Oatmeal, Texas

We emerged from Big Bend Country and West Texas to land on a little ranch in the town of Oatmeal. The 2020 Census put the population of Oatmeal at 20. The town is unincorporated, technically a part of Betram in Burnet Country in the Texas Hill Country outside of Austin.

The town’s claim to fame appears to be the the Oatmeal Festival held each year over Labor Day weekend. There are town offices, a town windmill, at least one cemetery, a water tower painted to look like a can of oatmeal.

At one time, there was a Black section of town, but there’s no trace of it now. Recently, a police officer discovered an overgrown cemetery on the side of a road that was the town’s Black cemetery, but we couldn’t find clear direction to it. There was talk of preservation efforts and, perhaps, the town wants to keep away vandals and souvenir hunters until they can do something.

Moon setting over Pine Canyon

If I had a choice, I would have chosen a longer focal length than 35mm to make this image, but 35mm was all I had. To my eye, the moon looked a whole lot bigger, as it always seems to do compared to the images I capture.

As it is, you have to kind of work to spot the faint moon. Still, the image has a certain John Ford vibe that I like.

Century plant, not in the wild

I’ve covered quite a few miles traveling around Big Bend region, and the only agave plants I’ve seen in blood were both cultivated. I posted a while ago about the one I saw at the Chiso Basin Lodge. This one was in the garden of the Panther Junction Visitors Center, the main ranger station for Big Bend National Park.

The fact that his agave was planted besides a paved walkway didn’t take away from its grandeur. I like the look produced by the Catlabs 320 Pro developed in 510 Pyro.

Around Pine Canyon (mostly sotol, part II)

I don’t know if it was the time of year or the particular patch of the Chihuahuan Desert, but our campsite was surrounded by sotol and I couldn’t stop taking their picture.

Around Pine Canyon (mostly sotol, part I)

On this trip to Big Bend, I twisted my knee on a hike on the South Rim Trail, which limited my mobility for a couple of days. That left me to spend a day hobbling around our Pine Canyon campsite while my partner did a little exploring. Here’s what I came up with.

These were shot with my Leica M6 on the Catlabs 320 Pro, one of my favorite emulsion, especially when developed using 510 Pyro.

Back to Big Bend

The last days of October found me back in Texas to take another stab at exploring Big Bend National Park. This was a re-do of a trip we took in March, when a family emergency led to my partner having to opt out. That trip, I took in Big Bend Ranch State Park (The series of posts from that trip start here), right next to the national park, but not easily gotten to from one to the other.

I loved Big Bend Ranch and hope to return soon. The views in the national park, though, were somehow more grand. It was farm more popular, though hardly crowded. I could go an entire day in the state park without meeting another person unless I sought them out. That wasn’t the case in the national park.

The first set of images come from the South Rim Trail out of the Chiso Basin, a long hike for me on our first day. The day started cold – a front had moved through the previous day coating everything in ice – a rare site, I’m told. You can see that ice on the branches in the second image. That ice was gone by mid morning, even as we gained elevation. We were walking in mist most of the morning, but the sun came out about noon.

Agua Adentro Pens

oThe roads in the Big Bend Ranch State Park are pretty rough. The main road, which gets a county road designation, really tested my rental SUV. I ended up backing out of the side roads down which I ventured when I started scraping bottom.

So how do you get around such a park?

One way is on horseback. The park is set up to accommodate horses with campgrounds that have pens. One such site is the Agua Adentro Pens. The day I visited, there were no horses or signs that any had been by recently. I did see fresh droppings on the road occasionally, but never saw anyone riding a horse.

All three of these shots were made on the Leica M6 with the Summicron 35. The first two images I shot with the Catlabes 320 Pro, an emulsion that I had never used before. Not a smart move, taking along an unfamiliar film on a trip when I wouldn’t be able to see the results until the trip was over. It turned out fine, but in developing the rolls, I dipped into 510Pyro for the first time.

The other shot was on the Cinestill BWXX, a film stock I love in its various iterations.