Once back, I have plenty of stories to tell - just been busy living them first.
Cross your fingers for a smooth and uneventful pull for the eight hour return...
Saturday, March 17, 2012
"Close Station, Move Out"
In the last week, I have had two separate trailer guests (Shannon Weatherford and Elisabeth Piedmont-Marton), been to Big Bend, Terligua, Fort Davis, and the McDonald Observatory, and - most painfully - changed out the thermostat and then removed the thermostat from the Wagon (it seemed like a good idea at the time). And now, at 0630 this Saturday morning, I am getting ready to pack up and head back to Austin and back to the real world for a bit.
Monday, March 12, 2012
Prada Marfa
I know, I already mentioned this, but check out the backstory.
http://ballroommarfa.org/archive/event/prada-marfa/#event-images
Usually not an art guy, but I have to admit, this thing is so isolated and so in the middle of nowhere, it is pretty funny.
Dust Devil vs. Teen Angst
Well, apparently God is watching, and is on my side.
Around noon, a small dust devil started small on the south end of the camp and grew in size and strength literally across the length of the property.
The only bad news: no one was at home, as they are all out hiking or canoeing or vandalizing something. I think I was the only witness (now joined by you, dear reader).
I do have to admit, they apparently set up their tents well, 'cause not a one got blown down.
Well, maybe next time...
Sunday, March 11, 2012
"I see... TEENAGERS!"
For those of you not on Facebook, my little slice of heaven has been rudely overrun by what I estimate to be about 40 angsty teenagers and their adult handlers.
All day today - ALL DAY - I was back down here in spot #13, enjoying the beautiful day, etc., etc.
About 1600, a convoy of roughly 10 SUVs pulled into the Marathon Motel. After checking in, they turned west (towards me) and swarmed my little pond. Another smaller convoy of about five SUVs plus a panel van full of gear showed up shortly later.
A frenzy of activity ensued as the bright future of our Republic furiously set up tents (27 at my last count - 27!) and quickly drove west - in convoy - to Alpine for supplies.
There are guitars involved - teenagers, spring break camping and guitars!
I am currently surrounded. I have enough alcohol, food, and ammunition for three days, and remain outnumbered 40 to one. I will hold.
If any damn drum circles break out, though, I may need an emergency extract (MSgt Alex Radke already has a QRF standing by).
Frost and shadow
Wish I had had the time to work on this, but you get a little light, a little frost, and a little green from the Wagon.
There's also a joke about frost and brass circular objects here....
Frosty
Not a *great* picture, but you can get a sense of the frost (and the reflection of the sunrise off of the chrome bumper).
Graveside @ Terlingua cemetery
I meant to take more pictures here, but got sidelined with the guy who wanted to talk cars.
I also felt a little...intrusive... taking pictures there. It is still a functioning cemetery, and there is an annual Day of the Dead event there in November.
Very sparse, but strangely beautiful - and quite a bit creepy.
Take a picture of me - I dare you
Doing my best Robert Conrad imitation from those battery commercials in the 70s or 80s.
We are hiking out of the Window at this point...
The End of the Window
Like an idiot, when Shannon and I went on our hike on the Window Trail in Big Bend, I forgot my camera. Could have turned around and gotten it, but ehhh... what was I POSSIBLY going to see that I would want to take a picture of.
Stupid stupid stupid...
Luckily, Shannon had her iPhone.
This is the streambed cut into the solid rock at the bast of the Window, polished smooth my God knows how many years of intermittent water running across it. The drop off beyond it is substantial, but honestly, I wasn't interested in creeping up to the edge to see how far.
We didn't encounter a soul on this hike until we got to this point. Beautiful, rugged, silent.
Terlingua cemetery
A weird angle, I guess, but I was trying to block the setting sun. Very "Outlaw Josey Wales"...
Wagon in Bluebonnets @ Big Bend! - 08 Mar 2012
The first bluebonnets of the season!
In the springtime in central Texas, it is a rite of passage to get pics of dogs, kids, wives (so I've been told) in a field of bluebonnets- why not Ranch Wagons?
More miles and miles (and miles) of Texas...
Returning from the Stilwell Store, looking west towards 385...
Foggy morning - 07 March 2012
A bizarre morning on Wednesday. Soup-like fog smothering the area, but it looks to be fairly thin, with a blue tinge skyward. Once the sun got high enough and hot enough, it burned off as I watched. Amazing.
08 March - Big Bend, Terlingua and the Long Road Home
Noon on Sunday, 11 March…
How has a month already gone by since I first arrived here in Marathon?
My friend Shannon Weatherford (nee Roberts) just left this morning. She and I went to high school together back in Richmond, VA, in another time – frankly, literally in another century, I guess. She is one of the few who actually took me up on my offer to put anyone up who wanted to come out for the west Texas / Sisyphus World Tour Experience, and wisely deciding to escape the horrid cold and grey of the East Coast, decided to come out to Marathon.
Unfortunately, for about half of her visit, she brought out the weather with her.
Arriving on Wednesday afternoon in the mid-70s, we called it a fairly early night after getting dinner at Guzzi’s Pizza – one of the two places in town to get dinner (the other being the Gage Hotel). Thursday dawned cooler but sunny, and after a slow start (mainly due to me), we fired up the Wagon and headed south to Big Bend. After a quick stop at the Stilwell Store and Hallie Stilwell Museum about half the way there (and six miles east of Rt. 385). Won’t bore you with the details, but a great little country story / RV park / museum dedicated to the memory of one of the Big Bend area’s earliest and frankly fascinating characters ( http://stillwellstore.com/ ).
