I awoke early to use the potty, in the hip chic bathroom/shower stalls that have as much privacy as a cattle pen, and frankly looked to be a repurposed one. The two bathrooms are separated as loosely, and it could be a peeping perv's heaven (not that I know anything about that btw). But it fits with the laid back stoned hippie feel of the place, and I can easily adapt, ponytail notwithstanding.
It was a bit cool early, as Marfa sits about 5000' in elevation IIRC, and is the recipient of winds coming down from the plains and plateaus further north, as well as the Davis Mountains, so I dragged the laptop into the small lobby area and stared bleary-eyed at the wall where I fantasized hot coffee would be waiting. The poser hippie chick didn’t care too much, but eventually she made it materialize and it tasted pretty good.
I popped open the Mac and checked emails, hoping for the chance to score a Nigerian prince's millions from an account, God Bless Me. No luck however so I decided to surreptitiously stare at the few stragglers who came in from the 50's trailers looking for java. I lifted my feet for the cleaning lady to mop under them, and watched a nicely dressed Spanish looking man check his email on his Mac, everything about him pristine and perfect, expensive watch, perfect leather organizer and pen, each hair in place, quite the opposite of me. I pondered the yin and yang of it, he and I in perfect contrast, keeping the world from spinning off it's axis.
I walked outside and looked up at the dull, gray, hazy sky, a bit bummed since I was anxious to get out and shoot some photos. One's percentage of good shots on overcast days is slim, especially in a vast flat landscape that screams for contrast and color, so I decided to hang in the lobby a bit more in hopes the sky would clear some.
In short order a young lady came in with her camera and Mac laptop, dressed absolutely as if were on a shopping spree in Neiman Marcus, perfectly made up, skin tight fashion jeans with top and expensive scarf wrap. Suddenly I was feeling underdressed for a chic hippie campground, as both she and the Spanish guy were squeaky clean, stylish and spiffy. God knows I'd tried to keep my favorite UnderArmor t-shirt in good shape, but it has a furry strip of fabric pulls right down the center from various zipper catches and lens caps flapping against it. Probably made worse by my iron-like six pack abs pushing the fabric against the zipper. Oh well, I was on vacation.
Bored of leering, I went outside to check the sky again and ended up at an old porcelain topped Corona table with a British couple, he having a bushy black beard and round John Lennon sunglasses. I asked how they'd ended up in Marfa, and they said they'd flown to California to be with the wife's dying mother, and after her passing decided to drive across the U.S. to see the country. They'd rented an SUV, and left California with intense warnings of how dangerous America was. They'd been warned that their car was guaranteed to be broken into, so somewhere along the way they had decided to make color copies of their passports and send the originals back to California for safekeeping by her sister
Needless to say, I felt a bit sorry for them that their journey had been so jaded by fear and bullshit, but I also said that they did need to be a bit cautious around big cities. He continued with the story that they'd had good luck until they reached the Border Patrol checkpoint on I-10 near the junction with I-20, a few miles west of Marfa, where he said the agents treated them as criminals since they only had copies of their passports. After lengthy interrogation they were told they would be allowed to go to Marfa with an escort and had to remain there until their passports arrived.
When they found out I lived near Fredericksburg, they asked about local cuisine and produced a list of restaurants and dives across the U.S. they had planned to visit. Turns out they were chefs in England and wanted to sample great, or at least different, foods on the trip. I suggested they hit Alamo Springs Cafe outside Fredericksburg for a great burger and music, and if possible to hit Cooper's BBQ in Llano, telling them on a good day it was some of the best in the world depending on which cow had come through that day.
After talking them to death, I headed for downtown Marfa to walk around a bit and wait for the skies, hitting the courthouse to climb to the top of the tower where some friends had gotten married, but it was closed that particular day. My amazing charm and looks could not persuade the County Clerk nor the judge standing next to her to allow me to go up.
So I wandered the empty streets, peering into vacant buildings through cloudy windows and reading faded signs, checking the galleries only to find them all closed. As an aside, if you visit Marfa be prepared for almost everything there to generally be closed, opening only at odd hours and random times of the week.
Bored and ready to ride (as you are too from reading this), I decided to head south for the Chinati Hot Springs to check out the place where I planned to spend a couple of days camping. I'd heard of it and seen it on the map but in previous trips was never able to take the time to ride out to it.
The cloud cover began to lift into high veils in the sky as I raced south on the blacktop Ranch Road 2810 through the vast plains of the big ranches on the high plateau. I stopped briefly to putz around with my GoPro for a bit of ride capture on the narrow blacktop road.
One thing about the area around Marfa is that if you like wide open spaces, you're in heaven. Beautiful plains with great skies, the occasional windmill or pronghorn antelope and long stretches of open road will be your companions.
