Small Home – Big Yard

We arrived in Lajitas just after 4pm on Tuesday to find our first 80 degree weather.  Quickly the sweatshirts were stowed and jeans replaced with shorts.  Our trip down from Fort Davis was just over 4 hours with a refueling and food replenishment stop in Alpine.  We also stopped at the Ace Hardware before leaving Fort Davis for some plumbing repair tools and fittings.  (more on our leaking water system later)

Maverick Ranch RV Park

Lajitas was originally conceived as a very exclusive golf resort & hideaway on what is basically a dead-end road between Big Bend National Park and Big Bend Ranch State Park along the Rio Grande river and Mexican border.  The first clients jetted into the private landing field from Midland, Austin, Dallas/Ft. Worth and other large Texas cities.  The resort known for opulence, exclusivity and remote location survived until 2006 when loans could not be paid.  In late 2007 a partnership from Dallas took over the resort, stripping it of the exclusive image, hoping to attract more clients as well as large tournaments.  Things were going well until disaster struck in September of 2008 when Tropical Storm Lowell dumped what some called a “500 year flood” forcing Mexican officials to open flood gates on upstream dams.  The river ran a quarter mile wide and 13 feet deep through Lajitas.  Parts of “The Ambush” course were underwater for over 4 weeks – and when un-submerged quickly burned up due to the irrigation system being lost.  The back nine of The Ambush course – which included the famed “international” hole that allowed players to tee up a shot in the United States and hit to a green in Mexico, and four holes on an island in the river, were damaged beyond repair and never rebuilt.  Today the course stands on a higher embankment above the flood plain of the river.

Former ‘International” Hole at Lajitas

Rio Grande at Lajitas

Former back-nine at Lajitas

The RV park at Lajitas, the Maverick Ranch, is north of the resort just at the base of the famed Lajitas Plateau.  101 full hookup sites (about 50 include cable TV) are arranged in rows that feature shared “back-to-back” facility pedestals.  Most have a concrete pad, a few with picnic tables and scrubby grass between the sites. A few long deep sites around the edges offer more privacy and even a few shade trees.  There is a very nice clubhouse/office building at the entrance and a laundry, shower, pool area in the services building at the rear of the property.  Full resort services (golf, spa, shopping) are available for RV’ers.  The park’s WiFi service was included in the site rate and adequate for our needs.  There was spotty T-Mobile service and no Verizon service.