster are also large in area but small in population: Presidio, pop. 7,818; Jeff Davis, 2,342, Pecos, 15,507; and Terrell, 984. To say the least, there is a lot of wide open empty space around here, and I plan to have a ball exploring it during the coming two months.

THE RANGE - With the many pine trees in the Lost Alaskan RV Campground, I sometimes catch myself thinking I am in Florida, or even Maine. However, when I look out the curbside windows of my camper toward the back fence of the campground, this is what I see ..... oh right, I'm in West Texas.