Since we 'got on' Facebook I have a hard time keeping track of whether I showed a picture on the Blog or Facebook or both or not at all.
And so I forgot to show this beautiful picture James shot a while ago from the sunrise. Isn't it gorgeous?!
I've also collected quite a few pictures of just 'ordinary' places around the Resort that haven't found a place here yet, so I'll just fit them into this blog today.
This flag is visible from almost anywhere around here, quite handy when I need to find my bearings on my daily short hikes, where I tend to go 'off road' a lot since there are only so many trails to follow.
I can also see it out of my window in the RV which makes it a handy wind gauge.
After following the Highway coming from Terlingua this is how you come upon Lajitas (population 75, by the way).
The buildings on the left are from the Resort and just behind this rocky hill is the RV Park.
The name Lajitas is Spanish for "little flat rocks" and refers to the Boquillas flagstone of the area.
The stone isn't very hard and chips away naturally from the hills all around here.
Everybody makes good use of this flagstone, they're using it to build all kinds of structures although it's a little too soft to last forever.
This old cemetery is at the corner of the road that brings you to the RV Park.
It's still in use and as you can see the dead are even buried under the flagstones!
Now here's for a crazy story; for many years, starting with the 1980 election, the mayor of Lajitas was Clay Henry III, a
"Lone Star-lager-loving beer-drinking" goat.
(Lajitas is an unincorporated town where the office of mayor is purely a ceremonial position.).
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(Taxidermied) Clay Henry I at the Terlingua Starlight Theater |
After 2 (or 3, or 4?) replacements of the original Clay Henry, who was murdered by his own son, Clay Henry II, in 1992 during a drunken dispute over a dame, and his successor, Clay Henry III who steered away from mayor duties to take on a more mascot role and helping to boost tourism by allowing tourists to feed him beer, the stable where the mayor lived is now closed and the goat no longer resides there.
Word has it that the goat was removed after PETA stepped in, and I think rightfully so, because really, feeding an animal alcohol I think has stopped being funny a long time ago.
At least, in my book it has.
But what do you think? Some locals have decided it might give the resort a much needed boost in tourism if they'd bring the goat back!
So a search was done and a pregnant nanny goat from the line of the Henry's was found.
After a new stable and corral was build next to the grocery store, Lucy recently moved in and on the 30th of December 2 little male kids were born.
Meet Clay and Claymore!
One of these youngsters is going to be the new mayor, you can pick up a ballot at the grocery store and cast your vote right now.
There will be no beer allowed to be fed to the new mayor but I wonder how they are going to make sure that doesn't happen?
I'm sure a lot of people will think it's 'fun'! We'll see how it'll work out.
Anywho, here's some more pictures from 'around town'.
At the edge of town, on a hill overlooking the village, there's this little adobe catholic church.
And behind the trading post/golf shop you'll find this rather pretty pond.
Even more visible than the flag of course is the Lajitas Mesa as always in the distance.
There's a lot of different ducks wintering here and I'm going back there sometime soon to try to get some close-ups to identify which ones they are.
Hopefully I'll have a better chance to do so now I finally got me a new camera! Yahoo!
For a while I've been researching the web and watching the ones selling on Ebay and I managed to snatch up this beautiful Nikon Coolpix P510 for a great price!
It has a 42x optical zoom lens! |
I think this camera comes close to the magical "one lens covers it all" zoom that camera and lens manufacturers have been trying to create since the introduction of the world's first zoom lens.
I'm still playing with and getting used to it but so far I like it very much!
Just look at this nice shot of a female Ring Necked Duck: