Who Knew There Were Hoodoos In Texas

Today, our plan was to stay out of the heat.  Yesterday, wiped us both out.

We decided to head towards Terlingua and take Farm Road 170 towards Presidio.

Our first stop was Terlingua.  

This was actually a pretty booming town in the 1920s and 1930s when a mercury mine here was in full production.  There was even a movie theater.  Now, it's a quirky little town with very few residents.

We continued on Farm Road 170 and the views were pretty impressive.

A few more miles down the road, we came across the Contrabando Movie Set Site.

It definitely looked like a town you would see in westerns.  Movies that have filmed here included:
1993-Rio Diablo
1994-Gambler V-Playing for Keeps
1995-Streets of Laredo
1995-My Maria Music Video
1996-Dead Man's Walk
2000-The Journeyman
Now, we're going to have to go back and watch some of these movies. :)

We continued our drive passing this picnic area.

 The views were spectacular.

We stopped for lunch overlooking this Balanced Rock and Hoodoos.  Who knew? We had first found out about hoodoos last year while at Bryce Canyon.  A hoodoo is a tall, thin spire of rock that protrudes from the bottom of an arid drainage basin or badland.

We continued on towards Presidio.  This is not the way I would like to travel this road!

Things begin to flatten out about 12 miles from Presidio, so we decided to just turn around and do it all again!

There is a 15% grade on this section and an overlook right before you go back down.  We actually followed a motorhome going up from this direction, but we're not so sure we would want to try it.

Coming back, we stopped at the little town of Lajitas.  There is a nice hotel with spa here as well as a golf course.  This is a little plaza lined with shops.  Unfortunately, many appear to have gone out of business.