We talked and decided that though we did have fun and got some cool shots, we could not stay up all night and drive back the next day. So we decided to scout out some more locations and do our own night shots that night, and get a good night’s sleep. So we went back to the ghost town, found a few new locations including a cool 1930s car to shoot. We visited the Terlingua Mines Trading post, originally housed the general store for the mining company that mined in the late 1880s and 1890s. I found some local honey to purchase, something I do on all of our trips, and got the boys a few stickers for their water bottles.
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We decided to take off in another direction that we hadn’t been yet, and found the Terlingua Ranch, an 300,000 acre development started by Carroll Shelby decades ago. We started off on a surprisingly good paved road, and found a sign for the “Bad Rabbit Bar and Grill” and decided an afternoon cold beer sounded pretty good! The landscape was desolate, sprinkled with a variety of structures that resembled houses from the show “preppers” to vacation houses, to even tent cities and rough camping outposts. Once we ran out of pavement, we got on a wide, washboarded dirt road and kept following in search of the Lodge. We finally found it, only to find that they closed at 2 on Sunday. The hostess was closing up and informed us she was closing but when we said we were looking for a restroom and a cold beer, not food, she accommodated us pleasantly! We took our beers and enjoyed the patio for a few until the honey bees got a little more curious than we were comfortable with! We meanandered back to the trailer, and chilled out for a few until dinner time. This time we chose to go the High Sierra Bar and Grill, back in the Ghost town. They were painfully understaffed, with one cook, one waiter and one buss person/waitress/cleaning person. The waiter was the only one who spoke English, and we were a little nervous on how long it would take. Much to our surprise, we got our order quick, and it was delicious! We ordered chips and guac and it might be the very first time the two of us could not finish an order of guacamole! It was freshmade and delicious. We met a man named Terry, who was the night’s entertainment, a one man band, who reminded us of the boys’ scout leader so much! We talked to Terry a bit and learned that he is a river guide November to April in Terlingua and then heads back to North Carolina to guide there from May to October.
We made it back to the camper just in time to attend the Photoshop class, which due to the high number of people in our group, was held by projector across the street at the sister motel. The winds had started to pick up, and were quite gusty. With the entire terrain made of loose sand, it felt like being sandblasted. Even my teeth were gritty! We sat through the class and then headed back to the Ghost Town to do our own little shoot.
Ray is a fabulous photo assistant and braved the very, very dark areas clearing it of anyone or anything that might endanger us before I got set up. We were cautious to watch were we stepped just in case any danger noodles were present. We were a little unnerved by two cars that came into the parking area and just sat while we shot, but no one bothered us. We shot about 6 different areas, using different lights, and moonlight to expose the surfaces to get some neat shots. The wind was treacherous, and we had to position ourselves in places that we could get a little wind break because it was shaking my 20# tripod! We wrapped up our shoot, headed to the camper and edited our shots before bed. I got us all packed up and we headed to bed and got ready to pull out the next morning.
