November 22, 2021
Chris and Heather talk with Melissa Henderson, Director of the Fort Davis Chamber of Commerce, about Alpine’s picturesque neighbor to the north. We discuss history, stars, science, shopping and more!
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Transcript for “Visiting Fort Davis”:
Intro
Welcome to the heart of the Big Bend. It’s time to kick back, put your feet up, grab your favorite beverage or snack as we discussed, declare, proclaim, publicize and articulate about the wonders, magic, beauty, music and happenings here in the area known as the Big Bend of Texas.
Chris Ruggia
Hello welcome and thank you for joining us again for heart of the Big Bend. This is a podcast and radio show coming to you every other week about visiting the beautiful Big Bend of Texas. Specifically, we will cover what’s happening in Alpine, an incredibly friendly, small town nestled in a desert mountain valley at the heart of the Big Bend region. With easy day trips from Alpine, you can take in everything this amazing region has to offer.
I’m Chris Ruggia, Director of Tourism for the City of Alpine, and with me today is the indomitable Heather Yadon of the Alpine Visitor Center.
Heather Yadon
I love the way you find new ways to describe me every time we’re on. Thank you.
Chris R
Yeah well, you’re always extraordinary.
Heather Y
Thank you.
Chris R
Yeah, and we’re really excited today to talk to Melissa Henderson, Director of the Fort Davis Chamber of Commerce.
Melissa Henderson
Hey.
Chris R
Hey. So, yeah, Fort Davis and Alpine, Alpine and Marfa. Marfa and Fort Davis, these are all best friend communities here. And so we’re really glad to have you come over and share a little bit with our listeners about what’s happening in Fort Davis, what Fort Davis is all about.
Melissa H
Well, thanks for having me. Yeah, Fort Davis, Marfa, Alpine, we’re all a short drive from one another. It’s really easy to get from one to the other. Not only easy, but it’s beautiful in between their beautiful drives.
Chris R
Just to be fair, Marathon is about the same distance. We have this constellation of little communities about half an hour from each other. Easy hops where no matter where you’re staying the night, it’s really easy and fun to explore all the little different personalities of the communities in the area. One thing we like to think about is, what’s the difference? You’re in Alpine, you’re in Fort Davis. When somebody comes into one or the other, what can they expect? When you drive into Alpine, you’re in a wide mountain valley, a bowl. There’s open grassland around, not as much as Marfa, which is in this beautiful plateau. But Fort Davis, it’s a really different visual experience of the mountains, your relationship to the mountains.
Melissa H
Right. Each destination is unique, and Fort Davis is very unique in that we’re a mountain town. We like to say that we’re cooler because literally the temperatures tend to be cooler. We’re at 5,050 foot in altitudes, about a mile high.
Chris R
4,800. Darn it.
Melissa H
We are the highest town in Texas, officially from the state of Texas. So it can be cooler. So especially during the summer months – July, August – it’s typically our rainy season for the mountains. And so it’s lovely there. It’s actually really lovely there right now, too. I think the spring and the fall are by far the most beautiful times of the year. Right now, where the trees are turning. Yes. So you can drive into the mountains, actually see the change for fall, which in Texas is a big deal.
Chris R
Yeah. And Alpine, it’s at the juncture of the Glass Mountains and the Davis Mountains. And of course, Fort Davis is right in the middle of the Davis Mountains. So in the drive between the two, you go across an open grassland, and then you get into the Davis Mountains, which have its volcanic rock, a reddish volcanic rock, really distinctive-
Heather Y
Much bigger rock formation.
Chris R
Shapes of the rocks. It’s almost like columns of volcanic rock in the mountain sides that you drive through. You wind through these little mountain passes to get to the town of Fort Davis, which is then sitting, as you go through the middle of downtown Fort Davis, you’re looking up really close, compared to Alpine, to this cliff side. That’s the Cueva de León, right? The Sleeping Lion Mountain formation right behind there. So, yeah, it’s just a really picturesque setting.
Melissa H
It is very picturesque. The area is actually called the Sky Islands because the mountains seem to just pop up from the earth. So it is really beautiful. It makes for a really nice drive, an afternoon drive through the mountains to actually experience why it’s called the Sky Islands, because they just pop up out of the earth.
Chris R
As I understand it, that’s also a biological term because these little mountain pockets are isolated from each other by these stretches of the desert. And so you’ve got these populations of plants and animals that can’t… They’re just like they would be on an island. They form these unique populations and evolve together.