Then off to Big Bend National Park.
Again, the Wagon decided to start running hot, in spite of the fact that I had had the radiator flushed and refilled in Alpine the day before. Even without the trailer, the long, slow, uphill grade into Panther Junction forced us down to about 20 mph for the final mile and an immediate stop once getting to the ranger station – she was sitting at 250 degrees and I risked going any further at my own peril. We had stopped a couple of times on the way up to let her cool – the first time, a truck actually turned around after passing us to make sure that we were OK (I had the hood up to allow her to cool faster, but wasn’t waving anyone down – the guys wife probably yelled at him to turn around). After explaining that all was well, thanks for turning around, the mandatory pleasantries about the Wagon (they had seen us in Marathon), they turned around and headed south.
Border Patrol.
Just checking on us, which I am enormously grateful for out here in this truly vast land. The officer looked like he was about 25, which didn’t make me feel any younger. At all.
She wasn’t cooled off to my satisfaction yet, but I didn’t want to attract any more middle-aged men stopping to check on my welfare, so off we went.
(As an aside on the middle-aged men phenomenon… I realize that it sounds “cute” or over-stated, but I now have two witnesses – my cousin Silme and now Shannon – who can confirm without reservation that it is true. On Wednesday afternoon, when Shannon had only been here about an hour or so, I got a knock on the trailer door by a guy wanting to take some pics of the Wagon (not really interested in the trailer, but in love with the Wagon). I kind of laughed it off with Shannon (“See? I told you about the middle-aged man love affair with this thing!”). Then we went out to lunch and a quick drive around town. While stopped outside the old Marathon jail, I saw a white pickup with a shield on the door stop a little short at the end of the block: Brewster County Sheriff. We stood outside the jail, trading a few war stories (he about a hot pursuit from a week ago or so (“I caught up with him when he wrecked his car and stood on him until another officer came up. I don’t carry handcuffs – I tell the bad guys that that’s what I have the gun for – so I stood on him like Captain Morgan until they could cuff him…”) and I about the Wagon (a lot less colorful in comparison). And that was just the first couple of hours she was here…)
So, after letting her cool, after gassing up (there is a small gas station in the park – it is 70 miles away from Marathon, after all), we rolled up into the mountains, stopping once to let her cool on the six-mile climb.
Shannon and I decided to take the Window trail – a four-mile round trip walk that was closed last month due to the mountain lion attack. We set off at about 2:30 and would return about 5:15. A beautiful walk into the narrow gap between two solid-rock mountains which creates “the Window” thorough which one can see the desert floor below. Truly spectacular – and TRULY windy as you traverse the actual choke-point itself. Lean into it, squint your eyes to see kind of windy.
Once back to the car, we rolled out for Terlingua, a quasi-abandoned old mining town which now houses a few tourist destinations, artists, and eccentrics. (It is also where I was supposed to have met up with my friend Greg White last month, had the Wagon and KC cooperated). VERY interesting place with a VERY interesting cemetery. It is worth a stop if you are out here. It sits 30 miles west of Panther Junction, about 80 miles south of Alpine (the only real “city” out here). Bottom line: you have to REALLY WANT to be in Terlingua ( a great clip from the movie “Shooter” with Mark Wahlberg a couple of years ago referencing Terlingua - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mn60YWO218k ).
While stopped at the cemetery, a car pulled up and a guy trotted up to ask if he could take some pics of the Wagon while his long-suffering wife and kids waited in the car. “Sure, sure; be my guest.” Frankly, she was looking awfully photogenic again, sunset and cemetery in the background.
After a brief stop and photo shoot at the Starlite Theater (and two more middle-aged guys yelling “GREAT RIDE!” at us as we rolled past), we were off to dinner at the world’s smallest Mexican restaurant, and then the 80 mile drive to Alpine, where we would turn east for the 30 mile drive from there to Marathon.
So, all is well, and we’re screaming out of town across the desert floor. I have the high beams on; the drop in temperature means that the heat issue is temporarily resolved. I’m going about 70… and the headlights shut off.
So, this happened once before, when Silme was here, but I am behind on writing about that part of the trip.
It was just as exciting this time as the first time, but I was a little better mentally prepared this time – and I wasn’t pulling the KC. Firmly on the brakes, click the high beam switch with my left foot, push in the headlight post and pull it back out quickly.
Lights on. Problem solved. :)
Good times…
The rest of the trip was spent in low beam, with no more than three-second bursts on the high beams.
About now, it unexpectedly starts to get misty, and as we hit the Border Control checkpoint between Terlingua and Alpine. The boys in green are very professional, and their drug dog gives us a cursory sweep, but somehow, I don’t think that we are the droids they are looking for. In fact, based on the mist, the darkness, the remoteness of the road, they were looking at the Wagon like she had driven in from the Bermuda Triangle (the Terlingua Traiangle?). I am now fighting with the windshield wipers (they are either on or off, and don’t do a very good job – but look very cool), the headlights, and the driver’s side window that will go down but won’t roll up. After we clear the checkpoint, it’s a fairly short leg into Alpine, where we get held up at a train crossing. It’s here that I realize that the mist we had encountered was freezing on the windshield, almost like sleet.
This is just getting BETTER.
We gas up – again – and I get a little caffeine and sugar to motivate me for the remaining 30 miles. Shannon is fighting sleep in the passenger seat, but the short 30 minute run gets us into Marathon around 11:00 PM. Still cold, very low cloud layer, and windy. The next day, we would see what that recipe does for you.
Tomorrow: Fort Davis and the McDonald Observatory (of NPR’s “Stardate with Sandy Wood” fame).
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
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