Continuing southwest, I eventually reached the end of the blacktop where the road drops off the plateau edge and down into Pinto Canyon as it heads for the Rio Grande river and the border of Mexico. Pinto Canyon has long been known as a smuggler’s road, having carried various illegal items by couriers from Mexico for a very long time. I stopped to take in the view at the top and noticed that my custom-made filter mount for the GoPro had somehow let loose of the filtration I was using, tossing it somewhere in the last 30 miles. Oh well.
The high hazy clouds had left the landscape drearily flat in color and the continuous dust from the winds created a soft and distant feel to the canyon as I headed off for the mostly abandoned road junction at Ruidosa and the river road north of Presidio.
Pinto Canyon road to the Mexican border
Pinto Canyon is a favorite road of mine and I enjoyed the vistas and terrain, eventually passing the cut-off road that turns west for Chinati Hot Springs, but I decided to go all the way to the Mexican border before returning back north to the Springs. The terrain is a part of the Chihuahan Desert that runs north from within Mexico, a harsh and brutal landscape that chooses the few who live there. The sun was hot, despite the cool spring temperatures, the cool weather one of the reasons I had traveled west.
After reaching the river road at Ruidosa, I rode it to the western end and the tiny group of mobile homes that comprise Candelaria, literally where the road along the Rio Grande ends and isn’t picked up for a few hundred miles further west towards El Paso. Eventually I headed back and finally rumbled into the entrance to the hot springs, parking in front of the adobe cabins. I was the only vehicle there in the hidden little oasis. I walked around, looking at the campsites and community kitchen, listening to the ringing in my ears in the dead silence of the little canyon it resides in.
One of the cabins at the Chinati Hot Springs
Porch of the community kitchen and dining area
I eventually wandered up to the main house to the sound of intense barking from a large dog inside, a female owner's voice shushing the dog, or at least attempting to. When she opened the door, I told her I was planning on camping there in a couple of days and she said they stayed steadily booked, but if I was camping there was no problem this particular week. That was good to hear. I told her I'd be back in a couple of days, then wandered to the hot spring pools and enjoyed the utter silence.
The community kitchen
A rare sight
The sun had begun arcing lower and I figured it was time to start the long trek northward for Marfa and El Cosmico.
Running the rocky and dust covered road through the canyon was beautiful, a ride I always enjoy.
I paused again at the top where the road climbs to the plateau and shot a few photos in the setting light, sitting on the edge of a steep hill and looking out at the timeless landscape, puffs of wind whistling in the Spanish Dagger and dry grass around me.
Satiated with soft sounds and sunset, I fired up the German rolling rig and headed north to the blacktop section of road and the beautiful open land and sky ahead.
The fields on each side became a beautiful gold as the sun skimmed lower, my attention and motorcycle being drawn to the shoulder for photos, just to watch the light change.
Each time I see this lone tree, it reminds me of the scene in the Coen Bros movie "No Country For Old Men", some of which was filmed in the area.
Eventually I crested the large hill before descending to Marfa miles ahead, passing the lone white GMC Yukon with Border Patrol officer, stationed at his watching post just over the crest. I waved to him nonchalantly, figuring my bike was probably the most interesting thing he'd seen all day. I also figured at some point he'd stop me out of curiosity and I may as well start the brown-nosing early.
I arrived back at the Cosmico, swapped clothes and checked email on the patio, watching as a stylish couple arrived in a rental car and proceeded to unload their Gucci gear. The girl, a stunning blonde “Brigitte Bardot-esque” model type in painted-on black clothes, matched her companion perfectly, a tall thin man with sunglasses and black hair, he too in skin tight painted-on jeans and shirt. As they struggled to put their luggage into the little hand-pulled wagons provided for campers, I heard them arguing in French and wondered if they had flown all the way from France to this little berg in west Texas. Paint me blue and call me a Smurf, but I can tell you I'd sure as hell fly to somewhere else in the world if I had enough money to choose.
Somewhat tickled by the idea of someone leaving Paris to end up in an old travel trailer and having to do their business in an old cattle stall after spending a fortune to do so, I chuckled inside and watched as another rental car pulled in and a thin wiry guy and two girls got out, their clothes also betraying the fact they "warn't from around here" either. The threesome proceeded to mumble and unload a tent and backpacks and head for the tent camping area.
I was getting hungry and again asked the hip chick inside where to eat. She repeated the litany from the night before, asking herself what day it was, and then looking at the clock, then telling me I'd missed the one place that had been open that day and for 3 hours that afternoon. Again it seemed the bar at the El Paisano Hotel was the only place available.
I again repeated the same physical litany as the night before, this time eating inside the hotel bar rather than the patio, and choosing a corner from which to eat since I appeared about as attractive as a wet rat after riding all day. My thoughts wandered to the next day, when I hoped to get a bit more serious about trying to experiment with shooting a bit of video. As I mentioned previously, I’ve never done any video and wanted to see how feasible it might be when doing long term moto travel and camping. In the future, I have plans to travel from Alaska to South America and wonder how complex and time consuming it might be, adding to the already difficult issues of doing such a trip.
More mañana amigos...