Melissa H
Yeah, right. You get to see the Chihuahuan Desert meet the mountains and how they overlap and how they have a relationship together. And you’re right, it does make for really special flora and fauna and really special animals. We love our hummingbirds. The Davis Mountains is home to 19 different species of hummingbirds, one of them that has only been seen in the United States in the Davis Mountains. And it’s because of this special environment that’s created in the mountains, where the altitude meets the desert. The birds really like it.
Chris R
Well, let’s jump in that direction for a second then about birds, because one thing that hummingbird point is something that you guys have developed with every other year now you’re doing in August, the Hummingbird Celebration, which is a pretty unique gathering.
Melissa H
The Davis Mountains Hummingbird Celebration. So it’s actually really grown. It’s an event that’s been around for a long time. It started out at the Chihuahuan Desert Nature Center, and now it’s grown into a very competitive birding event. I say competitive in that we keep the numbers really below. So we keep it below 250 participants. And then we have about 40 to 50 biologist expert birders and people who lead the field trips. And so your birding field trips are 10 to 12 people maximum. The field trips go all over the region, so from all the way to Southern Brewster County, all the way to Balmorhea. So it’s a huge area that the birding trips cover. That event actually sells out, usually within a day. Those 250 people register for that event within the day, and they’re very determined to make sure that we communicate fairly and evenly so that everyone has a chance to get in and get the field trips that they want.
Heather Y
But even if people can’t get there for that, there’s great birding all the time. And there’s bird blinds at several locations.
Melissa H
And at all different levels. That event is really high quality, and it attracts a lot of expert birders, but it’s also amateur birding, too. So if you don’t know anything about birding, Fort Davis, really the whole region, Alpine and Presidio County, too, all have really cool birding spots where you can see all kinds of birds, not just hummingbirds, but a really wide variety. We have some wetland birds that are special.
Chris R
I want to go ahead and call out then this cooperative project we did. Cecilia Reilly, who works on the Hummingbird Celebration had put together a list of birding sites. Then Alpine and Fort Davis partnered to design and print a booklet. So that at the Fort Davis Chamber of Commerce or the Alpine Visitor Center, you can stop in and you can pick up a copy that will lead you through some of the best locations and what birds you can see there. It’s really a great resource that wouldn’t exist without you guys caring enough to put it all together.
Melissa H
August is the big month for hummingbirds, for the widest variety that you’re going to see. If you want to see a lot of hummingbirds, I think June, July is always a good time. You can actually manage your bird feeders anywhere year round, and you’ll actually get hummingbirds in Texas all during the winter because they’re looking for that feed as well. So the Hummingbird Celebration is always every other year on the third weekend of August. But yeah, birding you can do year-round. There’s great birding.
Chris R
I think, yeah, we’ll definitely do a bird-specific episode pretty soon. Yeah, because there’s so much to talk about across the whole region. It really is extraordinary. So one other thing, just now that we’ve gone off to birds, I’ll reel us back to the specifics of Fort Davis as a community, because the histories of these towns are all a little bit different. But one thing that, like Marathon, Alpine, Marfa, half an hour apart, and all of them on the railway. So all of these are basically water stops. We exist because the railroad came through. But Fort Davis is unique. Fort Davis is actually much older than these other communities.
Melissa H
Yeah. So we’re actually… Fort Davis was established along the Transpecos Trail so that people could get from across Texas, right? They could go from San Antonio to get to El Paso. So the Fort was there to to establish a safe passageway to get from one place to the other.
Chris R
Yeah, way before the railroad.
Melissa H
Yeah, exactly. So Fort Davis is really about heritage tourism. It’s about the history of the area, and it really is varied. If you haven’t been to the National Historic Site, which is the Fort, Fort Davis, it’s a really, really cool Fort. They’ve done a lot of work on recreating dating what the barracks look like. I love the hospital. I think the hospital is really creepy and really cool. But they have a really new exhibit that shows what the hospital would have looked like. They’re currently working on the Apothecary.
Chris R
And it just keeps going. Just think, in the ’60s, Bish Tweetie, living at the Fort, way before the National Park Service got involved, and what has happened since then? It’s pretty incredible.
Melissa H
It is incredible.
