West Texas: Carbo Loading

Post 4 of 5.

We said sayonara to Marfa and headed into Alpine.  

Alpine was by far the largest of the towns we visited and we had another picture perfect day for exploring. We went to the Sul Ross University and explored the awesome and free(!) Museum of the Big Bend.  We learned a little more about this beautiful area by wandering through the exhibits and also appreciated a photo exhibit of aerial photography of the region.

I mean seriously picture perfect.

While in Alpine we captured Bewster County’s Courthouse on camera and also enjoyed a lovely lunch at Reata.  I highly recommend you start off with the pork tenderloin tamales with pecan mash. Again, another starter that I could have made my meal.  After lunch we wandered around town a little bit appreciating the murals off the main drag and some of the art galleries and of course a local book shop.  

Almost hard to pick which sky is bluer.

The colors are just so vibrant.

I highly recommend popping into Front Street Books. They have a great used book section and even have a cart in the back with some freebies.  Justin told me I wasn’t allowed to take the whole cart because

• We didn’t have room in the car
• That would be rude
• Just no

After our one shopping trip during this entire trip, we went and did a tour at Big Bend Brewing Company.  Our tour included a sampling of their beers on tap and were lucky because there were six available to sample.

1. Terlingua Gold
2. Tejas Lager
3. Big Bend Hefeweizen
4. 2014 Oktoberfest
5. Number 22 Porter
6. La Frontera IPA

I love their branding.

This was my kind of carbo loading.

Our tour guide Amy did a fabulous job and told us about their process from getting the grain from their big red silo out front to start the brewing to the end of the process where they can everything themselves and then slap a six-pack ring on top. Yes, by hand. So if you ever get to drink some Big Bend Brewing Company beer in a can, you should feel the love.

Departing from the brewery we made our way to our final destination on this trip- Marathon. Our friends were all there and it was time to pick up our race packets and enjoy the pasta dinner included with our registrations.  I ended up enjoying the gluten-free quinoa pasta and we all enjoyed each other’s company as we worked through pre-race jitters.

Our view from dinner. Meta.

That night we did a little stargazing from the back patio at the house our friends had rented and I couldn’t help but marvel over and over again at the ability to see the Milky Way with the naked eye. We also saw our fair share of shooting comets too! Just.So.Many.Stars.  

We called it a night and within 5 minutes of deciding to go to sleep Justin was out.  Knowing that we had a long day ahead of us I finally put the Candy Crush down and turned in too.

We'll see you tomorrow.

Relive day one here.
We saw space on day two.
Day three was artsy!