It’s dark, it’s 8:oo o’clockish...It’s dark. I mean Chihuahua desert dark. We’re driving a two lane blacktop across the Texas high desert for fifty miles and we’ve got Ernest Tubb, Hank Williams, Emmy Lou...and a hit parade of 50’s and 60’s country music beamin’ through the tubes on the radio. The wind is howling a steady 30 MPH with gusts of 40. Tumbleweeds are tearing across the desert and the highway as fast as I’m driving. There is absolutely no one else out here tonight. We’re in a time warp for sure. There must have been a wrinkle in the fabric of time and we sneaked on through there. Maybe we’re in a movie (The Last Picture Show?) All I know is I want to stop the Jeep and go out in the desert and dance…
...but that wind!
Diane and I went to Marfa, Texas today to experience the Artist Vibe that we’ve been told is really cool there. There were some very cool shops and a few art galleries, but maybe since it is Wednesday the action hasn’t started for the week yet. All in all, though, it is a very cool little town. We think we’ll come back later in the week, maybe on the weekend, to see what’s happening.
We drove to Alpine, 20 some odd miles down the road. The drive is spectacular, from a grand perspective. Here you have a mesa, then flat, ocean-bottom flat desert, then mountains of granite jutting out of nowhere. It’s an enchanted place.
Alpine is a super-cool little town that happens to also be a college town. There’s a mixture of young, hip, God-honest cowboys, retirees ( like us), hipsters, Hispanics, and a few Europeans thrown in for garnish. We had dinner at a fantastic restaurant called, “Reata” which means rope in Spanish. Diane had what has to be the most tender steak I ever encountered, covered with two enchiladas, served with beans and rice and sausage. There is a Cowboy Poet festival there tomorrow and there were several of these poetic princes of the high plains hanging out in the bar when we arrived. Earlier, we went to a gem shop that the most eclectic collection of rocks and gems I’ve ever seen. We spent an hour in there just gawking at all the rocks. There are art galleries and cowboy junk shops and hat shops, and bars, and all manner of cool going on in this town. I’m reminded of Bob O’Neal, the cowboy artist who lived back home out in Eureka.
Back towards Marfa we sped as twilight was falling on the desert. We wanted to catch the Marfa Lights...world famous ghost lights that been observed since Indian times. To this day, no one can explain what causes them, but there they are nonetheless. The sun is setting over the mountains to the west and the desert and mesas are changing colors before our eyes. The light of the day is incredible. Diane captures the moment, the light, and the Vision Quest all in one brief snap of her I Phone camera. One unbelievable moment in time, now there for all time, perhaps...saved in the Cloud.
Then it appears...the Marfa Lights parking lot. YES, these lights are so popular that Texas built a parking lot with restrooms just so people could safely watch them. The moment we got to the structure and looked out over the vast desert…boom! There they were. These particular lights were away off in the distance. Glowing, now blinking, turning red, then white, then amber. Some folks thought they were fireflies at first.
One light in particular rotated around in the same area for what had to be 15 minutes. We peered through binoculars to get a closer look and yes...what we thought we were seeing with the naked eye was actually happening. Everyone there watched it and saw it. Incredible..and no one truly knows what it is, or what causes it.
Off to the west a giant cloud was moving fast across the desert towards us. Though it was definitely getting dark, you could still see it. It was menacing. I thought it was a sand storm, others thought it was rain approaching, but it was coming fast. Diane thought it was a dust storm. Then it was on us. The temperature immediately dropped 15-20 degrees. The wind was fierce. It was gusting extremely hard. It was wind and dust Gale force winds were hitting us. Any attempt to see light of any kind was getting crushed. We tried to stay on in our Jeep to watch for more lights, but it was too windy and dusty. We did see some glowing in the distance, kind of greenish grey, but the show for tonight had ended. The curtain had fallen, the campfire had gone out.
Now the drive back to Davis Mountain and our home...which is where I started this report. It’s 8:oo o’clock’ish, It’s the dark two lane, it’s Hank Williams singing I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry, It’s Texas 1952, and we are there.
The Chihuahua desert is enchanted. Enchanted indeed.