Are Texans extra friendly or are we just becoming notorious? We spent part of the afternoon visiting Terlingua, where we met a fellow named David, who runs a ghost town. It consists of the remains of a handful of dry-laid stone buildings and a few slowly melting adobe huts. On behalf of the owner of the land, David leases the buildings to artists and entrepreneurs and other such people, who are slowly rebuilding them into a new sort of community.

David and his wife also run an art gallery from one of the refurbished buildings, featuring local art. Their home is a 37-foot school bus. They have unreliable electricity, unremitting heat in the summer, little water, and few local amenities. For seven years, they have lived in the dusty surroundings of Terlingua Ghost Town, with the other quirky inhabitants, and they have loved it.

We immediately hit it off. When Eleanor mentioned that she lives in an Airstream, David did a double-take and said, "I think I've read your blog!" Since we hadn't mentioned we have a blog, this was a shock. Keep in mind we were standing in a ghost town that is sort of a suburb of a tiny village that is literally the end of the line in southwest Texas. I can only get online by driving down to the Terlingua Springs Market and borrowing their wi-fi. Many people here don't have telephones. And yet, this guy knows us!

But that's how it is going now. People are writing to us from other parts of the country, saying basically, "I've read your blog. Come to our town and we'll give you courtesy parking." We love that. I expect we will meet a lot of people by courtesy parking in their driveways, and it sounds like a great way to spend the summer.

Today we are going to take most of the day to go hiking in the park. I'll hopefully have my camera back tonight (still no appearance by Bert & Janie), and if so I'll try to post as many pictures as I can. In the meantime, I can use Emma's camera to document today's trip.