Heather Y
The Fort is a great stop for visitors because it is open daily from 8:00 to 5:00. They’ll find a lot of stuff sometimes on our Sunday, Monday days. These small towns, things are closed, but the Fort is open seven days a week, except for some holidays. So it’s always a good stop to do at the beginning of the week, maybe whenever the downtown stores and galleries and things like that aren’t open in our little communities.
Melissa H
It’s a walking tour. It’s a pretty big facility. So if you don’t walk or don’t be hesitant because there’s definitely buggies, and they’ll drive you around, or you can do a self-tour in a buggy, too. So don’t be hesitant. If you don’t want to walk, you can ride. But it is a national park, so you can use your National Park Pass, and it is open daily from 8:00 to 5:00.
Chris R
But if you really want to walk, if you love walking, then there’s actually an amazing walk from the Fort. If you park at the Fort, you can go up into the mountains right behind the Fort and across and connect to the Davis Mountain State Park, which is another great attraction. And that can go both directions. So you can also drive through the state park, start hiking there, wind up at the National Historic site. And it’s a really beautiful, beautiful hike.
Melissa H
Yeah, that’s my favorite hike in Fort Davis. Yeah, I really like that one. Well, because there’s two different ways. You can take the meandering path and do cross trek on the mountainside and go up slow and easy, or there’s a straight up stairway to get to the top of that scenic overlook. To look down in the Fort. Once you get to the top, you get to look down into the fort, and then you can just go over a little bit and look down into the state Park. So it’s a really special hike.
Heather Y
So about the State Park, that’s another jewel right there in Fort Davis, the Davis Mountains State Park. And it is home to the Indian Lodge, which is one of your very unique hotels to stay at in Fort Davis.
Melissa H
Sure. The Indian Lodge is actually a state park.
Chris R
Of its own. That’s right. State Park in a state park. Nesting dolls of parks here.
Melissa H
Yes. It was actually built by the CCC, and so it has its own history. It’s so beautiful. They have a swimming pool on a deck with a view of the mountains. It is. They have a restaurant on site as well, the Black Bear Restaurant. You can eat, you can hang out by the pool, and you can stay in a historic hotel. It’s beautiful up there.
Chris R
And we’re headed into the holidays, and that is something that’s really sweet. The way they decorate the lobby, they put the… It feels like a victorian times Christmas in a log cabin thing, but upscale. Seriously upscale log cabin. It’s very nice. Speaking of the CCC, the whole Davis Mountain State Park, I think they call it one of the legacy parks, one of the earliest state parks in Texas. And so a lot of the physical structures in Davis Mountain State Park were built by the Civilian Conservation Corps. And there’s some interpretive signs, some great historical documents and artifacts from the building, the Indian Lodge in their common room area with the fireplaces. You could learn a lot just stopping in for a visit.
Melissa H
As well as throughout the park. And they also… The park has great hiking trails right outside the Indian Lodge and all throughout the park. I always encourage everyone to, even if you’re not staying at Indian Lodge, to at least drive through because the park itself has its own scenic loop. And so you can drive through the scenic loop, look down, like I said, into the Fort, actually see Fort Davis from the top of the mountain. And all throughout the park, there are those historical structures. It’s really interesting.
Chris R
And so, yeah, when you take that skyline drive, assuming it’s open, sometimes it’s been closed for rehabilitation and things like that occasionally. But when you get up there, you get this view Well, across the ocean that you’re the sky island in the middle of, right? So you get these planes and views. And so two things that you can see from that mountain, I want to call that as other attraction. And one is as you look towards Alpine, you can see the Chihuahuan Desert Research Institute or the Chihuahuan Desert Nature Center, which you encounter as you’re going in between the two towns. And that’s a beautiful little facility. The other that we want to talk about is McDonald Observatory. But let’s start with the Nature Center.
Melissa H
Okay. So Chihuahua The Government Desert Nature Center is great. It’s right between Alpine and Fort Davis, so it’s a great place to hit when you’re traveling between one or the other. They have three different hiking trails, as well as a greenhouse with amazing cactus and all kinds of cool flora and fauna. It’s one of my favorite places, go back to birding, because you can actually sit on the porch in a rocking chair and watch their hummingbird feeders that they always manage. You can take a hike, you That’s where you can hang out on the porch, you could see- The mining exhibit.
Heather Y
Oh, yeah. That’s really cool.
