The Journey |
Being a compendium of thoughts as we drive and drive and....
The Journey |
We ended up spending a full 14 days in Texas! Nice to be in New Mexico. A bit of a disappointment this morning, as Marfa Burrito, a hole in the wall reputed to have the best breakfast burritos in West Texas, was closed again. Sigh. The morning was taken up with a tour of the Judd Foundation buildings. These are the places he worked and sometimes lived. Most interesting was his collection of art and furniture. A lot of mid-century artists and designers (Albers, Reitveld, Aalto, Breuer), Rembrandt etchings, a Matisse drawing, and his own paintings from before 1962, when he stopped painting and turned to sculpture exclusively. We both liked many of the paintings. A not too long drive on very straight West Texas road brought us first to the town of Valentine with the tongue in cheek Prada Marfa, a truly weird piece of art 35 miles outside of town. The fence around the property is one of the spots people leave locks, stickers and other mementos.
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We spent the day at the Chinati Foundation (https://chinati.org), which is “an art museum…based upon the ideas of its founder, Donald Judd.” His basic idea was to create permanent installations of art produced by a small set of artists that he admired. Works by 11 artists are included in the collection, many of them monumental. The Foundation is located on a closed military base and the old buildings – barracks, an airplane hangar, artillery sheds, etc. – have been recycled into galleries, usually one artist per building. These being the friends of Donald Judd, it is perhaps not surprising that, like much contemporary art, some of the works left us feeling cold. There were a few that stood out – Dan Flavin’s neon sculptures, Oldenburg and van Bruggen’s giant horseshoe, Ilya Kabakov’s recreation of an abandoned Soviet school, photographs by John Chamberlain (as opposed to his big metal sculptures, which were uninteresting), and John Wesley’s paintings. Perhaps most surprisingly, given our lukewarm reaction to Judd’s exterior works yesterday, the major installation of his work - 100 untitled works in mill aluminum – did strike a chord. Each of the works has the same outside dimensions and are made of the same material, with different spaces and interiors. They are installed in 2 huge buildings, lined up in rows. Something about the repetition yet the differentiation, in a confined space, made them more than just a set of blocks. (Photography wasn’t allowed, but the home page of the Foundation’s website has a picture.)
Also notable today was that after days of 90 degree weather, it was below 50 in the morning and we were wearing puffy jackets and hats. Supposedly, it will be back to “normal” (hot) tomorrow. This was a harbinger of things to come, however, as we will be heading north, where, according to the weather reports, it will be significantly colder than in the West Texas desert.
We went out to Chinati to see the work not included on our guided tour tomorrow. Maybe it was the heat, but we both discovered we are not really Donald Judd fans. What does that mean for the next two days? We found our way to the historic and segregated Blackwell School (https://www.theblackwellschool.org) which served the Hispanic children of Marfa. It has been preserved thanks to the work of the school’s alumni and it was recently designated a National Historic Site. Today there was a Block Party to celebrate, which mean the site was busy and festive. It has such an interesting history and the community seems to have really come togther to celebrate it. It’s a great project. https://www.texasmonthly.com/being-texan/marfas-blackwell-school-has-a-painful-past-thats-why-the-town-wants-to-save-it/ Ended the day with a great Tex Mex dinner in a hole-in-the-wall, thanks to Yelp.
On our way to Marfa, we went up to Fort Davis to visit the McDonald Observatory (https://mcdonaldobservatory.org/about), a very cool place. The big telescope wasn't open but it is incredibly important historically. The Hobby Eberly is an unusual telescope – see the interior photo - that has been updated to be a leading resource for research into Dark Energy (https://hetdex.org). Our home for three nights in Marfa is a “Modern Mini” AirBnB just a half block from the main drag. It seems brand new and utterly charming. Thoughtful hosts left chilled sparking wine, chocolate, nuts, and cold drinks.
Yesterday was our last day in the Big Bend area and we spent it on the river. We did what they call a boomerang trip into St. Elena canyon – paddling upstream into the canyon in the morning, stopping for lunch, and then paddling downstream back to the put in in the afternoon. The paddling was generally easy, although there were some challenges going upstream. There were places where the river narrowed and the current was challenging, and other places where it was so shallow that we had to get out of the kayaks and drag them over the gravel bars. The canyon itself is impressive. It’s a cleft in an otherwise impassable barrier where the river has carved 1500 foot walls as it meanders through the rock. We ate our lunch on the Mexico side, but no one noticed. Also we learned that below El Paso (which uses all the river's water), the Rio Grande runs dry. All the water down here comes from the Rio Conchos in (and controlled by) Mexico. Gracias! And there was a roadrunner at breakfast. The park puts an image of one on the signs for roadside exhibits but neither that nor Looney Tunes prepared us for how small they are.
We had a fun day in Big Bend Ranch State Park, to the west of the national park. The visitor center had a small, but very interesting (and well done) exhibit on the history of this area – geological, cultural, and natural. We hope our entrance fee and the money we spent on a T shirt goes towards the parks, not the state’s general fund! The geology continues to astonish us… hoodoos and a slot canyon were the destinations of our shorter walks. And the slot canyon had some shade – a rare commodity in the Big Bend. Laura's knee brace is doing its job, but scrambling up rocks and putting all her weight on a bent knee can be worrisome. Local bbq joint for dinner was barebones but delicious. And we have enough leftovers for two more meals.
