After the Carlsbad tour, we set off directly for the next stop - dinner in Alpine, Texas. We had thought we might go check in in the hotel in Marfa, first, but due to some navigational issues we initially went the wrong way and had to make up time. Although it was a happy accident, as otherwise we wouldn't have gone past Guadalupe Mountains National Park, with its amazing formations, such as this one.
This part of the trip is also the only place we really got rained on. We saw a lot of lighting in New Mexico and Arizona, but - other than a strong shower in Tucson - no rain. The rain was waiting for us in Texas - the opening into blue sky straight ahead in this photo quickly closed up and it rained hard enough to severely limit visibility. Fortunately, the rain only lasted 15 or 20 minutes.
In the last picture, if you look to the side, you'll see a weird white blimpy-looking thing. We saw it from a long distance away, and the scale of it seemed completely wrong. As we got closer we realized it was just huge. Even right next to it from the road we couldn't decide if it was real or some kind of art installation.
Alison noticed as we drove past a subtle sign that said "U.S. Air Force". After some googling, we discovered this is a drug trafficker surveillance blimp. We were just lucky to see it on the ground instead of floating up high looking for illegal plane flights.
Finally we got to Alpine. Alpine is the location of one of the two Reata Restaurants in Texas. The other is in Fort Worth, but this is the original. It had some wonderful food, including a jalapeno-cilantro cheddar soup, the jalapeno grits you see in this picture, and a tortilla soup that Cielo liked so much she declared "I want to live in Texas!"
Here's Cielo with her soup, and Granddad kindly paying the check later.
On the way back to Marfa, we stopped at the official Marfa Lights viewing platform. We looked and looked in the dark for the Marfa lights, and eventually realized we had been looking at them for a while - they were kinda of yellowish and round, and if you didn't know that there were no houses or cars over there they would be easily overlooked.
We didn't get a useful pictures of the lights, but here's a picture of some of the lightning that was flashing regularly.
When we got to the hotel, the manager had gone to bed. There were several envelopes taped to the front door with different names written on them and the appropriate keys inside. We were all sharing a giant suite (seven people altogether), which was fine, except the fold out couch Paul was assigned to was half collapsed. It probably hadn't been used in a while; definitely not by an adult anyway.
We didn't get to swim at this hotel, but some of us got to visit the pool, where Alison took this picture of a leaf bug on a railing.
After our visit to Chinati (see the next page), we came back and had lunch at this little Mexican place in Marfa - partly because it was one of the only places open on Sunday. It was pretty good! Later back at our hotel we heard more visitors asking if anything was open and directed them back to this place.
Eero + Marfa = photogenic.
Works for Alison too (photo by Eero).
