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Texas Eagle

Amtrak

Sadly, you begin your Texas Eagle journey in late evening darkness. You stop at Needles and Yuma at night. Needles is officially the hottest city in America, being close to Death Valley. Five months a year, Needles sees 120 degree days and 90 degree nights. Swimming pools in Needles are like hot tubs.

The next stop is Yuma, which is surrounded on three sides by Mexico. It was a historic outlaw hideout, being so far from anywhere across hostile desert no lawmen came here. Today Yuma is a departure point for Organ Pipe Cactus National Park. It is also a popular retirement and tourist city and crossing point into Mexico. The Rio Grande flows around the city, allowing paddling and tubing.

As you awaken the first morning on the Texas Eagle, you'll look out your window at hillsides of Saguaro Cactus Forest. This majestic plant, largest of the Cacti, grows 40 feet tall and averages 150 years in age. They grow only in the Sonoran Desert. Many species of birds and small mammals burrow holes and live inside Sagauro, just as they do in hard wood trees elsewhere.

If the Saguaro you see are relatively thick, the area has recently had rain. If the Saguaro are slender, the area has been without rain for a while. Saguaro soak up water during and after a rain, becoming two or three times as big. Then they will slowly use up that water and shrink day by day for months until they are slender stems.

The inside of a Saguaro is like a huge sponge. Cowboys, miners and desert travellers learned from the Apache, Comanche and Mestizo to cut a section out of a Saguaro and squeeze it for the water.

Organ Pipe Cactus National Park was created specifically to protect the Saguaro. Many other species of Cacti live there, and along the Texas Eagle route, but the Saguaro is the symbol of the Sonoran Desert, as it can live nowhere else. Damaging or destroying a Saguaro is a state and federal crime and brings jail time and heavy fines.

Organ Pipe Cactus National Park will pass south of the tracks. It was created to serve as a sanctuary for the Saguaro, but protects another 100 Cactus, birds, wildflowers, and animal species. It's a beautiful place. There's no lodge. You stay in the town of Ajo. There are outstanding hiking and backpacking trails. The best place to get off the train, rent a car and drive to Organ Pipe is Maricopa. Heading westward the Texas Eagle arrives there about 9 pm., so you can stay overnight in a Maricopa hotel and drive south in the morning. Heading eastward the train arrives there about 6 a.m., so you can eat breakfast at a nearby restaurant, rent the car and drive south. It's a 90 minute drive. The Sonoran Desert Inn & Conference Center is the best place to stay in Ajo. There are several restaurants, mostly Mexican. The park's southern boundary is the Mexican border, so there's a steady flow of illegal immigrants through the area, but so far they have not bothered tourists. They mostly surrender to border patrol agents and request asylum.

Most people who have never visited the Southwest envision the desert as a table top flat landscape. But as you ride the Texas Eagle you learn that the desert is rarely level. Small hills and rocky mountains continuously jut upward. The hills are usually bare, while those high enough to be called mountains have trees and grass.

With a good pair of binoculars, especially at dawn and dusk, you can often spot Javalina, Sonoran Pronghorn Antelope, Ringtail Raccoon (which are much more slender and look more like cats than raccoons except for the head and face), Gray Wolves, Bobcats, Jaguars, Ocelots, and the ruler of the desert, the Sonoran Mountain Lion.

Living in or on the Saguaro Cactus are Elf Owls, Desert Wrens and the Sonoran Gila Woodpecker.

Look down on the ground close to the train for Scorpions, Roadrunners, Sonoran Squirrels, Gila Monsters, and Gopher Tortoises.

Guadalupe Mountains National Park is north of the railroad tracks on the New Mexico - Texas line. The view you get is of a dry, uninviting place, but beyond this outer rim is a high plateau of streams, rich grass and trees. It is a prime hiking and backpacking park, but is also home to many large mammals. There is no lodge but there is camping. The Guadalupe Mountains are one of the "sky islands" which dot the southwestern desert. They are surrounded on all sides by low elevation desert which animals cannot cross. Species are stranded, and have evolved on their own with some unique characteristics.

