La Cocina (The Kitchen)
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We transformed our old storage shed into a beautiful area for guests to reserve and have a private kitchen and dining area.
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The Ocotillo Suite
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Room 117 is now our Ocotillo Suite. With upgrades to the room, a large private patio, and an outdoor Cowboy Tub.
Read MoreReturn to Sanderson! Its been too long...
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After keeping to ourselves for the last two and a half months like the rest of the country, we finally ventured back to our beloved Motel!
Read MorePerseids Meteor Shower
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Perseids Meteor Shower - This weekend!
Keep your eyes to the sky this weekend because August 11-13 is the peak viewing time for the Perseids Meteor Shower. This meteor shower, named after the constellation Perseus, occurs every year from about mid-July thru the end of August. This year, however, the showers are expected to be particularly specactular because…
Read MoreThe Desert Air Motel - History
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The Desert Air Motel - History
Over the last month we've been trying to dig deeper into the history of the Desert Air. I'm going to do my best to get everything correct here, but I'm sure there may be some holes. The Stavley's who owned the Motel in the 70s introduced themselves to us during our first week of ownership and wish us well in our endeavor. They provided as quite a bit of information and it was fun hearing their stories…
Read MoreThe Sanderson Bats
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The Bats of Sanderson
Our friend Tabb agreed to come and run the motel for 10 days while we all needed to return to Austin for a bit. Somehow Joe convinced him to drive to Sanderson, TX all the way from Virginia. In any case, he made it here, helped us run the Motel, explored the town, and made some friends. When we made it back to Sanderson to relieve him we expected he'd be departing the next day, but it turned out he landed a small renovation job for a neighbor. This kept him in town a bit longer than expected. ..
Read MoreThe Parade - By Josephine (Age 10)
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The Parade - By Josephine (Age 10)
This following entry is from a guest writer, my daughter Josephine, and her experience on the 4th of July Parade…
Read MoreMeet The Desert Air Motel
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A cozy roadside motel…
Thanks for listening to our back story and journey to Sanderson! We don't mean to distract you from the real star of the show...the motel! We have some fun ideas and improvements to make, but in actuality, this little roadside inn is charming and functional as is. If you take a look at reviews left by travelers you quickly get the sense that the motel is clean, comfortable and a nice stay. We tend to agree with those statements…
Read MoreOne Week to Go
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We’re counting down the days….
That's our back story (Our story link.). That's how we found Sanderson. I don't think we mentioned any dates in the past blog posts, so I'll give you a sort timeline of events. February 2018 the Ryza family stumbles into Sanderson on a wrong turn. Mid-April we take another trip to Big Bend National Park and find Sanderson a nice place to stay. Now 'our story' is comprised of two families...the Ryzas and the Godins. On the same mid-April trip we find ourselves lodging in Sanderson again because of a campsite assignment snafu in the national park. Our love of Big Bend Country seems to suddenly be overtaken by the fondness of this little town…
Read MoreSerendipity (Part 4)
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Our introduction to the Desert Air Motel…
Joe and I left for Sanderson before the dawn cracked. It was the first Friday in May and less than 3 weeks after we had first stumbled across the Desert Air Motel. This was to be our first official visit with the ole motel. We quietly rolled into town around 11am and planned on circling the joint, scoping out the town, and getting a general better feel for the community….
Read MoreSerendipity (Part 3)
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An unplanned return to Sanderson…
On the last day of our Big Bend trip, we decided to take a relaxing dip in the Hot Springs before heading back to our campsite. Everyone is pretty tired at this point of our trip, so we were looking forward to cooking some dinner on our camp stove and relaxing as the sun began setting. Unfortunately (or fortunately in hindsight) when we got back to our campsite we had a surprise visitor.
Read MoreSerendipity (Part 2)
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We return to Sanderson, intentionally this time…
Two months after our accidental stumbling into Sanderson we got the Big Bend itch again. This time our friends joined us for the trip. The usual form of travel to Big Bend these days has been to leave mid-day on day one and drive as far as Fort Stockton. After one night in Fort Stockton, day two of the journey begins with us on the road before sunrise. This allows us to see the beautiful sunrise colors against the West Texas mountains as we head south. It also gets us to Panther Junction Ranger Station just before 9am to ensure we are assigned a good back country camping spot. Once camp has been set up we still have half a day for hiking.
Read MoreSerendipity (Part 1)
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How a wrong turn led us to Sanderson, TX.
We love backcountry camping Big Bend National Park. There is nothing quite like waking up to ocotillo, cenizo, cactus and the Chisos Basin in the background. After another fabulous family camping trip in the Chihuahua Desert (which included micheladas and enchiladas in Boquillas, Mexico, of course), we were headed home toward Austin on a Monday morning. I took over driving at Marathon and proceeded to head north to Fort Stockton where Hwy 385 meets IH10 and we begin traveling east toward home. Anyway, that's how we usually go, but I missed the turn to Fort Stockton.
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