Chris R
That’s a really interesting historical artifact that Joe Mussie put together, that through his life as a mining engineer, that he’s pulled together. So there’s a range of just really interesting artifacts, technologies of how mining worked. So yeah, that’s a great thing. There’s the Arboretum, which is all fenced in to keep the larger wildlife to protect the trees, but it’s not just trees, it’s all kinds of plants. And you can get a little guidebook at the visitor center that will walk you through what all you’re looking at.
Melissa H
Oh, man, and my kids love the giant rocks. It is. I think the Chihuahuan Desert Nature Center is probably the most family friendly.
Heather Y
Because there’s just walking strolls if they’re not ready to do hiking, but then there’s the more advanced hiking as well.
Melissa H
Even there’s some hikes that I’ve taken my two three-year-old on, and she’s done just fine.
Chris R
Yeah. And so two things to call it just before we move on. And one is the the geology. Is that what it is? Up on top of Clayton’s Overlook. So it’s a pretty steep trail to get up to. But once you’re there, there’s a platform similar to you’re up at Skyline Drive, you’re looking over at the top of Skyline Drive, and you can see you really get this overview of the surrounding landscape. Plus, there are panels showing you what mountains you’re looking at, in which direction, and what they’re and how they were formed. There’s at least six panels pointing in different directions around the landscape. That’s super cool. My favorite, and this is not an easy hike, but is the Modesta Canyon hike. It’s pretty rough. You want to be careful not to slip and fall, but you get to go down in this narrow little canyon, and at the base of it, there’s this tiny pool that always has Tadpoles and the little water bugs. It’s cool. You’re swimming, walking around on the top of the water. And the drone trees down there, I just love it down there, especially on a hot day.
Chris R
You go down and it’s even cooler than usual. So, yeah, that’s my favorite spot.
Heather Y
And that’s another place that has really good hours for visitors when they’re here. It’s only closed on Wednesdays. It’s open to members on Wednesdays, but anybody can go any other day of the week. They’re even open on Sundays. So it’s a really good stop that you can do, again, in the beginning the week when it’s not necessarily a great time to see our downtown areas. It’s 12 and under is free. Like you said, perfect family-friendly place for kids.
Melissa H
They’re typically open on the holidays. They will be open on Thanksgiving Day. If you need a break from the family. Go take a hike. Exactly. Walk off that turkey, right?
Chris R
And so, yeah, the other thing we mentioned before is McDonald Observatory, which talk about your extraordinary asset. This is a unique, world-class scientific installation here.
Melissa H
Fort Davis is known for our astronomy and astronomers and dark skies. And yes, the McDonald Observatory is actually the University of Texas. It’s a phenomenal facility. If you want to learn about the night sky and you’re interested in that, it is a must-do while in the region.
Chris R
Let me point the listeners to the podcast because we actually did talk to Bill Wren from the observatory about night skies in the area and talked quite a bit about the observatory. We won’t go into super a lot of detail because I’ll refer you to that. But this is a working scientific institution. These telescopes, some of the largest in the world. They’re functioning every night that there’s a sky that you can see. They’re doing actual science that is getting us new knowledge every single night. So that’s pretty amazing. Plus, you do have the opportunity to experience yourself.
Heather Y
Well, I think one thing that’s important for people coming in to know is that you have to have reservations to go to a star party. They book months and months in advance. The star parties are the night time viewing parties that are amazing, but you have to have it booked in advance. Don’t expect to come here and just call that day and get a ticket. Sometimes they’ll put you on a waitlist, and some people do get called from the waitlist, but they do book up very early because they are so amazing highly sought after. There is also daytime tours, and then there is the visitor center. They call it a visitor center, but it’s really more like an education center. There’s so much you can see there. So even if you do come and you can’t get into a star party, it’s still worth going to see that.
Chris R
Especially, bring the kids.
Heather Y
Yes. Bring your kids because it’s a really cool gift shop, too. They’ll want stuff there. But the Star Parties, like I said, it’s important for people to know that you really need to make those reservations well in advance, especially during our peak seasons like spring break and fall. They’re going to be very busy.
Chris R
Yeah, so that’s the top level view of some of the attractions. Is there anything else around this core of town that you want to emphasize?
Melissa H
I always encourage everyone to stop in at Rattlers and Reptiles. It’s like a roadside attraction. They have a lot of different species of rattlesnakes, all different kinds, all different sizes. They are all Caged? In cages. Okay. I’m not going in if they’re not. Some people don’t love it. But children, my kids love that place. They keep other kinds of things. You can see a vinegaroon in there. You can see…
Chris R
Which is the craziest looking giant bug you would ever want to see.
