West Texas, Part V: Our Last Day

Wednesday was our last day on the ranch.  I "borrowed" these photos that Kara posted on Facebook since I never quite made it up in time to catch the glorious sunrises.

Hmm, looking at these photos, I think that's a habit I need to change!

I did get up in time to see the rising sun illuminate Cathedral Rock.

You've heard the old saying, "The early bird gets the worm."  Well, Jenny and Jean-Marc were the early birds who found this worm!  We won't talk about what happened next, but it did delay our start and did end in Jean-Marc getting a traditional Limpia souvenir!

Herb drove on this trip, another attempt to find Crystal Hill.  We hoped his good sense of direction would help locate the branching road we missed the day before.  It had really poured rain up in the hills the previous evening, and the truck couldn't quite make it up the hill.  In this case, a miss was as good as a mile!

It turned out that I couldn't shift the truck into 4-low yesterday because the gear shift was broken--stuck in 4-high.  Without that lower gear, the wheels spun the rocks on the MUD!  Mud is unheard of in the West Texas mountains, but there it was!  We couldn't complain about the rain, but we sure did want to get up that hill!

Herb did some very skillful driving--very scary, too, from our perspective on the side of the road where he made us all wait.  Jean-Marc did some skillful directing, and the the truck finally made it up the hill.  

On toward Bishop's Nose and, hopefully, Crystal Hill.

Since I've mentioned that I keep my eyes on the ground looking for rocks, I thought it would be a good idea to show you what the ground looks like.  This also gives you an idea of what's involved for the animals that graze the land.

We never did find Crystal Hill.  The turnoff has either overgrown in the past seven years or the evidence of the road has washed away.  That will be a hiking job for Herb on a future trip.  However, we did enjoy another visit to the beautiful Frank's Tank (back under that grove of trees).  While we were prospecting for the Crystal Hill road we found lots of beautiful rocks, mostly agates, but also some petrified wood and even a few fossilized shells.  The geology of this area is simply fascinating!

We found plenty of beautiful views, too!

Here are the intrepid explorers (from left to right), Herb, Susan (me), Jenny, Jean-Marc, and Kara.  Hero was off exploring somewhere.

A rarely authorized photo of the two old folks!  If you're wondering what on earth is South Pork Ranch, check here.  And yes, it's a clever play on words on the famous South Fork Ranch of "Dallas" fame, located in Plano, Texas.

A good chance for a sister photo shoot.

Hero did NOT enjoy the bumpy parts of the ride!  When it got rough, he hid his head behind Jenny.  If she'd given him a smidgen of encouragement, he would have been in her lap--all 60 pounds of him!

It was a gorgeous day for our last outing, but it was time to head home, load up the vehicles and drive to Alpine, where we would spend the night to get an early start for the two-and-a-half hour drive to the Midland-Odessa airport the next morning.

Before driving down the infamous hill, Herb made us all get out and walk down . . . just in case.  But it's a lot easier getting down than up!

Hero seemed much happier on his own feet for the rough part of the ride, so we let him lead the way home.

In the really straight stretches he ran to catch up.

As we drew near the house, Herb let Hero get out in front so he could be the one to bring us home.

Then it was goodbye to Limpia with another time-honored tradition--a photo at the front gate.

Goodbye, Limpia house.

Goodbye, Bishop's Nose.
 

Goodbye, Cathedral Rock and the High Road and Jim Falls and all those other wonderful places we didn't get to this time.  We'll catch you later!