Carlsbad Caverns National Park is also just north of the railroad, although you never actually see any part of the park. Carlsbad is recognized as the most beautiful cave in the world. (It's not the biggest; that would be Mammoth Cave in Kentucky). It's definitely worth a stopover. You could rent a car, drive to the park, and take one of the several hours long cave tours. There is neither a lodge nor a restaurant in the park. Motels and restaurants are in nearby White's City and Carlsbad. There is no campground but you can primitive camp 100 yards off the roads and paths.

For both Guadalupe and Carlsbad, your best access would be to get off the train at El Paso, rent a car and drive out state route 62. Guadalupe is about 90 minutes, Carlsbad two hours, which includes the time it takes to get out of El Paso.

For hiking and/or camping, Summer is not a good time. A Spring or Fall trip would be far better. Winter is possible, with daytime temps in the mid 50s and nights in the 30s.

As you pull out of El Paso, the tracks turn away from the border and the Rio Grande and begin to climb. For the next 14 hours you'll be crossing the Texas High Country. This is the Texas of myth and legend, where Commanches, Apaches, cowboys, outlaws, the Texas Rangers, cattle barons, and oil prospectors gave Hollywood a rich mix of characters to feature. It's a dramatic landscape, with few towns or roads even today.

One such town is Alpine, where backpackers and tourists disembark, rent cars and drive south to Big Bend National Park.

You've left the Sonoran Desert behind and entered the northern reaches of the Chihuaha Desert.

Here the Saguaro is replaced by the Agave Havard, a spindly plant with beautiful yellow flowers. They live for 50 years. They provide fiber for ropes and sandals, and are the source of Tequila. The flowers are the key source of nectar for Desert Bats. There are several species of Agave growing up here but Havard is the most iconic. This is the northernmost extreme of its range, so they're not plentiful. 100 miles south, in Mexico, they grow in dense stands. You'll also see lots of Ocatillo Cactus, with a dozen leaves growing out from a single base, all producing a bright red flower.

The Texas Eagle doesn't treat San Antonio fairly. This historic town has one of the most beautiful stations in America, as seen at right. Inside the station is America's #1 Mexican restaurant, Aldaco's. Only two blocks away is the Alamo and the Crockett Hotel, a block beyond that is the Riverwalk, and beyond that is a large Mexican marketplace. The Eagle stops here for two hours, plenty of time to see some of these attractions. But it does so from 5 - 7 a.m. Most through passengers don't even wake up until the train is pulling out. On the westward trip, the Eagle stays five hours, but still in the middle of the night. That's a shame for another reason. The Eagle spends those hours changing crews, being serviced and being rearranged. Half of the cars and the dining car are uncoupled, given another engine, and sent on to New Orleans as the Sunset Limited. The Eagle then gets its own dining car and proceeds to Chicago. Heading westward, the cars coming from New Orleans are coupled onto the Eagle to continue on to Los Angeles. But very few are awake to see all this.

Austin is another city worth a day or two stopover. It is, of course, the state capitol, and home of the University of Texas. Those two attractions alone can take up a day. But Austin has also become the music and art center of Texas. They've cleaned up and landscaped the river and there's canoeing, kayaking and paddle boarding on it. There are museums, parks, several hundred good restaurants, and unique stores.

Unlike Yuma and San Antonio, Amtrak in either direction arrives and departs from Austin in the daytime, not in the middle of the night.

From Austin, the Texas Eagle heads up through East Texas. Most of Arkansas and part of Missouri are crossed in darkness. On the third morning you get a great view of St. Louis and the Gateway Arch.

If you haven't visited the Arch, St. Louis would be a deserving day's stopover. There's a museum, documentary film, and a ride up the Arch itself in small cars. Riverboats offer hour or two cruises up and down the Mississippi. You could catch a Cardinals game at the stadium.

Then it's off across Illinois. Barring unexpected delays, the Eagle pulls into Chicago in early afternoon. Lunch will be your last meal on the train.