Day One - Dallas to Midland

Golfing in Abiline

To break up the drive from Dallas to Abiline, we stopped in Abilene to play golf at Diamond Back Golf Course

Day Two - Midland to Ft Davis

Monahan's Sand Dunes & Balmorhea's Natural Spring

First stop was to play in the 80' foot sand dunes at Monahan's State Park and then try to get rid of all the sand in one of the best swimming holes in Texas

Day Three -Ft. Davis to Marfa

Fort Davis State Park &, McDonald Observatory

Excellent couple of days hiking, biking and fleeing from the wildlife in Ft Davis State Park; plus an interesting and informative tour of McDonald Observatory

Day Five - Marfa to Terlingua Marfa, Marfa Golfing, and the Terlingua Chili Cookoff

Camping and exploring Marfa, golf on the highest elevation course in Texas, a wasted trip to Presido, and a fun Halloween night dancing with the chili heads to a fantastic and lively band

Day Six - Terlingua

Ghost Town and the Chili Cookoffs

Terlingua Ghost Town was worth a short side trip before spending the rest of day and evening at the chili cookoffs with lots of characters, giggles, and great live music

Sunday

Day Seven - Big Bend

Desert golfing and Big Bend National Park

9 holes of golf on a course that is a very unique and different experience followed by some outstanding hikes and an interesting muddy bike ride plus happy hour in a cave

Day Eight - Big Ben

Rafting the Rio Grande River

Big Bend Rivers Tours provided an excellent guide and a very fun and scenic raft trip down the Rio Grande and through St Elena??? Canyon and an excellent dinner at Lajatas Resort & Spa

Day Nine - Lajitas

Lajitas Resort & Spa

Lajitas Resort and Spa is one of the best in Texas and we had fun on an ATV tour, plus biking some Lajitas trails followed by the most scenic drive in Texas and election night with the locals at the Boathouse

Day Ten - Big Bend

Big Bend Motor Inn & Big Bend National Park

Before heading to Maraton to check out the historic Gage Hotel (really cool), we hiked two of the best trails in the Chisos? Mountains and had a great lunch overlooking the mountains at the Chisos? Mountain Lodge???

Day Eleven to Thirteenn - Lake Amistad

Lake Amistad Resort & Marina Houseboat

Three days and three nights exploring the cool clear refreshing waters of Lake Amistad - a little hiking, some fishing, and good times aboard a 54' houseboat

Day Fourteen

Del Rio to Sonora

The day was spent taking two completly different and very interesting, informative, and fun tours at the Caverns of Sonora - one of the tours was called the "Adventure Tour" and that it was

Day Fifteen

Abiline to Dallas

To break up the most depressing part of the trip (the end of a very fun vacation) we stopped outside of Fort Worth to play golf on ???

Most Fun Advernture

The "Adventure Tour" at Sonora Caverns which included wandering through caverns with minors lights on our helmets, rappelling down sheer 50 foot cliffs, and crawling through caves that we never thought a basketball could fit through, much less our wide bodies that

Best Tour Guide

This was a tough one because all of our guides were outstanding - John our rafting guide was passionate about the river and nature, Bill took us on a fun and informative ATV tour, Mark's passion, enthusiasm, and knowledge of the sun and McDonald Observatory was outstanding; but Bill at the Caverns of Sonora just barely beat them all because of his sense of humor, extensive knowledge, spirit of adventure, and personality

Best Campground

No question here, Ft Davis State Park was heads and tails above all of the other campgrounds because of the spacious sites set among the trees, scenic beauty, and things to do in the

Most Giggles

Best Bar

We enjoyed some fun and unique bars including the hotel bars at the Gage Hotel in Marathon (cozy, warm, and elegent), the ?? in Marfa (relaxing patio situated around a fountain), the Boathouse (the local Terlingua beer joint), and the Thirsty Goat at Lajitas Resort (casual elegance with leather furniture, patio with a firepit) but the most unique and interesting was La Kiva in Terlingua which a cave like atmosphere where all the local characters can be found plus open mike with good music from some of the natives

Best Restaurant

95% of the meals we ate out were excellent but far and above our best meal was at the Lajitas Resort - Jason's service and attention to detail was unequaled, the appeitizer platter was outstanding, each of the four entrees were unique and fantastic, and when we thought we couldn't eat another bite, we devoured the best bread pudding ever

Most Unique Advernture

The raft trip down the Rio Grande was scenic and fun, the ATV tour was informative and exciting, the tour of the McDonald Observatory was outstanding, but crawling on your belly through some narrow caves and repelling down a sheer cliff 50 feet below the surface with only a minor's light was exhillerating

Best Games Played

Most Fun Town

Terlingua had to be the winner here because of the local characters; fun, unique, and lively bars; very unique desert golf course; good restaurants; and convenient access to Alpine, Big Bend National Park, Big Bend Ranch State Park, Lajitas, and the most scenic drive in Texas

Best Golf Course

We played some very different and fun courses - Marfa Municipal Golf Course has the highest elevation in Texas but the course itself is flat; Quicksilver? Challenge Golf Course is true desert golf and ate our lunch as well as a number of our golf balls; unfortunately Lajitas Resort's golf course was closed due to recent flooding but it looked like it would have been a Outside Top 20; ???????

Biggest Disappointment

We all were very excited about exploring Lake Amistad and were a little disappointed, which was primarily due to the fact we didn't have time to explore some of the most scenic arms of the lake and we wanted to do more hiking but our first and only hike to the top of cliff for a magnificant view was enough to convince us that we didn't need any more hikes through the cactus, loose rock, and prickery sage brush

Best Tour Guide

Most Unforgetable Character

We met a number of very interesting characters, in fact we were impressed with how friendy and outgoing everyone was, but by far the most interesting was Jim who we kept running into everywhere we went in Terlingua - we met him when we stopped at what we thought was a bar with a big sign that said "Passing Wind" and a wooden replica of an old sailing ship, a v0lcano, the top part of a submarine's conning tower, and a variety of other parafania which turned out to be his ever expanding residence; in his front yard; we had a lively conversation with him at La Kiva's happy hour; and we saw him again at the Chili Cookoff with his full size Marine statue as well a five foot tall statue of libery, many peace and anti-war signs and more

Best Gas Price

When you're averaging around 4 miles to the gallon (not bad for a 39' motorhome towing a Jeep Liberty and hauling 4 bodies, golf clubs, too much food, 70 gallons of water (plus waste water in the holding tanks), and 12 cases of beer) any price under $3 made us happy, but when we gased up in Del Rio after houseboating and paid $1.89 we were estatic - what a deal

Best Hiking Trail

We had a number of excellent hikes in Ft Davis State Park, Big Bend, Lajitas, and on Lake Amistad, but two hikes in the Chisos Moutains in Big Bend were clearly the favoirtes - the Lost Mines Trail traveses along and up one of the mountains providing panoramic views of the mountains and desert for miles and the Windows trail terminates after following a small spring that has cut it's way through the limestone cliffs to a small slot with a couple thousand foot dropoff and a magnificant view