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Published: March 7th 2017
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We awoke Saturday morning to the strangest sound, a pitter-patter on our aluminum roof, it was raining! Larry the manager had just told us the day before that it was almost a month since their last rain of any sort. Well, we took care of that – you're welcome! As we walked around the camper, doing the things that must be done before departure, we both noticed the same phenomenon, we seemed to be getting taller as we walked. We soon realized that the tan colored dirt of the RV lot had been made just sticky enough by the light rain to form a paste with impressive adhesive properties, it stuck to everything., including the souls of our shoes. As we backed Moby up to hitch to Fred, I noticed a ring forming around the truck tires at least an inch thick. And when we pulled out, we were definitely starting to slither around a bit, but we made it safely to the pavement without resorting to 4 wheel drive.
Back onto the blacktop, we headed south in a continuing light rain, traveling towards Lajitas. That tiny town is the location of an impressive upscale resort and RV
development. They even have one of those crazy desert golf courses there, the kind with no fairways, just tees, greens, and “landing zones” – separated by native desert. The consequences of me attempting to play one of those is too horrifying to contemplate. Besides the usual sand wedge, I would need those of the “rock” and “cactus” variety as well.
After Lajitas, the road (Texas Rt 170) turns west towards Presidio, about 50 miles away. Just a few words about this glorious ribbon of pavement: I consider myself a bit of a connoisseur of what I call “sporting” roads, the kind that are ideal to carve up on a bike, or in a sports car. I've traveled a lot of those type of roads in my time, but I have to say, Texas Rt 170 just may be my favorite. Not as twisty as some of the famous southern Appalachian roads, and surely not with the fabulous ocean views of California Highway 1, but for all-around turns, grades, and views, 170 is stunning.
Of course, our present rig would be seen by many as a less
than ideal tool for the job, but we still loved the run. For most of those 50 miles, the road runs right along the Rio Grande. Where the flood plain is wide enough, it follows the twists and turns of the river, only a bit above the water, but when the hills squeeze in, the pavement goes up and down with abandon. This whole trip, in all the hills we have climbed with our rig, we have been able to pull the grades easily in 4
th or 5
th gear. Here though, on several occasions, Moby had to put his shoulder into the job, around 35 mph in 3
rd, pulling like a locomotive. For views, the river was right there, and just to the south in Mexico, rose a huge range of mountains, splendid!
As we neared Presidio, the hills and mountains dwindled away, and the flood plain widened enough to allow for a prosperous-looking and green agricultural area. A huge change in just a few miles. At Presidio, we turned north and said goodbye to the Rio Grande. We've certainly enjoyed or time on the that southern border stream, so different from our
northern one.
Now we headed straight up to cover the 60 or so miles to Marfa TX. Not a lot to see on this road, though it followed a massive pipeline construction project, I'll have to remember to do some research on that. Our first objective in Marfa would be a place to camp. We had heard from a young guy from Maine that we were talking to in Big Bend of a place called “El Cosmico”. He said it was a funky place where you could rent yurts, tents, old restored travel trailers, or park your own RV. We located it without difficulty, and he was right, it was almost off the scale on our funk-O-meter. We went into the office to register, and found ourselves in a cool sort of store/lobby, with couches and a fire in the hearth. In the store section there was all kinds of arty merchandise, including a wide-brimmed felt hat that look fantastic on Cathy. No price tag, so she asked at the counter – $210 – not THAT fantastic....
There were also books for sale there too, some
of western art, and also a lot on LGBT subjects. That included two coloring books that I found of interest. Page after page, ready for your colored pencils or crayons, and the subject? Lets just say it was primarily gynecological in nature, and leave it at that. As an aside, seeing these books led to me experiencing a vivid dream that night – I was back in first or second grade, with Mrs. Timmerman as my teacher. She was, in her way, gently admonishing me for sloppy work in my coloring book (yes, THAT coloring book). She was telling me to take my time, and try to stay inside the lines. Also, (knowing of my color blindness) that due to the subject matter, green was really not an appropriate color.
So that was our first introduction to Marfa, that strange sunburned and dusty little town on the west Texas plain. We toured around the sites a bit, there are lots of art galleries that you can just walk into, many of them without even so much as a sign out front. I will not pretend to know anything about contemporary art, and I
certainly don't understand the commercial side of it. The works are displayed there, but are they for sale? Nothing so gouache as a price tag to be seen of course. Never the less, it was fun to just walk about. Here too, as in Marathon, there is a great old hotel, in this case, The Hotel Piasano. We wandered around the lobby and the first floor retail space and it was very interesting. Lots of big pictures of the cast and crew of the movie “Giant”-- as they stayed here during the location shoot just outside of town. Rock Hudson, Liz Taylor, James Dean (his final film), and a crazy young looking Dennis Hopper – a real treat for a film buff like me.
It's a town that looks like it's at home in Texas, but acts like it's in California. I can thinking of nothing more indicative of that than the local radio station. For the first time in forever, there was no country music, and no bible thumpers, the only game in town was NPR – wow.
We grabbed a pizza for lunch ( we had been far too long without the essential vitamin “P”) and it was really good. I complimented the guy by saying: “That was a good pie, even by NY standards” He then smiled and told us that he was from Providence, RI, but that he learned to make pizza in the Bronx – figures.
After we went back, I enjoyed a great shower in one of El Cosmico's outdoor stalls. It was very reminiscent of ours on the dock back home, but alas, no ship traffic to watch from here. Tomorrow we plan to head north, up to Guadalupe Mountains NP for some more hiking – on the road again.
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