Marfa, TX

03/27–03/29

Our stay in Marfa ended up being a bit of a life maintenance stop. Our travels through West Texas had thus far been very remote and even cell service felt novel and exciting. We spent almost our entire first day in town at the Tumbleweed Laundry, where they had laundry (obviously), coffee, ice cream, and wifi. I.e., pretty much everything we desperately needed!

After we got our lives together, we headed over to Capri where we ate some (small and expensive) appetizers and drank some (VERY tasty) margaritas. The highlight, however, was hands-down the mesquite bean ice cream, served in a GIANT frozen ceramic bowl, as recommended to us by Marfa resident friend Zeke, who we went to visit post-ice cream.

We spent the night at the Marfa Lights pull off, where you can park overnight for free. It was beautiful to wake up to the desert sunrise.

The next day, we headed back into town to Do Your Thing for a coffee and some internet. In the afternoon, I headed to the Chinati Foundation for some art experiences with my parents — the sky was doing some very epic things (first picture), which definitely added to the experience. We didn’t time our visit very well, and were only able to see Judd’s concrete boxes, but it was still awesome. Watching the shadows change and move through them as the clouds rolled over was the best part!

For dinner, my parents took us out for a splurge at Cochineal which was totally delicious and amazing. Then Spencer and I parked on the street outside Do Your Thing — we discovered this is not prohibited in Marfa, which was very cool — where two other converted vans were also parked! Barring a few train interruptions, we had a good sleep and woke up to more DYT coffee. Then we headed into Big Bend!