Living in a remote area is all about planning for efficiency. We try to get all our errands in on one trip to town which includes: groceries, water, trash, propane, laundry, mail, and any other shopping (usually from the hardware store).
A few weeks ago, the laundry facility in Terlingua had a water issue and closed. Now all the people who used that facility to do laundry have to make a trek into Alpine to do laundry there. The last time we went into Alpine to do laundry there were several people from Terlingua doing their laundry. I know this because they were talking about the inconvenience, not because I actually know them.
We have a PO box, but it’s only 6x3x12-ish (there are different sizes, we got a somewhat large but not the largest). Anything that doesn’t fit in it is kept behind the counter. They have a very tiny space, so picking up packages promptly is good. The counter is open at 11 on Saturday until all the packages are gone or until 1, whichever happens sooner. Our first packages were from Amazon, and one was a rather large battery/inverter/power unit we got during a Black Friday sale. Unfortunately the post office people thought it was for a company, whose packages are put out back. When we went to pick it up, it wasn’t there, and there was a huge hullabaloo trying to figure out if it was actually delivered, who might have it, and how to find it. The postal worker called people and eventually it was brought back as a mistaken pickup. It came back without the packaging, so, maybe the person who picked it up was going to keep it? We don’t know, but we did get it back. We were told they might deliver to our actual address, but we haven’t tried that yet. There are regular drivers for FedEx, Amazon, and UPS who make one trip a day to the Terlingua Post Office. If it doesn’t fit on that truck, it has to wait til the next day. So we can get packages, but it feels a little less secure/regular than most post.
While Terlingua is a tiny town, they do have some events we checked out this weekend. They have a regular Saturday market, which is about six people selling goods/crafts. One guy had some honey and wooden phone stands, a baking company had some cookies, a booth had knitted hats/headbands, some very cool metal sculptures, soaps/lotions, and jewelry. This is held at the Community Garden area, which is also where they have a bookmobile / mobile library. Down the road is a recycling dropoff (Saturday, 10-12), run by a guy that also does recycling at Big Bend National Park. He accepts tin cans, aluminum cans, plastic 1 & 2, and cardboard/paper. We have not been recycling or composting since leaving Portland, so we’re looking forward to returning to this practice. We still separate food waste and recycling, we just end up dumping it all in the same trash bin. Rather than paying for trash services out at our property (which would require a monthly fee), we pay the RV park every time we dump a bag of trash. Most RV parks do not include recycling, so trash includes recycling and compost unless you manage that yourself. I’ve been looking into one of those kitchen composters but they draw a lot of power/space, so we haven’t yet made that purchase.
This weekend Terlingua also hast two special events I will mention. First is a free showing of an independent film, The Big Bend, filmed locally, inspired by a trip to the park that did not go as planned. Second is the West Texas Chili Cookoff. This is an event that anyone can enter. It’s a three day event, Friday-Sunday, with live music, vendors, and of course, chili. The top 3 winners on Saturday automatically qualify for The CASI World Championship CCO in November. Apparently you can sign up to be a judge at this event and they’ll “train” you, no experience necessary. We did not attend either of these events, though we passed a lot of folks sitting around cooking!
As for other updates, construction has begun on our water setup. Thus far the pump house has a metal structure and some of the floor and siding on.

We got two 2500 gallon water storage tanks, one of which has been brought out and strapped to our fifth wheel so it doesn’t blow away. The other will be brought out along with 1000 gallons of water once the building has been finished. They’ll be installing a filtration system and pump. Once that’s all completed, we’ll need to figure out where to put our power station and solar panels, and get a trench to pipe the water over to our home. We’re waiting on the water catchment roof for now, as we’re still thinking we might build a tiny house structure and wouldn’t want the roof to get in the way of constructing that. This structure would go between the “sandbox” where the tanks will go and the bluff. We have around 20x30ft area that will eventually be under the rain catchment roof (which will be 30x30ft, including the 10ft space over the tanks). We’ve been very conservative with water thus far (we’ve used less than 400g while we’ve been out here), but we estimate once we start doing laundry again we’ll use about 500 gallons a month. 5000g will be overkill for the time we’re expecting to spend out here, but we’d rather be able to store extra and not have to worry about it.


Like a lot of the country, it continues to be cold out here, regularly between 25-35 at night, but we’re no longer worried about anything freezing. We know we can get though it (weather it, if you will). We’ve been keeping bundled up in blankets. 50 is about as pleasant as 90, but at least we can layer up to keep warm in 50!