Austin to Marfa TX – Day 5

We awoke in our suite in Austin, hit the Starbucks, filled the cooler with ice and headed South on I-35 toward San Antonio. I’d been to San Marcos and Banfels, but never further south. Essentially that 90 mile stretch is an endless series of quick serve restaurants, national restaurant chains and gas stations.

We parked in San Antonio and visited the Alamo. Rick has read Texas by James Michener and had a much better grounding in Texas history than I. Suffice it to say It’s Complicated. I’m sure that in the same way that I grew up internalizing the history of the American Revolution including the details of Paul Revere and Plymouth Rock, in Texas children learn in state history about the times when the area where they live was part of Mexico called Tejas, and about the fight for independence from Mexico. This would include the Alamo, where Davy Crockett and David Bowie died along with others from all over the young United States. A few months later the ‘”tejians” defeated Santa Ana and won freedom from Mexico. Texas was an independent country for only a few years before joining the United States.

Before departing San Antonio we went along the river to have breakfast at The Guenther House. Breakfast Tacos and a waffle: this is a 2 meal day for sure.

Heading out from San Antonio we consulted the GPS which directed us to US 90 rather than I-10. Projected time for US 90 was actually faster than for I-10 and yes, I pushed to go that way.  US 90 brought us along a winding path approximately following the Rio Grande. Only 2 lanes, one in each direction , and a 75 mph limit except as we approached the stop lights in little towns of only a few hundred poeple. Initially we passed through the beautiful Amistead National Resource Area with breath taking views for many miles. We enjoyed miles of Texas wild flowers. None of the Bluebonnets we see in the Hill Country outside Austin, but miles of Black Eyed Susan’s then yellow coreopsis and finally some flowering cacti.

Evidently a tremendous amount of goods move across the US on freight trains that are at least a mile long and travel the tracks along US 90. We must have seen 15 of them carrying all types of train cars, including lots of doubled up containers.

We drove through a brief rainstorm. Then some weird things happened. Initially I thought we’d entered another shower, but the noise was actually bugs hitting the windshield en masse until it was hard to see through the bodies.  Then the flowers came out on the cacti. Quite lovely.

We were pretty much alone on the highway for many miles at a time. And when we did see vehicles they were either Border Patrol or trucks. We were stopped and questioned by the Border Patrol at an Immigration checkpoint. We decided that the perfect cover for smuggling people across the border would be to buy a Camry  Put on some NJ plates and hang some khaki pants and striped Oxford cloth shirts in the back! They let us go after we confirmed that we were US citizens.

We could see the Big Bend National Park to our south and the Davis Mountains to the north in the distance. And buttes everywhere. Absolutely no cell or wi-fi service except at one rest stop. We were pretty much alone. When I checked there was not one radio station on either AM or FM band. In the end we were quite happy to have made the choice to take US 90. It was a unique experience.

We finally pulled into Marfa Texas at about 7:30 PM and checked into the El Paisano . Marfa was a cattle trading center along the railroad. In the 1950s the movie Giant was filed in Marfa starring James Dean (in his last movie) opposite Elizabeth Taylor. They all stayed at the El Paisano which was also featured in the film.  The movie plays continuously in one room.

In the early 70s an artist named Donald Judd moved out from NYC and took over 2 abandoned hangars at the closed air base and buried Large concrete boxes in the ground. Although he’d been trying to get away, this led to the expansion of Marfa as an artist haven. It’s located at about 4300 ft above sea level and has a population of about 2100 people. I’d guess not too many are native Texans. One storefront containing handmade furniture listed 2 locations: Marfa and Brooklyn.

We ate at a cute little restaurant called Cochineal and had 4 small plates. I forgot my camera so we’ll just tell you we had salad, duck confit, crunchy artichoke hearts and fried chicken. Much is made on the Internet about their Date Pudding, but we most enjoyed the fresh blueberry sorbet that they make there. And we were surprised to find that they serve 6 beers and one is Brooklyn Brown Ale!