Day 3: Big Bend or Bust

We got a more humane start on the day, loaded up our Pony and departed for Marfa. No Drugstore for breakfast because the Big D News article highly recommended we have breakfast at The Brown Recluse Restaurant to enjoy one of their famous cinnamon rolls. The article made no mention that the place was only open Thursday through Sunday (as we discovered, this being a Monday morning). So we instead stopped in the famous Paisano Hotel, a sister property of the Limpia to get an alternate recommendation. This prompted a debate between the gift store manager and the desk clerk. The feisty gift store manager, a woman approaching maybe 80, won and we headed off to break our fast at Conchito’s. We found it easy enough (it was 3 blocks from the Recluse) but we had totally overlooked it, or perhaps more properly, had looked past it. We would not have opened the plywood door or sat at one of the 5 tables if we had not been directed to it. It was good enough, although not quite Drugstore quality.

Marfa has become somewhat a haven for the “Arts” in this part of the world – but we also discovered that the Arts are closed in Marfa on Mondays too. It appears the creative seeds were planted here when the classic film GIANT (with bad boy heart-throb James Dean) was filmed nearby. The Paisano Hotel became the base for the film’s production. The other thing Marfa is known for is its “Mystery Lights,” supposedly a supernatural phenomenon that occurs occasionally often enough. Personally, I think it’s a combination of the Observatory’s Constellation Tour’s green lasers and the consumption of products from nearby Luz de Estrella Winery (we can now attest that their whites and blushes are very good).

We had one more county courthouse to count before getting to Big Bend. Alpine is the seat of Brewster County which boasts of being the largest (geographically speaking) in Texas [Marfa was the home of Presidio County; Ft. Davis was headquarters for Jeff Davis County]. Alpine has many attractions: it is home to Sul Ross State University, the alma mater of Dan Blocker (who played Hoss in the TV show Bonanza. It is the birthplace of the Reata Restaurant (gourmet cowboy cusine we last experienced in Ft. Worth); It has Kokernot Field (our guidebook said it was modeled on Chicago’s Wrigley Field – after seeing it, my BBL decided the guidebook’s author probably sees Marfa’s Mystery Lights more than anyone else); Amtrak also stops here; and, oh yeah, they have a Sonic drive-in with a 2-4pm happy hour.

Gourmet fed, happy hour refreshed with diet limeades, and a full tank of gas, we busted out of Alpine toward Big Bend ~70 miles away (but still in Brewster County). On the way we did a Terlingua ghost town drive-by, but didn’t see any chili. Pulled into Big Bend’s Chisos Mountain Lodge about 4:30 and checked into Room 208 – the only room available when I made the reservation 3 weeks earlier. No phone, no TV, but one each of a small refrigerator and microwave, and two beds. Do we know how to celebrate our 35th anniversary or what?!

Monday pictures