I’ve made it all the way to Austin.. After staying the night in Van Horn, TX, I woke up and started the journey for Austin..
I had several choices, either book down the 10 to San Antonio to see the Alamo, head up to Odessa to visit the Odessa Meteor Crater, or go to Marfa to see the Chinati foundation — an art community founded by minimalist Donald Judd.. I drove down the highway, and after passing the exit for Marfa, something told me to turn around and head down to Marfa… I’m not sure why, but that’s what I did.
So the road to Marfa is a small two-lane road. I passed through small town after small town.. Valentine, TX: Population 201 was the only one I remembered.. Marfa was where the movie Giant was filmed, starring James Dean, I think. I’ve never seen it, so that particular detail wasn’t of much importance..
I stopped in Moonlight Gemstones, located right as you enter Marfa. I chatted with the nice guy who ran the store. He had a ton of gemstones but only one shelf of local agate — the rest was imported from all around the world. Even at the knick-knack store that accompanied “The Thing” yesterday, almost everything was imported (a lot from China)… you really had to scour the store to find something truly from the local area… The gemstone dude gave me directions to the Chinati foundation.. which was just up the road.
When I arrived at Chinati the parking lot was full of cars. Since the sign said that it was only open Wednesday through Sunday (and it was Tuesday), I thought that I was in luck.. But, I wasn’t. I walked in, and the friendly staff person told me that the grounds were only open by guided tour, and tours not being given today. Grr. But, I was allowed to go and look at Judd’s concrete blocks that were the first things at Chinati. I bought a t-shirt. It’s orange.
Wandering amongst huge blocks of concrete art somewhere in West Texas is something everyone should try once. I like it. Maybe since I’d just seen the gates in new york city, my brain has been primed for art appreciation. The concrete’s clean lines were a nice contrast to the thorny unkempt grounds of the abandoned military base. There were also several concrete troughs nearby — I’m not sure if Donald Judd put those there, but they didn’t seem out of place.
I passed a cute girl sitting on a concrete block near the Chinati office. She was reading something, but I imagine that she was more out there to bask in the midday sun than to actually read anything. I assumed that she worked or studyed here or something. We said hi to each other, and as I walked past her, I turned back and looked at her, she looked up and smiled back at me.. I got in my car and drove away.
The drive from Marfa to Austin took about 9 hours.. I spent much of those hours wondering why I didn’t talk to her.. hmm. oops.
Anyway… from Marfa, I drove to the McDonald Observatory… I love observatories, though I didn’t have time to stay for the tour and for the solar observation. I really wish that I was there at night — supposedly McDonald Observatory is the darkest observatory in the US. And, it’s one of the lowest in latitude (or is it latitude) so you can see many southern stars quite clearly.. it’s also the highest point of the texas highway system (at a whopping 6,791 feet!)
Continuing on with the journey through West Texas, I stopped in Ozona to check out the Davy Crockett Monument. It’s as exciting as you would imagine it to be.
So… on the drive to Austin, there are two ways you can go… you can either stay on 10 and head towards San Antonio, and then cut north on the 35… OR you can hop off the 10 and take route 290. It’s a classic roadtrip conundrum… which is faster, this longer, bigger highway, or the shorter, smaller road?
I looked at the map, and my gut was to take the shorter, smaller road, while my car’s GPS said to go via San Antonio (then again, my car also thought that downtown LA was near Long Beach). I called steph and had her consult the internet:
Hmmm… that’s odd.. when stephanie looked it up, mapquest supposedly said to take the San Antonio route… oh well, that’s not the point. The point is that Yahoo! Maps told me to take the longer bad route — and upon a non-scientific survey of the Austin folks, the 290 seems to be the preferred route. Yahoo! must be eating too much ice cream to give me good directions, I guess..
Anyway.. I took route 290 — I had inconclusive information (steph had told me that both Y! and MapQuest chose the San Antonio route) so I went with my gut at the last minute (I’m “thin-slicing” as Malcom Gladwell calls it).. It was ultimately the right decision. I got to catch an awesome sunset behind my car, saw a bunch of fields on fire (I hope that was intentional) and saw more small towns which I love. Good good.
Arriving in Austin, I met up with Jen and Clayton for dinner at the Texas Roadhouse.. Everything was BIG and the waitstaff kept hootin’ and hollerin’ for what seemed like everyone’s birthday.
The weirdest thing about Austin so far is the highway exits… Instead of on-ramps and off-ramps, they have these “access roads”. It’s a road that runs parallel to the highway — surface streets connect to the access road, and businesses even have storefronts right on the access road. It’s the strangest thing I’ve seen in traffic engineering since the New Jersey jughandle.. Except the jughandle seemed to make sense. The access roads seem to make things more confusing and dangerous…
And…. that’s it for day four.
