Lajitas

Here's another look at our resident "weather cat". No, we're not in Brrville anymore. Yesterday we arrived in Lajitas, where it is hot, hot, hot! Can't you tell? That's one warm kitty!

We've booked a week at the Maverick Ranch RV Park here in Lajitas, where the daytime highs are forecasted to soar well into the 90s each day of our stay. This is a look at our first site here just before we moved to our second. All it took was one afternoon of west Texas sun blazing in that mega windshield for us to find a new site where we could turn the moose around. Now we're pointed toward the north, with a nice view of the towering red rock peak. (And in this practically treeless place Bullwinkle can make his own shade for the patio.)

Lajitas sits on the US-Mexico border between Big Bend National Park, to the east, and Big Bend Ranch State Park to the west. We took a short drive into the state park to catch a peak at the Rio Grande River. Mexico is on the left and the USA is on the right.

The history of Lajitas is colorful, indeed. This one-time cavalry post didn't get electricity until 1949. Eventually the population dwindled to four. In 1977, a Houston entrepreneur bought the town and began restoration efforts. By the early '80s Lajitas had a 9-hole golf course, a couple of hotels and a few condos. That effort never really got off the ground and in 2000 the town and surrounding 25,000 acres were sold to an Austin entrepreneur with a vision to create a high-end resort. Once again the project ran out of steam and money and in 2007 a group of investors bought the property.

Today, Lajitas calls itself a golf resort and spa, with it's own airport and a "thirsty goat" as mayor. Visitors to the resort have a choice of two places to stay. Here's the Badlands Hotel.

And, here's our RV Park across the street! The "town", if you can call it that, feels something like a set in a western movie. Whatever it is, it'll be a perfectly warm place for us to hang out this week and explore the Big Bend.