If somebody were to follow my wife Anna Griobh and me around with a camera and a notebook and chronicle our lives, then publish it in an adventure magazine (or more likely Penthouse) people would read it and say, "Yeah, well nobody really lives like them. That only happens in National Geographic".

Anna and I started living "The National Geographic Lifestyle" in 2000 when we moved to the Chihuahuan Desert, in the Big Bend region of west Texas; Brewster and Presidio counties, to be precise.

At the southern-most end of the elbow in the Rio Grande, in Brewster county, there's a place called Terlingua; "Chili Capitol of the World".

Both world championship chili cook-offs (Tolbert-Fowler and CASI) are held there in the first weekend of November. Some 20,000 people decend on this dusty, parched land called "the Devil's Playground" for a week of tequilla-soaked revelry to determine who makes God's own chili. They decide, then they're gone.

Other than that, you can't find a decent bowl of red there to save your life. Except maybe at the Starlight Theatre.

Let me explain.

"Chile" is a fabrication. Rattlesnake meat, pork, ground beef; do you really think anybody down there actually has access to these things?

No, never, or rarely. At least, not as a primary component to any dish they'd see emerge from la cocina.

Mexican "chile" is:

• Pretty much vegetarian,
• Seasoned with machaka (dessicated beef),
• Thickened with masa (corn meal), and
• So freakin' hot that most gringos won't touch it.

Anna Griabh makes an excellent Mexican stew. Short of a visit to Pancho Villa's stronghold, or perhaps the village of Paso Lajitas, it's about as close as you're gonna' get to the real thing.

Ask her for her recipe. You'll love it.

The old town of Terlingua, now a ghostown, is the social hub of a scattered population of 600 or so people spread out over about 2000 square miles of scorched desert. I managed the ghostown for a while, and Anna owned and operated an art gallery called La Sirena, "The Mermaid". It was a boutique as well, and the only place you could find awesome clothing within 250 miles. The next nearest locale would have been Chihuahua City, Chihuahua, Mexico.

Long drive for a good corset.

We met some wonderful people in the Big Bend, and lived a quiet existence on the southern edge of 1600 acres, surrounded by Big Bend Ranch State Park to the north, east and west, and the state of Chihuahua, Mexico to the south, across the road and the Rio Grande. We called our camp Ranco Sin Ropa, "Ranch Without Clothes".

We had great tans then.