Sand Dunes in Texas

For many months, I've wanted to stop at the Monahans State Park and I finally made it there on the way home from a recent trip. I'd seen the dunes in movies--they are in lots and lots of movies, including Three Burials of Melquiedes Estrada and Fandango, the subject of my most recent web itinerary for the Texas Mountain Trail and the film giving Kevin Costner's first starring role.

It is a wild place, a half hour from Odessa, a city of 100,000 and in the Texas Pecos Trail region which is why I hadn't been there already. When I stopped at the Visitor Center to pay my $2 fee--a bargain--I asked if I needed to walk or drive to the dunes.

"Oh you should drive, I mean you could walk, but only the Germans walk to the dunes," the clerk said, "The Germans just take off and hike the two miles cross-country. But I wouldn't do that," she said, "last week on my way out of the park, I drove by a 600 pound feral pig. You don't want to run into that."

So I drove there, and on a cool Tuesday afternoon, it was a great place. They rent plastic disks kids use as sleds to slide down the dunes for a buck, and there were two children there having a great time. (See them on the right of the bottom photo?)

I saw a coyote.

The plants were most amazing--five foot tall black eyed susan bushes living in bare white sand.