Morning consisted of my usual routine: 1. Try to stand up, 2. Try to remember who I am and, 3. Put pants on before going out in public. Wonder if they'd notice at Cosmico? Probably.
But the coffee was good once again, and I warmed my fingers over a hot MacBook Pro downloading pics and trying to think of witty comments for the blog. I got stuck on the first line, which started with "I..." (cause it's all about “me") and was about to think of the second word when the wiry guy who'd arrived the evening before with the two girls popped into the Cosmico lobby, fiddling with the artsy door latch that every person who enters does. He proceeded to look around, exploring the general vicinity of the coffee pot and then boldly and loudly asking the tatted hippie chick if they had any "hot tea".
The words thudded to the ground with no response and he seemed a bit lost, so I stood up and told him to hang on, that I had some individual tea packets in my tent. And, would he prefer English Breakfast, Earl Grey or Irish Breakfast tea? He looked at me like one would look at Frankenstein’s monster asking for a dance. He said "well, any is fine actually." Using my brilliant powers of deduction I figured he would actually need three and headed for my tent to find the 8 year old tea bag packets that I'd been carrying around in my tank bag for 6 years, glad to pawn them off on someone and still look like a hero.
When I returned he thanked me in a slight yankee accent and made up a couple of cups and disappeared. I was still stuck on "I" when he returned with the two girls, all carrying Mac laptops and cell phones with notepads. The two girls spoke in lovely British accents, or maybe it was two lovely girls who spoke in British accents, or maybe it was two lovely British girls who spoke in lovely British accents - it was early so I’m not sure - but they proceeded to start making calls, checking emails and talking to various folks about "shoots" and I realized they were doing production for some form of media.
About the same time, the girl who'd been dressed so fashionista the previous morning, came in with her cameras and laptop, followed shortly by three hipsters with bushy beards, tight pants and plaid shirts, all sporting old film cameras, including a Hasselblad 500CM. They began discussing shooting and such, and I enjoyed eavesdropping, finding it interesting to see them shooting film with retro gear. As a photographer for 30 years, it was fun seeing the art still alive and I started talking to them a bit. Turns out the fashionista girl had been driving to Marfa and needed gas, pulling off the highway at what she thought was a gas station only to find it abandoned. Shortly after stopping, an old van pulled in and the three guys had piled out, they too needing gas and fooled by the sign. The guys were on the way to Austin from LA to play a gig and she told them about Marfa, so they had followed her and were going to spend a couple of days in town. Cool.
About that time, one of the Brit gals came over to thank me for the tea and I acted as if it were nothing (but now hoping desperately that they not die from "old tea” poisoning, since everyone in the place now knew who gave it to them). In conversation it turned out that the two girls were filming a documentary about the most famous lion tamer in the world, a guy from Texas who'd lived in the early 1900's, and so impressive a tamer that Haile Selassie, the Emperor of Ethiopia, had given him his two personal royal lions as pets.
That was news to me, but at this point in my life and especially in Marfa, I'll believe anything. The guy with them was a filmmaker from New York City, an associate of a world famous documentary film-maker and had agreed to do the film they were to direct.
They'd all met up in New York and then flown into Midland, rented a car and driven down the day previous. The girl, Sophie, told me that they had a week in Texas and were going to drive from Marfa to Houston, then down to Brownsville and then back to El Paso. Though I knew the answer, I asked if she realized just how big Texas was and just how much driving they would be doing in one week…
We continued talking and Sophie shared that she and her friend Liberty, had both worked in production for feature films in London before striking out on their own to make documentaries. They shared a converted river barge on the Thames in downtown London. She said they had managed to record a video of an amazing phenomena which it had gone viral, being picked up by news agencies and television the world over. The money they'd gotten from this had financed their current research trip to Texas. She showed me the video, called “Murmuration” and I got chills watching it. It was filmed on her iPhone after all their video camera batteries had been used up during filming that day. Truly stunning.
They asked if I had any suggestions as to travel from Marfa, and I told them to hit Presidio then Terlingua by Hwy 170 and catch the sunset from the porch in the Ghost Town, dinner at the Starlight Theater and then thru Big Bend out to Marathon. From there I told them to take 90 east to see the old sights, telling them to stop at Langtry, seat of Judge Roy Bean, and was about to explain a bit of history when the wiry guy jumped in. He was very excited and said he'd studied Judge Roy Bean extensively in college, excited to know they would be passing through Langtry. After I'd gotten a lengthy history lesson on Bean from him, I told them that if they went through Brackettville, to find the ranch where the recreation of the Alamo was and to charm their way in, since it was now closed to the public. I told them it was a Texas symbol and may be useful for imagery in a story about Texas.
The skies still sucked, being overcast and gray, but I hit the little Mexican restaurant in town for a breakfast of huevos rancheros, with possibly the hottest sauce I'd ever eaten. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyaaaaaaaaa!
After I could see again, I floored it for Pinto Canyon to start shooting some video and testing some camera mounts. I flew past the Border Patrol SUV and waved again, cresting the high hill only to find a woman trying to have a peaceful walk with her golden retriever, who of course bolted onto the road to all of our surprise. All I can say is thank God for ABS brakes.
The road descending into Pinto Canyon
I spent time slowly exploring the dusty road in Pinto Canyon, hoping the sky would clear but to no avail. Most of the afternoon was spent stopping and setting up a camera, or laying on the ground adjusting a GoPro, and by the time it started getting late and the light finally began to improve, I was worn out from dragging my fat ass on and off the bike all day.
