Marfa lights, Acuna Mexico, and Back to Natures Resort

October 26 – 31, 2017: 

Ever since we have been coming here to Texas we have heard about the Marfa Lights in Marfa Texas.  The lights are supposed to be visible just outside of the town as you look off into the distance.  They are unexplained lights that move around.  We (I mostly) wanted to check this phenomenon out! 

Balloons used to look for immigrants crossing the broader.

Marfa is located about 200 miles south-east of El Paso and about 40 miles south of I-10.   This made it the perfect place for us to stop on our way farther south for the winter.  We made the trip in just a few hours as the entire trip was on major highways.  We went through town and got on TX 67 heading east for about a mile to the Tumble Inn RV Park.

The Tumble Inn is a very old school type 60s RV Park from the 60s.  It still has the iconic neon sign and even the name says 60s.  As the name suggests, this is a place to just tumble in.  You are met by a vintage bumper pull trailer at the entrance that serves as the gate house.  A very friendly gatekeeper who is a work camper with a story it seems.  We told him we were here to see the lights and he said that, yes he has seen them and they scared him.  He told us the story that the lights actually went after him one night!  

I was trying to get the perfect picture of the neon park sign at dusk. 
It was hard to do with a phone camera.

That is the park office!

Texas has built a very nice rest/viewing park about 3 miles further east on 67 to view the lights.  Just before dark we headed out there to see what the lights were all about.  By the time we got there is was dark.  There are no human made lights here so it is very dark.  We had a hard time figuring out where to park.  

The viewing area is very nice!

The place has parking for quite a few cars and is lit with some sort of lights that is just enough light so you can find your way into the viewing platform.   The viewing area is around the back side of a circular restroom building.  The platform is aimed to the south with a 180 degree viewing area.

Looking south-west at dusk.  And no, those are not the mystery lights,
they are cars on a highway a few miles away.

Looking south-east.  

Looking south. This the direction people were telling us that the lights are usually seen from.  A few have tripods set up pointing here in the foreground.

We were surprised that there were as many people as there were there.  Even with it being so cold, there were still around 20-30 people milling around and some with very long lens cameras on tripods. We didn’t see any lights that were unusual.  The cold finally got to us at around 50f and we didn’t dress for it so we left after just an hour of looking for the lights.  

Our second day in Marfa we just hung out and waited to head back out to see the lights again.  We arrived a bit earlier this time, about hour before full dark.  It was a great clear night to see lights if there are any.  However, since it was clear it was even colder than the night before and it was windy too! We were more dressed for it this time but just standing around made us real cold.  So after 2 hours of watching and seeing nothing we were officially done with looking for Marfa lights.

This is the best I could do to get a picture close to dark where the
lights should be if there are lights to be seen.

These are just cool sunset pictures from our rig in Marfa.  We didn't have any mystery lights but we did have some good sunsets!

After Marfa we decided to head toward the Mexican Border and follow it down to our winter place in Elsa.  Our first stop was Del Rio Texas so we could cross over into the town of Acuna Mexico.  

Del Rio is about 230 miles and mostly east on TX route 90.  We like these sort of drives as it wasn’t on an interstate.  On 90 we went through small towns along the way.

We arrived in Del Rio TX at the American Campground on the 28th of November.  We are just staying here 2 nights as we want to get back to our winter place in Elsa TX by the end of the month and the Halloween party there.  We had not really planned when we would be done traveling for the year until just now.  As we approached our last stop in Elsa TX at our winter place, Natures Resort, we figured out we could arrive by the Halloween Party.  Knowing we were that close we sort of hurried through the last of our 6 months on the road.

Our site in Del Rio

On our one full day here in Del Rio TX we went to the Mexican Border town of Acuna.  Our internet research on Acuna said that the town was once a real all-night party town for Winter Texans (Snow Birds).  However, due to the drug wars going on between the US and Mexico, Acuna was no longer frequented by tourists.  But like Juarez, the drug crime has mostly ended in Acuna in the last year.  So we decided to go and explore Acuna a bit!

Acuna is about a mile from the border control gate in the US.  This means that to get to Acuna you either need to drive, take a taxi, or walk the mile in and out.  We didn’t want to drive in for loads of reasons but we did look at taking a taxi.  The other issue is that there is no real parking on the US side of the border.  Most park at the taxi place that is about a quarter of a mile from the border bridge.  This now makes it a mile and a quarter to just get to the edge of town.  