Melissa H
It looks like a scorpion. They’re really just gentle. They’re a really cool desert creature. And you can see one at Rattlers and Reptiles unless you just happen to come across one. They usually have lots of different kinds of tarantulas, so definitely stop in there for a little thrill. And if anything, to educate yourself about the rattlesnakes, what they sound like. When you’re in the Chihuahuan Desert, if you’re going to be in Big Bend or somewhere like that where we have rattlesnakes, Rattlers and Reptiles is the perfect place to learn about snakes before you ever find one in the wild.
Heather Y
My little one loves the Rock Shop there. She’s a rock collector. We can’t leave the park without a pocket full of rocks. So she goes into that rock shop, and we end up with… Usually, they give her something because she wants everything in the whole store. But that’s a great little rock shop, and it’s open. I think they’re only closed on Tuesdays, maybe or something, but they’re open a lot, and they have tons of options Because people don’t know that rock hunting here is mostly on private land, so it’s hard. You have to have a book a tour to actually go and do rock hunts. But there you can see a lot of different stuff that’s actually found in the area.
Melissa H
I encourage everyone to actually take what we call the Scenic Loop Drive. We were talking about McDonald Observatory. McDonald Observatory is actually on the Scenic Loop Drive, but all along that drive, there are other places to stop. There’s the Madera Canyon Trail. I love that trail. It’s a really quick and easy access to the creek. For us, especially during our rainy season, which is like the end of July and in August, that creek is running with water. You get to hike through the creek or hike down the creek. There’s a quick trail that’s not super hard.
Chris R
Yeah, and that’s at the Lawrence Woods Picnic area. So you’ll see those picnic tables. You’ll know you’re close. In the trailhead, there’s a little kiosk with a couple of signs. They’re nature conservancy information there. So when you’re on the loop, that’s what you’re looking for to find that trail.
Melissa H
Yes. And then all along, you get to actually see that sky island. You’ll be able to see Mount Livermore, which is the tallest peak in the region. And then a lot of people want to know about Prada Marfa, which is actually in Valentine.
Heather Y
Yeah, you send them on the 505 back over to 90.
Melissa H
So if you take a little venture off of the Scenic Loop, you and find Valentine, Texas. In Valentine, Texas, it’s actually where Prada Marfa is, so go take your picture there. Valentine is interesting because there’s just nothing there, but for some reason it has this allure. But they’re famous for their Valentine in Valentine event on Valentine’s Day. It’s a big dance at the original Mercantile building, which is really cool.
Heather Y
Because Valentine and Fort Davis are the only towns in Jeff Davis County.
Melissa H
Correct.
Heather Y
So Jeff Davis County is the least populated county in Texas, I think?
Melissa H
Oh, I don’t know about that. I was thinking it was close- Not quite.
Melissa H
I think probably King County because it’s all ranch land and nobody actually thinks about it.
Heather Y
It’s one of the small counties. Well, definitely the only where there’s two towns in such a vast area. So, yeah, you only have… Fort Davis is obviously the county seat. Then you have a little Valentine out there that’s famous for Marfa Prada. I will say on the scenic loop also is Sawtooth Mountain, which is one of the most painted mountains by the artist in the area. There’s a lot of art that you see in the galleries in Alpine that is Sawtooth Mountain, and that’s on the scenic loop out there by Mount Livermore. I know a lot of our artists like to have this loop so they can people to go actually look at the mountain that they have a painting.
Chris R
You bet. And so, yeah, I also want to mention just walking through the town, there’s lots of little shops. It’s a really beautiful, physical place to be. So the walk from the courthouse area up to even the Rattlers and Reptiles, up to the Fort. That whole stretch, there’s lots of interesting places to stop into and shop and eat. So it’s just a beautiful place to be. One reason people come to places like this is events. We want to call it a couple of the things that are special that Fort Davis does, and the biggest has got to be the coolest Fourth of July, which, one, the top Fourth of July in the Texas Travel Awards, the first ever Texas Travel Awards statewide recognition.
