Picto Diary - 15, 16 November 2020 - Marfa Lights
Above: Old Town Albuquerque. 15 November 2020
Seeing a Man About a Dog Tour
Out and about in the Sprinter
Established in 1706. Image at 7:00 AM. AM walk.
Jamestown was founded by English immigrants in 1607. Mexico City was founded by the Spanish in 1521. Santa Fe, NM was established in 1610. The Spanish colonial footprint in North America preceded that of the British by 89 years,, a piece of knowledge sometimes forgotten when American colonial history is reviewed.
Go to the woods to lose sight and memory of the crimes of your contemporaries. Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Above: Fort Craig, New Mexico.
Seeing a Man About a Dog Tour
Out and about in the Sprinter.
TIMDT social distancing.
Where's Bill Carson when you need him?
21 Feb 1862, 2000 Union troops (Col. Edward Canby and Col Kit Carson, fight 2500 Confederate troops (Henry Hopkins Sibley) at Valverde, 3 miles north of Fort Craig. The Confederates held their ground and Canby's federal troops returned to the fort. Rather than re-engage at the near impregnable fort, the "Sibley Brigade" marched north to capture Albuquerque and Santa Fe. Santa Fe was the first and only state/territorial capital to be captured by a Confederate Army.
Above: Guadalupe Mountain National Park, west Texas. 15 November 2020.
Seeing a Man About a Dog Tour
Out and about in the Sprinter
Texas version of el Capitan?
The land is the appointed remedy for whatever is false and fantastic in our culture. Ralph Waldo Emerson
Above: TIMDT viewing The Marfa Lights (lower image). Marfa, TX 15 November 2020.
Seeing a Man About a Dog Tour
Out and about in the Sprinter.
I've been wanting to see the Marfa Lights for years. But, just as I felt while visiting Loch Ness in 2019, I have the funny feeling I've been had. There were a few hundred people at the viewpoint. I didn't have the guts to ask any of them if they saw the lights. It was a little bit like looking at an emperor with no clothes and saying nothing.
Note: The image above was actually taken from TIMDT's rear as she looked over the desert expanse at the Marfa "lights."
"Go to the woods to lose sight and memory of the crimes of your contemporaries." Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Above: Marfa RV Park. Marfa, TX. 16 November 2020.
"Taylor" trash. Our first night spent at an RV park in the Sprinter.
The place was as dumpy as it looks in the image. Hey! We were looking for Marfa authenticity! This is the type of place where Llewelyn Moss and his wife Carla Jean lived (No Country for Old Men).. It also looks like the RV setup where Budd (code name Sidewinder) lived when he was taken out by Elle Driver (code name California Mountain Snake). Kill Bill 2. Both movies were filmed in west Texas.
Well... that's a good story. But, its not the real reason we ended up here.
We called ahead. This was the only one of the three Marfa RV parks that had any openings. I said we wouldn't need a hook up. The woman said, "just go find any open place, park, then, walk to the yellow house and pay us." She didn't ask for any card number to secure reservation... the first indication that this might have not been a normal RV park.
We pulled in three hours after dark, around 8:00 PM, We had decided to visit the Marfa Lights before checking in. After parking the Sprinter in a spot near the showers and restrooms, I walked over to the yellow house where eight or so people, male and female, including two or three cowboy hats, were jabbering with one another on the front porch. Feeling a little sheepish in interrupting the group, I announced, "hey, I'm the guy who called about the RV reservation. I've just parked our RV and want to settle up." One of the guys, thirty something, totally bald (looked like one of Pedro's buddies in Napoleon Dynamite) walked up and politely said. "Oh... its late... you guys must be tired... just go and get a good night's sleep and we'll settle up in the morning."
I walked over to the RV park bathrooms and showers and they were locked tight with padlocks. It seemed too late to bother the owners. As I said, this didn't look like a normal business operation. Besides, we have running fresh water and a porta potty in the van. It's not as though we were greatly inconvenienced.
TIMDT and Mwah (sic) were pleasantly surprised at how well we slept. The bed, a queen, had enough room for me to stretch out sleeping at a slight angle, while leaving enough room for TIMDT to sleep without being bothered. We both used the porta potty sans real inconvenience. I'm not looking forward to the time I have to empty it... though the procedure seems straight forward and sanitary if done correctly.
At 7:00 AM I went for a walk around town... in search of Chigurh. I didn't find him, but walked to an intersection which was a reasonable facsimile of where he crashed at the end of the film (No Country for Old Men) and took an image.
It was Sunday. There was no place open for a sit down breakfast, so, I returned to the van. It was about 8:15 AM and the yellow house looked like it was locked up tight. We seemed to be the only overnight travelers in the RV Park. Their were other RV's but, they looked like more permanent stays. It was Sunday... I wasn't trying to skip payment of thirty bucks... but, considering the cavalier nature of the guy last night (couldn't be bothered), not to mention the unavailability of shower and toilets, it didn't seem right to wake up the household early on a Sunday. I returned to the van and found that TIMDT had made the bed and put up the shades... so we decided to try to make Amarillo by morning. I'm thinking, that's what the owners were expecting all along. They weren't expecting someone to call in for a reservation... but, didn't want to turn them down either. They just didn't want to be bothered.
Look. You just had to be there to get an understanding of our logic. I guess we could call them up to make a credit card payment... but, my sense of the place was that it wouldn't be a good idea to give out a credit card number. Am I bad?
But, what a strange experience for your first overnight experience in your RV!
"The land is the appointed remedy to whatever is false and fantastic in our culture." Ralph Waldo Emerson
Above: Marfa, TX. 16 November 2020.
Seeing a Man About a Dog Tour 16
Out and about in the Sprinter
Early AM walk.
Where's Javier Bardem (Chigurh) when you need him (No Country for Old Men)?
Not to mention Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor (Giant), Jeremy Rennert, Chris Pine, Jeff Bridges (Hell or High Water) Josh Brolin (Llewelen Moss) and Tommy Lee Jones( No Country for Old Men). All three movies filmed in Marfa.
The land is the appointed remedy for whatever is false and fantastic in our culture. Ralph Waldo Emerson
Above: Fort Davis. West Texas. 16 November 2020.
Seeing a Man About a Dog Tour
Out and about in the Sprinter
TIMDT Social distances at US Army fort established 1858 to protect travelers along the San Antonio to El Paso trail from those pesky Comanches, and Mescalero Apaches.
The land is the appointed remedy for whatever is false and fantastic in our culture. Ralph Waldo Emerson
Above: Sprinter. I-20. Odessa, TX 16 November 2020.
Seeing a Man About a Dog Tour
Out and about in the Sprinter
TIMDT making ham and cheese sandwiches at road side stop.
"Go to the woods to lose sight and memory of the crimes of your contemporaries." Jean-Jacques Rousseau