I'm sure I looked highly suspicious to whatever technology the Border Patrol uses to monitor the road, and sure enough an SUV arrived to question me. The guys were all young, sweating and tired looking, so their questioning was half hearted and they moved on, but I surreptitiously watched as they drove higher in elevation and eventually stopped to glass me for a while.
(This is my surreptitious look)
I had spent the afternoon shooting video and fiddling with things mostly, though eventually the light began to improve late in the day. Forgive my lack of still imagery but the day was spent wrestling with video - so tough titties.
I continued shooting as the sun began to sink and worked my way up to the plateau to take a break and watch the sunset.
Indulge me a bit on the sunsets...
I don't know what it is exactly, but there is a magic to this area of Texas, especially in the evenings, that enters one's soul and never leaves. It's found when you sit in silence and watch the never changing hills change in the light.
It was after dark by the time I hit the asphalt on the way back to Marfa and I was wishing for more headlight, my recently installed Wunderlich dual headlights an improvement over the stock by far, but never enough. Just as I began to relax a bit, a large herd of javelina rocketed from the brush and flowed across the road like a stream. I barely missed them and the adrenaline popped me wide awake, to say the least.
I stayed intently focused on the road for a while and eventually saw what seemed to be a large black blob in the road ahead, just at the dimmest edge of my headlights. I blinked multiple times to make sure it wasn't fatigue, but the dark mass seemed to stay ahead of me.
It was a little disconcerting seeing a dark mass that I wasn’t getting closer and I began to wonder, hitting the throttle to see if I could discern what it was, if anything. As I sped from about 65 up to 80, I began to see more and more shape as I began to get closer, and by the time I was approaching it, I saw that the black shape was, in fact, the tail end of an old flatbed truck and as I moved into the opposite lane and closed on it, I could see there were no license plates, no tail lights or lenses, no glass windows, chrome or even shiny paint. There were no lights or headlights on and it was painted in flat black and flat brown. Whatever truck it was, it had been blacked out completely and any form of reflectivity removed. It was also traveling about 65 mph in complete darkness with no headlights or lights of any form.
By this time I was peeling past it and trying to figure it out, when I looked ahead and saw another flatbed a few yards in front, traveling fast and totally blacked out as well... however this truck had a high-tech dune buggy of sorts on the back - flat dull black and brown as well. It was just as blacked out as the first truck and traveling just as fast, the two running together with no headlights. I wasn’t sure what to think and was totally confused at the sight. Then my mind began to race as to what I’d accidentally run up on in this vast remote area and really pegged the throttle to blast past and get on ahead.
Both trucks were old 60's era flatbeds, beat up and painted flat black and dark brown and were hauling ass down a pitch black road with no lights of any sort. As I wondered how shocked they were to be overtaken by a motorcycle coming out of the canyon behind them so late, I also was a bit wowed and figured I'd just passed some sort of secret military observation unit or something, because all I know is they had to be using night vision goggles to drive that fast with no lights.
In short order they disappeared in the darkness behind me and I raced on at higher speeds than normal, probably pushing 100 mph the more I thought about the incident. It was a deadly thing to do on a motorcycle at night, but thankfully no animals came into the road and I eventually slowed down. Marfa was still a long ways away, as it’s roughly 30 miles of blacktop from the canyon edge I’d just left.
After a while, I saw the reflective stickers of a Border Patrol truck ahead, and began slowing since I knew there was no way he'd let a motorcycle coming out of that canyon in the dark go past unchallenged. In fact I debated just pulling over and rolling up to him to save him the trouble, but also knew he'd be very tense and I had no desire to be shot. So I slowed to about 60 as I went past and watched in the rear view as his lights came on, the headlight beams wavering back and forth as he slid around on the shoulder and gassing it.
Shortly after, the red and blues began flashing a good 1/2 mile behind me, so I pulled off into the long grass and waited, remaining on the bike and keeping both hands on the bars for his sake.
After stopping a good 20 yards behind, he made a wide berth with flashlight to my right, hand on his gun and began asking me questions. I asked him if I could remove my helmet and he agreed. I told him I'd been photographing in the canyon late and got caught after dark. After he'd checked my license and talked a bit, I saw him relax and the tension dissipated. We ended up talking for a long while, illuminated by his headlights in the dark. I joked that I had debated just pulling over to his car, but had thought better of it. He laughed and then we talked motorcycles and travel. He was from Chicago and had never been anywhere before taking the job with Border Patrol, where he and his wife and kids were assigned straight to Marfa. I laughed out loud and said what a change that must have been. He said that it was a shock, but now they'd fallen in love with the area and lifestyle and didn't want to leave.
I told him I'd probably surprised some of his buddies many miles back by overtaking them in the dark, and told him about the blacked out vehicles and dune buggy. His expression changed a bit, then said he didn't know of any operations like that. He paused, then said it probably was some ranch hands moving some equipment to another pasture. Could be, I suppose, but hard to imagine ranch hands with a need to run fast and dark in pitch black with no lights... and it seems like two headlight bulbs would be just a bit cheaper than a couple of sets of Gen 4 Night Vision goggles.
We shook hands and I headed on for Marfa and straight to the Paisano bar for dinner, cutting out the need for asking the hippie chick where to eat that night.