It was absolutely a beautiful day weather wise for our trip to Acuna.  It was an all-sun day with the temperature right at 75 degrees, perfect!  We decided to go ahead and park at the taxi area and decide if we wanted to walk or ride to Acuna.  We asked the price for a taxi and it was just $35 round trip or $20 one way either way.  We could walk in and taxi out or taxi in and walk out or taxi both ways.  It was such a nice day we decided to walk in and then decide if we wanted to taxi out.  If we wanted the taxi all we needed to do was to call them and they would come and get us.

I mainly took this picture to remember the number if we wanted a taxi back.
They spared no expenses for the sign!

We did have a slight issue walking into Acuna on the bridge.  Patty went low with her blood sugar and we didn’t have any sugar for her about halfway to Acuna.  Her insulin kit should have glucose tablets in it but there weren’t any in it.  We had some in the truck so we could try to walk back or continue to Acuna and get some food.  Patty felt like she wanted to try to make it to town so we continued on.  

We just made it the town border and she needed to sit and couldn’t go any farther.  I went ahead to find some food and bring it back.  Today is Sunday and the first places I came to were not open yet.  I found a guy cleaning the sidewalk so I asked him where I could get food for my wife as she was diabetic.  He didn’t speak very much English but he produced a bag of 10 donuts that he offered to sell.  I think we wanted $3 for the bag but I gave him $5 making him really happy!  I think the bag of donuts was for his family after he finished working.  I got back to Patty and we ate the donuts, yup the whole bag!  After a few minutes, Patty felt fine and off we went into town.

This place played Beatles music and had Beatles memorabilia

Note the lack of people on a beautiful street

The sign for what looked to be great club a few years ago.  It is closed now

A hotel that hasn't been used for a while

Acuna made us feel sad for the people there.  The town is made up for tourists and fun.  Dance halls, cool bars and restaurants that are either closed or just barely open now.  The town is extremely clean and well laid out.  It is in much better shape than the place we go to near us in Elsa; Nuevo Progreso.  It’s like the town is just sitting there waiting for people to come in.

We walked the town for about an hour and found a place for lunch.  We really didn’t want much now that we ate those donuts!  We were just going to have a small appetizer and a beer.  The first place we went to didn’t have any beer!  The place was out of beer and the stores don’t sell beer there on Sunday.

So off we went in search of a restaurant with beer.  We finally found a place of in a residential neighborhood that was full of locals.  It was fun walking through the neighborhood waving to the locals.  We looked so out of place but were not afraid at all.  Everyone was very friendly.

Views from around the neighborhood area on our way to the restaurant

Street vendors performing in stopped traffic

Inside the restaurant with beer

After lunch we did a little shopping and headed back to the US.  We decided to walk back as it was such a nice day.  We had no problem walking back to the truck on the US side.  We were glad to get back though as we had walked quite a bit by then.

After Del Rio TX and Acuna Mexico we headed further south-east following the border.  We went through Laredo TX and stopped for the night in San Ygnacio TX at the San Ygnacio RV Park.

This place was a dive really!

"Art" in front of the park office 

Our site in the San Ygnacio RV Park

This is a real TX/Mexico border town.  The border crossing is just a couple blocks from where we parked for the night. And since we were here just one night we didn’t cross the border.  I did manage to walk the town the morning we left though.  I read a placard in town that said that prior to the 60s people just walked across the border without being checked.  The towns were really one town separated by the Rio Grande River which is not but just a few feet wide here.  

We took a drive around town after we got fuel.
This was the worst example of a neglected dog we have ever seen in person!

Maybe the dog is not neglected but has some disease.  It looked to us like the dog has the worse case of mange ever!

Nice fall decorations in the town park

A museum of the area but it was closed

A little poverty here

A little poverty seems to go with a nice church

After our one night in San Ygnacio, we headed the last 130 miles to our winter site in Elsa Texas, Natures Resort.  We arrived back at around 3 in the afternoon just in time to get ready for the Halloween party at 7pm.

We have one more post the 2017 travel season, San Antonio to see the Christmas lights.

Stay Tuned!