In anticipation of our second anniversary, we started planning our return trip to Oaxaca City ten months before we went. Trying to plan a vacation that far ahead is like trying to decide what you’re going to have for dinner next month. But hey, have you tried using your frequent flier miles lately? It seemed so simple and easy… buy the tickets and wait. The waiting became difficult however, when we started hearing unsettling news from Oaxaca. None of the mainstream media reported much of what was going on, so it wasn’t news so much as rumors of protests and strong government crackdowns. Searching the Internet for other sources of information from Oaxaca, a picture began to emerge, albeit a fuzzy one. by Kym & Mark Flippo    more »

Big Bend High School students competed at District University Insterscholastic League (UIL) Academic Meet.   more »

(Photo of Judy Magers, "The Burro Lady," in Terlingua, 2002, by Bonnie Wunderlich)
Magers was, unwittingly, a highly public persona throughout West Texas, though she remained intensely private throughout her decades of walking the highways of the region, sleeping on roadsides and talking with locals mostly just enough to obtain the bare necessities. by Don McDowell, Fred Gossien, James Evans, & Bonnie Wunderlich    more »

In a major thrust to increase recreational opportunities, the current 68.4-mile trail system will add an initial 83.1 miles and a future 90.4 miles of trail for a total 242.06 miles, in what would become the largest trail system of any park in Texas. By comparison, Big Bend National Park has 203 miles of trails, and Guadalupe Mountains National Park has 80. by John Waters    more »

Ceil Drucker (at right, with Jeff Renfrow) celebrated the opening of her new business in Terlingua, Desert Lotus Healing Arts, with a grand opening “pie & chai” reception on January 29.   more »

"Operation Wrangler" is a coordinated interagency law enforcement surge effort intended to prevent and disrupt all crime and illegal international drug and human trafficking. Operation Wrangler will involve federal, state and local ground, air and water-borne assets, including more than 6,800 personnel, 2,200 vehicles, 48 helicopters, 33 fixed wing aircraft and 35 patrol ships.   more »

At this year’s annual WordOff (Jan. 27), Carl Leatherwood read “The Migration,” which describes, in his words, “coming from the big city to Terlingua and the experiences after arriving.”   more »

It's been an unusually cold & wet & SNOWY winter in the Big Bend. Here are some glimpses from the beginning of the season....   more »

Dogs loaded in the truck bed, we headed for the river – the mighty Rio Grande. Cocoa has a definite Type A personality and she was in rare form, barking and spinning, moving from one side of the truck to the other like some manic goalie determined not to let the other team score. Bodhi is more zen monk, resembling a large furry hood ornament displaced to the rear of the vehicle, as he gracefully leans into the wind, gaze steady, fur waving. by Ceil Drucker    more »

The gas tank is full at 10.6 gallons. At 70 MPG I can get to Houston without refueling and have enough fuel remaining to run around town for the weekend. (Remember when people ran out of gas trying to escape the hurricane last year?) by George Pitlik    more »

There is still time to be part of the great success story of how women of Boquillas, Coahuila, Mexico with help from women of Terlingua and Alpine, Texas raised $15,000 by selling quilts. by Dallas Baxter    more »

The Ghost Town Offspring made their public debut on Saturday, Dec. 2 at the High Sierra Bar in Terlingua.   more »

The Tri-counties has mind-boggling diversity in weather, soil, pests and moisture. But once you know the basics, it’s a matter of fine-tuning to get your vegetable garden just right. The soil is the beginning. What’s in the soil will be in our food. by Dallas Baxter    more »

Then I’d go to bed, listen for the wind and the sounds of birds settling in for the night, bands of javelina roaming through my camp, and I’d smell the occasional skunk or fox. Many nights I would wake up – sometime around 2 am – and watch the stars and the moon, pick out the constellations that I know, and very often see shooting stars streak across the night sky. I wondered why parents don’t teach their children to live like this for a while. by Dori Ramsay    more »

How is it possible to dedicate megabucks to making the border’s biological situation worse instead of to cleaning up shared binational water sheds, airsheds, and landscapes to improve the habitat for humans and other living things? by Talli Nauman    more »

“Honestly, I just wanted to get up somewhere and headline a show,” he says now of the inaugural ‘Terlingua-Palooza’ concert held on July 1st, a concert which raised approximately $1,200 for the Boys & Girls Club and helped send the members of its ‘Torch Club’ to a leadership camp in Fort Worth. “I kind of wanted to make it look not like a fundraiser. I just wanted all the Terlingua people to be able to come out and have a good time, eat some food, drink some beer and listen to some music.” And more than 150 of them complied. by Andy Byrnes    more »

The synopsis does not reveal the film’s ending but leaves off with the terrorist being ordered to return to Mexico after being contacted by his handlers via satellite phone. Due to resistance from citizens, the terrorist is ordered to abort his mission, and receive codes to disarm the bomb upon his return to Mexico. If he is killed before he receives the disarm codes the nuclear bomb will go off. Far fetched? Maybe not.... by John Waters    more »

It is often said that one function of government is to protect the poor from the rich. Since our present rulers (government) have consistently done the opposite, I agree with Mr. Briggs that we should do away with them, that no government (in this specific case) is better than horribly bad government. But what the Norquist crowd really means is to do away with government except where it benefits the military-industrial complex.   more »

When asked what we should do about the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants already in the United States, members of the Boys & Girls Club of Terlingua said that President Bush should change places with an immigrant for a day.   more »