By Ken Matthews
It was 6:00 a.m. somewhere along about the time I heard the 15th freight train of the night wailing it's way through the outskirts of Marathon, Texas so I thought I'd just go ahead and get out of bed. Outside it was a cool 45 degrees in the mile high air. We had been informed the evening before that a good breakfast could be found in the morning at the soda fountain/restaurant nearby, so I walked down. I ordered myself a coke float. Yeah, I know, a coke float for breakfast? But since I was on vacation, and my children weren't around, I figured it was okay, or at least would go unnoticed and un-chastised. Not only that, but someone else ordered one just after I did, so it must've been a good idea. And I guess it hadn't gone unnoticed after all.
It was still in the low 50's when we took leave of the excellent amenities at the Gage Hotel and headed toward the Panther Junction Visitor's Center in the Big Bend National Park. It would be the first meeting point of the day for the "Twist a Grip" group. This was the annual Big Bend ride for "Twist a Grip" – a loosely organized group of riders traipse across west Texas. Rolling into the park this year, the sand flats along the north entrance were nothing short of fabulous. Due to recent rains they were brilliant, chrome yellow expanses in the morning sunlight.
My goal of this days' ride was to visit Santa Elena Canyon, and once there, decide whether to take my BMW dual sport, north, up the unpaved stretch of Old Maverick road to Study Butte or, ride with the rest of the group on the more sedate paved road. Old Maverick Road is a 13 mile improved road and is usually accessible to all vehicles, so as a dual sport trip, the bragging rights are pretty small. Nevertheless, I was somewhat nervous about making the ride, since I was the only one in the group on a dual sport, and would be making the trip alone.
It's my opinion that the road to Santa Elena canyon is the second best road in the entire area. Lots of nice turns, several overlooks offering signature Big Bend panoramas, and four digit elevation changes. Riding a motorcycle over the pass at Sotol Vista is more fun than a roller coaster ride — and faster too! For the curious, my vote for best road in the area is Texas 170 from Terlingua to Presidio, which offers all the above many times over.
Standing at the Santa Elena canyon overlook with two other "Twisters", it was apparent the brisk 50 degrees welcoming us that morning in Marathon now gave way to a temperature more befitting our latitude. It was downright warm as we three bikers huddled in the shade offered by the small overlook shelter.
We were trying to figure out where the trail to the Rio Grande River was when a car careened into the parking lot banging into the curb before coming to a stop. Out burst a laughing woman and a young boy. Miss Kitty (not her real name) had sparkly blue toenails and a stiff British accent. Coincidentally, one of the riders with me was also from that part of the world. Considering our location, it was pretty cool to stand there listening to their dialect. Mad dogs and Englishmen indeed.
As we saddled up to leave, I decided that after coming this far, I had to ride Old Maverick Road, and told the gang I'd see them at the Teepees south of Terlingua. I had been feeling uneasy about making this ride having read the park literature which admonishes that equipment failure on the Big Bend back roads could easily lead to death from exposure. Earlier I had met a dual sport rider and his wife who said that they had driven Old Maverick Road the day before in a truck, and it was in pretty rough shape.
I left the security of the group and set out alone. My nerves settled as I discovered that the road wasn't really as demanding as I had anticipated. The main difficulties were a really bad washboard surface, alternating sections of deep gravel, and soft, deep sand on either side of the road. Not two miles up the road I saw Miss Kitty again, this time half sideways in the middle of the road. Shaking my head, I dismounted and helped her turn around without getting stuck and bade her farewell once again.
I mounted back up and continued riding. After a few miles of washboard, I hit a deep soft section at a higher speed than prudent, and was alarmed at how quickly my F650 got crossed up. I managed to wrest it back under control, and proceeded along a little more cautiously after that.
Several miles up Old Maverick Road from the canyon is Luna's jacal, a tiny shelter that was the homestead of Gilberto Luna. Ajacal, (which is pronounced with the Spanish "j", ha-CALL), is generally defined as a thatched roof hut with low stonewalls and a mud plastered roof. Luna's jacal fits that description, standing maybe 5 feet at the highest and made of native materials; stone, lechiguilla, mud, whatever was at hand! Luna built this when he was first married and lived there his entire life, until passing away at the age of 108 in 1947. During that time he lived off the land, growing crops that he irrigated from a nearby creek. He had three different wives and legend is he fathered 50 children. Amazing. I decided a break at this location was in order.
While enjoying a bottle of water, I wandered around looking over the historical site. I got out the camera to see if it had miraculously begun working again. It had been giving me trouble since two days before when we ran into a hailstorm. It had been velcroed to my gas tank and took some hits. The pictures I took of the hail debris came out, but the following eight pictures were digitally scrambled. Fortunately, the washboard road surface had managed to unscramble whatever the problem was and the camera worked fine. So I snapped a couple of pictures of the jacal, and then headed north.
As the road climbed to a high point of the desert plain, I stopped to take pictures of the ocotillo in bloom. Ocotillo is an inverted, funnel-shaped desert plant with several woody, spiny, whiplike branches sporting red flowers when it blooms. I shambled back toward the road and took in the entire vista and was humbled in a way that I never have been at church.
Speechless, I committed the scene to digital memory as a backup to the grandeur burning into my mind. Once again I fired up the BMW and motored slowly on down the road.
Half an hour later I turned left onto the blacktop at the park entrance, dirty, thirsty, and running way behind schedule, yet serene and full of guilty pleasure. I had experienced a great gift on my solitary ride. Taking the road less traveled had indeed been the right decision.