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!

West Texas: Art, art and more art.

Part 3 of 5.

This was the day when we actually showered in the open air.  And I will again emphasize that it was seriously invigorating.

We packed out of Pinky and went in search of breakfast and I devoured some cheesy grits with over easy eggs on top at Buns N' Roses. Fueled for the day we went into town for county courthouse picture numero dos.  Marfa is the county seat for Presidio County and again had a lovely idyllic looking courthouse off the main street.

Some forward-thinking entrepreneurial folks in the area have combined the concept of a coffee house and a fluff and fold and we wandered into there for another jolt of caffeine and to kill a little bit of time before heading out to the Chinati Foundation for our 2.5 hour tour of art works by Donald Judd, Dan Flavin and John Chamberlain.

Q. What is the Chinati Foundation?

A. “The Chinati Foundation is a contemporary art museum based upon the ideas of its founder,
Donald Judd. The specific intention of Chinati is to preserve and present to the public permanent large-scale installations by a limited number of artists. The emphasis if on works in which art and the surrounding land are inextricably linked.“ Judd has two primary installations at Chinati, this first of which is his 15 works in concrete which is made up of 60 individual units measuring 2.5x2.5x5 meters with concrete slabs that are 245 centimeters thick. The second is his 100 works in mill aluminum which are 41 x 51 x 72 inches each having unique interior divisions.

I don’t fancy myself to be one who really “gets” contemporary art, but there was something very cool and interesting about these installations in their habitats at Chinati.  Truly one of those things where you you need to be there to get it.

These concrete works were installed over a 1/2 a mile of property.

The old POW barracks that house the mill aluminum works are in the background.

This man is good with the camera.

After wrapping up the tour at Chinati we drove out to the iconic Prada Marfa exhibit that is 40 miles from Marfa.  The side trip took us through the sleepy town of Valentine with a population of 217 and no gas station, but they did have a public library and post office!

Prada Marfa was pretty much what one would expect it to be and it’s just one of those things that you might as well say you’ve done it if you are going to be out there anyway.

Yup.

We then checked in to the historic Paisano Hotel for our second night in Marfa.

The view from our room!

The evening started with a one-hour tour of “The Block” which was Donald Judd’s personal residence for the majority of the time that he lived in Marfa. Time was split between Marfa and SoHo. He and his two children lived there and his kids attended public school in Marfa!  Judd left Marfa to work on some things in New York and Europe and due to a diagnosis of advanced nonhodgkin's lymphoma his health deteriorated rapidly and he never returned to Marfa.  Now The Block is a museum showcasing Judd’s home, library and onsite works as he last left them.

A Margarita Verde before dinner!
With mezcal of course!

After the tour we were ready to enjoy a meal at one of Food and Wine Magazine’s must dos in Texas- dinner at Cochineal Our menu for the evening:

• The house bread with rosemary butter
• A wedge salad with yummy blue cheese dressing and pork ribs that I probably could have made a meal by themselves
• Beef tenderloin with blue cheese butter (duh) and homemade potato chips
• Freshly baked date pudding with whipped cream

I probably inhaled had a piece of bread before I took this picture. 

 

This is a place for a special dinner if you are looking for a reason to dress it up a little bit, even if the locals are super casual.

We capped the night off with a few games of shuffleboard and dancing at Padre’s around the corner from Cochineal.  

We played a clean game.

Justin won best two of three in the shuffle board game which is surely a sign of the apocalypse so if there’s anything you want to do in life you better get to it. Might I suggest a trip to West Texas?

Relive day one here.
We saw space on day two.
Day four was a good day!