Laura's Wordle streak ended yesterday with that damn [x]ound word...but Bee Buddy helped her get to Queen Bee today. And we don't mean the chili. Nothing like fear of heat stroke to ruin your day. We KNEW the trail looked unpromising… 5 miles round trip with no shade and 90 degree heat. But a group we passed said the petroglyphs were worth it. So we continued on. And saw a second rattler on the trail. The petroglyphs were cool but it was a long hot hike back to the car. Cactus flowers only went so far to divert us. We were done hiking for the day. The rest of our sightseeing was from the car. Amazing landscape and interesting history of the riverfront town of Castolon. The Mule's Ears fit perfectly. Now we are in Terlingua Ghost Town in an old motel that’s been refurbished. When we pulled up at 5, there was already a line for dinner at the Starlight Theater Restaurant and Saloon. At 7:15, we had a 90 minute wait.
As noted yesterday, this is the home of the Terlingua International Chili Championship (TICC), the granddaddy of all chili competitions, and also headquarters for chili cookoffs worldwide. CASI (Chili Appreciation Society International: https://www.casichili.net; motto: “Chili, Charity and Fun”), the sanctioning body for chili competitions, is down the road. Ed’s chili is an adaptation of a TICC award-winning recipe and it is much better than what we had for dinner. Maybe he can stay and join their board. This is the third of our three nights in Big Bend. Tomorrow we move to Terlingua, home of west Texas chili and other culinary delights! It will be a welcome change. We started the day driving out to Boquillas Canyon. We had hoped to float or paddle the river, but this late in the year, water levels are too low so we will be taking a different trip later in the week. Nevertheless a beautiful canyon, with an entrepreneur with a canoe on the Mexico side offering to bring over chicken tamales and other treats. We weren’t hungry, alas. As one person observed, for generations the river was a connection not a border and people crossed freely from the Park to the Mexican town of Boquillas del Carmen to work, eat, visit, etc. Then, after 9/11 the border was closed and people were cut off from each other. Ten years ago they reopened it as the only unstaffed legal border crossing on the US/Mexico border. It is open four days a week and there is only a Park Service employee present. The crossing to Mexico by flat boat ferry was closed today, but we loved the gate barring the road! This was also a day Laura passed two other women in serious knee braces and a third who looked at her and said, “damn, I left my brace in the hotel.” Our second hike was hot and exposed, with no shade offering relief. But wow, the flowers. We learned that we are in the Chihuahuan Desert. Did NOT see any namesake dogs. We ended the day with a short hike to the hot springs. Given that the car said it was 113 degrees, the appeal might have been limited. But by switching back and forth from the river to the springs (in the remnants of the old bath house) it was fun. In the heyday, you could stay for $1 a day and take the waters for 25 cents. Waiting for dinner, we experienced a desert sun-thunderstorm … lighting to the left, full sun to the right. And a double rainbow.
A beautiful day in Big Bend – sunny, a bit hot (80’s), but not too bad. It gets down to the 50’s at night, so even though our room is not air conditioned, it stays cool and comfortable. Spent the day on trails near the lodge. A short trail with a view of the rock formation called The Window and then a longer one that took us out to The Window itself. It’s a pour off – although there is no flowing water now – with a slippery rock edge that could be quite dangerous but, surprisingly, the Park Service has not blocked it off or put up warning signs. No nanny state in Texas. The late afternoon was spent relaxing and reading and then dinner at the Lodge, which maintains the tradition of okay, but uninspired food at the park lodges. OTOH, Laura got to try chicken fried steak and the peach cobbler was excellent.
We had our second longest drive today and it took us to the extreme southwest corner of the journey – Big Bend National Park. Food and driving seem to have consumed the whole day! We had a good breakfast at a local spot that was clearly ready for weekend hordes. We counted 10 employees serving and coming out of the kitchen. This was not the first time that we observed that the Texas service industry does not seem to have a labor shortage. We had to stop at the local smokehouse in honor of Brian, who would have loved it. We would have bought a lot more if we weren’t on the road. No spoon rests to be found in Fredericksburg, and while we are in Texas for 9 more days, it seemed like our best bet. Most of the rest of the day was an incredibly boring drive across West Texas through some of the least interesting scenery we’ve ever driven through. Straight roads, mostly flat vistas across the hot, stinking desert, occasionally relieved by something like the pyramidal mesa. Real Tex Mex lunch in Fort Stockton and a stop at the last Walmart for provisions. That’s where we left the interstate and drove the long, non-winding road south to the park. Only in the last 60 miles did the geography get more dramatic, the cacti were in bloom (along with the wildflowers) and we came to understand why we are here. We are staying at the Chisos Mountain Lodge in the park for three nights, in the room absolutely the furthest from the visitor center and lodge. Long climb to our room, but the payoff is the view. Another observation…. Many of our fears about the politics of the south have not been realized. The only Trump signs we’ve seen were between Houston and Austin. And except for the 1 star reviews about the smokehouse because they required masks, there is evidence of the remnants of pandemic carefulness everywhere.
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