Unbelievable!!

Here we are just driving along Hwy 90 through Texas. (We try to stay off the interstates as much as possible.)
This is looking out the windshield so they aren't the best but a picture can't show how vast and beautiful this country is.

We went through one Border Control stop when we were right along the border near Del Rio. The officers were polite but serious as they walked the dog around the MH. Drugs? Illegals? They didn't ask to come in but we sure would have let them. We thanked them for doing a good job and drove on.
And what should we see but.......

Now all you who are reading this will know we just had to stop, THIS was real history we could relate too! We pulled off hwy 90 onto the side road and found a place to park, which isn't always easy.
Here's a few pictures and commentary......

 I tried to get the historical plaque so all could read the "truth" about 'The Judge'.      Here's a picture of the saloon, this was actually the second saloon he built as the first was burned down. I think I read that it was just a canvas tent structure.

 This was posted inside the saloon. It seems the Judge was infatuated with a celebrity lady and named the saloon and 'opera house' after her. He sent her many invitations to visit but it was only after he died that she finally made the trip.

Inside the saloon, there were two rooms, the other was the pool room.     Kinda looked like the 'Judge Roy Beans' we all knew and loved....sniff, sniff.

 Here's a few pictures in the pool room. There was a glare coming through a window so even with Mo standing in front of it the glare still shows. (I think that's a compliment? Mo)

 These were three of the legs on the pool table, they were large and solid iron lions. The room was just big enough for the table and a few stools.









Here's the 'Judge' sitting in the middle. There were a lot of historical documents and artifacts in the museum that told the whole story.

 Outside the museum there was a walking tour of a cactus garden. There was every kind of cacti known, I think, with the uses that the native people had found for them, from dyes, medicines, smoke, jellies roofing, glues, all kinds of uses. How did they ever figure these things out ???
This working windmill was the center piece in the garden and it told the story of how it brought life to the desert for the settlers.



This picture is from where we were parked looking out over the vista. That is a canyon, about a 1/2 mile distant, dry now, that wound around. If you look you can see the worn out caverns in the wall. ( kind of center top). These were huge and must have taken thousands? maybe millions of years to form.
This was a great stop were we learned alot of interesting history.
Tonight we are staying in a town to the west of there called Sanderson, It also has Judge Roy Bean history. Seems the Judge first tried to set up his saloon here but the already established saloon owners put kerosene in the Judges Whiskey and beer and ran him out of town. This town, Sanderson, was then know as 'the town too mean for Bean' !