Terlingua Oddities: Ships in the Desert?

“The Un-expected”

By Williamgoldenpen

Oh the sands of the desert. Where rocks protrude, reaching for the clear blue sky which allows the sun to caress the desolate waste. The camel, the ship of the desert, gracefully treads its way…..

Hold on! Hold on! Just a cotton -picking minute! We have sand and rock here in Terlingua and Study Butte, lots of them! This is the desert too, and, we have ships of the desert, and not the four very long legged types either.

Ours are, let me think. How am I going to put this? Well, they are the real things. (Sort of.) Two of them! One is an old Galleon slated to go into dry dock for re-fit (Man does it need it.) The other is a nuclear submarine. (Well, the conning tower anyway. Not sure where the rest of it is. Perhaps covered with the sands of time. Oh how poetic!) Or not.

Anyway, these two ships of the desert are here for you to see. Drive along Hwy 170 from Study Butte until you come to a sign that says Terlingua Ghost Town. Go past that turning for about 300 foot, (I was going to say “Feet” but I couldn’t find enough of them and the locals wouldn’t give me theirs.) and you will see them on your left.

Well, this is it for now. Come see us and enjoy life the “Terlingua” way.