Terlingua

[laughs] Uh, you could certainly find a darker sky on the top of the Big Island in Hawaii, but that's all private observatory and stuff.

So for those of us on the mainland, and, uh, otherwise pretty subjectively too, it's, it's Big Bend if you want the most pristine sky, and it's not just because Terlingua is 80 minutes, 80 miles, excuse me, it's a longer drive to the, the nearest proper grocery store.

It's, uh, two and a half hours to our nearest Walmart, three and a half hours to our nearest major airport.

Most of those services are closer on the Mexican side.

Uh, but also on the Mexican side, they have over two million acres of protected public land.

That is all collectively the greater Big Bend Dark Sky Reserve, which Terlingua is right in the middle of.

Well, I will say the, the dark sky thing, um, it is kinda striking to me when I think about it of, like, what a huge part of s- like, human life [laughs] the, like, stars and sky were for such a long time-

Sure

It was 70 degrees on July 3rd.

And then we went out to Terlingua, and it was like 1,000 degrees, which was also fun, too, though, by the way.

All cool places.

Have fun with that.

And javelinas.

Now, we're outside of Terlingua, if you've heard of that.

That's the gateway of the national park.

And that whole Big Bend region is the Chihuahuan Desert.

Oh, my God.

It's incredible.

Yeah, we went from South Lake to Terlingua.

It's kind of a little different.

I remember we had that conversation and you had shared like, uh, your connection with El Paso and like, you know, different regions of West Texas and like the, the super sereneness of it.

And so I really wanted to kind of encapsulate that because, um, I had done a, like, southwest tour where me and my friend Peyote, we had gone from San Antonio, we went to Terlingua, Marfa, and then we ended up in El Paso, and then we ended up in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

And there's, like, this very, like, sacred and magical energy that's in the desert that I just, like, I'm always in awe of, you know, like, seeing, like, the lack of light pollution as well out there.

So, like, Environmentally, it's just super striking, and so I really wanted to capture that on the left side of the piece.

I can't read that one.

Terlingua, Texas.

Sorry, guys.

I'm looking at my screen and those are real low.

Public outcry, which had long been simmering, boiled over online and in local protests.

A mock border wall was erected in front of a coffee shop in the nearby town of Terlingua, and local businesses began turning away federal contractors.

The sheriffs of neighboring Brewster, Culberson, Hudspeth, Presidio, and Terrell counties, a bipartisan group, issued a joint letter opposing a continuous physical barrier in the region.

Notably, they did not argue against border security itself.

We'll let you draw your own conclusions about that sequence.

On August 18th, Scott met with a bipartisan group of border county sheriffs and judges and told them that the pause would hold for at least two weeks, assuring them that work wouldn't resume until CBP had heard from local stakeholders.

Separately, in a federal lawsuit brought by the people of La Junta for Preservation and the Terlingua River Outfitter, the government agreed in writing to halt all ground-disturbing activity through September 30th, both inside the National Park and along the stretch from Rio Dosa into Big Bend Ranch State Park.

As of this recording, that halt remains in effect.