Melissa H
It is the coolest in Texas. It’s the coolest Fourth of July. We call it that because it literally is cooler in Fort Davis, really, than anywhere else in the state. It can be 10 degrees cooler there in July. It can also be windy, and sometimes rainy. When you’ve left places like Austin or Dallas, Fort Davis in July is just lovely. We have a huge event all around the courthouse. It’s really quaint. I like it. It’s small. It’s rural Texas at its finest.
Heather Y
It’s a great parade. The Fourth of July parade is amazing.
Melissa H
We have a parade, and then there’s vendors all around the courthouse. There’s brick-fired pizza from our favorite pizza guys. So you can get lots of delicious food. There’s entertainment all day on the courthouse lawn. There’s a salon, there’s live music. We have a dance every night. Yeah, so that’s a fun event.
Chris R
Yeah, and that’s usually the Saturday, the weekend, closest to the fourth. Whereas Alpine, our fourth of July celebration is always on the fourth. They often complement each other really well because they don’t fall in exactly the same night. When you want to take that Big Bend fourth of July trip, you can take several days and you can hit a couple of different fourth of July celebrations.
Melissa H
You can see probably three different fireworks shows if you really want to. You can come to Fort Davis. We do ours the night prior to the fourth of July because Alpine does theirs on the fourth of July. You could see all kinds.
Chris R
You mentioned earlier, too, before we started recording, a special brand new event because the Hummingbird Celebration, as we said, is every other year now in the later part of August. But this time, it’s the 25th anniversary of the filming of Dancer, Texas, Population 80. Is that right?
Melissa H
Correct. Population 81. Dancer, Texas, if you’ve not seen the film, right now, you can find it on Amazon Prime. This is where I found it.
Chris R
We saw it at Rangra when it came out.
Melissa H
Nice. That was 25 years ago. We’re actually going to celebrate the anniversary of the film this summer. We’re going to show the film on the courthouse lawn. If you’ve seen the movie during the one scene where they’re graduating, it’s graduation, and they filmed it on the courthouse lawn, we’re going to have a potluck. We’re going to have another parade because we always need an excuse for a good parade. We’re going to put together a walking tour or driving tour where you can go and see where the movie was filmed. It’s going to be a good time. Fantastic. We’re going to give big shoutouts to the actors who were in that movie as well and see if we can get some of them to come.
Heather Y
That’s what I was going to ask. Are any of them coming? That’d be great.
Melissa H
The locals are really excited because a lot of them were extras in the movie. I remember that, yeah. We’re hoping they get in that parade. Yes. Then leading up to that, we’re actually going to show films on the courthouse lawn once a month throughout the entire summer. I do a little film series starting in June. Every month, you can be able to come in Fort Davis and set up your blanket on the courthouse.
Heather Y
It is the best grass. I was about to say it’s the best grass in the entire area. They must have a wonderful sprinkler system because their grass is beautiful year round. Even when everything else is dry from our drought, that grass is amazing.
Melissa H
The courthouse lawn is where you want to take your shoes off.
Heather Y
That’s where I got my family pictures done because I wanted some pretty grass. And I have a three-year-old who wanted to run everywhere.
Melissa H
For the desert, the courthouse lawn is like an oasis.
Chris R
It is. There’s a pro-tip for visitors.
Melissa H
Yes. There in the county park, if you have a dog, our county park has fenced-in baseball fields, and you can just let your dog off the leash and toss the ball. That’s another little tourist secret that I like to share. Now, if you have your dogs in the car, get them out at the county park in Fort Davis and let them run around because there’s not so many places to do that.
Heather Y
Yeah, because they can’t. The Fort doesn’t allow dogs. The state park has some trails.
Melissa H
You have them on a leash. Exactly.
Chris R
All right. Well, I mean, we’ve been going on a little longer I think than our usual time frame, but it’s worth it. There’s so much to discuss. One thing I want to call out before we go is that it’s Art Walk weekend for those listening to the radio. So everybody, have a great time. Enjoy all the music and art and everything else going on in downtown Alpine this weekend. Be safe and have fun.
Thank you for joining us for Heart of the Big Bend every other week. You can get more information about Heart of the Big Bend at visitalpinetx.com/podcast or search for Heart of the Big Bend on Apple podcasts, Spotify, and most other podcast apps. And for all of you guys, listening to us on KALP/KVLF radio in Alpine, we’ll see you in two Fridays.
Outro
You’ve been listening to the heart of the Big Bend. Hope you liked what you heard and that you’ll find the time to experience all that the Big Ben has to offer. See you soon, partner.