Detours, Delays and Delights

I arrived in Marfa late last night, later than expected due to a spontaneous mid-morning stop-off in Tucson and terrible rush-hour traffic in El Paso.

The Tucson detour was an utter delight. Since complimentary motel coffee simply does not do, a proper macchiato was in order. Praise be the Yelp iPhone app which shows me — wherever GPS can find me — businesses that are both open and nearby. With the help of Yelp, I located Sabine's Café Passe. The espresso was good, the space was better! Replete with creativity, this charming little cafe on 4th Ave near the university co-habitates with several little boutiques. Called The Little Village, this cluster of shops was popping with super cool arts and crafts. I chatted up the shopkeepers with my Marfa travel tales (Oh! We've heard of Marfa!) and tried on a peacock feather necklace that looked startlingly like an art-box one of my clients recently made for me. I took its striking resemblance to my newest treasure and its name — "Wandering Star" — to be an encouraging nod from the gods. Carry on, intrepid traveler.

And so I did. At a breezy 80+ miles per hour for about 300 miles... until El Paso. Then bam! Tire blow-out. Minivan to the right. And another. Up ahead on the left. In the Texan summer, burning rubber is not a euphemism. Snarled in traffic, I chugged along, listening to soft rock on a local station. The music stopped mid-melody, interrupted by several long, stern beeps. You know the sound. I waited for the familiar follow-on: "This has been a test of the emergency broadcast system." But it didn't come. Instead, a computer-voice declared that a hazardous storm was brewing and that we should all seek shelter. This was not a test. What do you do when you're in bumper-to-bumper traffic in unfamiliar turf and the national weather service says pull over or risk death? You'd think the answer is pull over! But...

Navigating across lanes of congested freeway seemed impossible and the local drivers seemed unperturbed. Perhaps they deal with these advisories on a regular basis, no big D? Was the storm really that close? The sky was basically clear — only one dark cloud and a beautiful double-rainbow off to my right, just over Juarez, Mexico, El Paso's sister to the South. I said aloud: "I'm really not sure what to do right now."

When in doubt, call Paul.

Paul is a dear friend. Besides being funny and smart, he's a great listener (even trains people in listening skills) and is masterful with technology. He's been my go-to guy for what I call "remote concierge services," which is to say I call him when I'm bleary from long hours of travel, begging for a hotel. Can't Yelp and drive, ya know.

Um, Paul, could you check to see if my travel route lands me in a storm with vehicle-damaging hail, car-toppling winds, and deadly lightning?

In short order, my generous friend determined that the weather bureau warning was now down-graded from red to orange and the storm itself has moved slightly north of me. Death averted, I continued to slog through traffic. After El Paso, my travels were met with only a few more delays — a minor detour hunting for a road-side restroom (not to be found) and then the queue through a border patrol checkpoint.

Citizenship? U.S. Where do you live? Oakland, CA. Where are you going? Marfa, TX. What is your business in Marfa, ma'am? Art-making. What? Make art, you know, paint. Good luck with that, ma'am.

At 11pm, central-time, I pulled into Marfa. People navigate by landmarks, not street signs, in Marfa. Turn after the bank but before the market. If you pass the gas station, you've gone too far. I found my accommodations — an adobe casita — easily enough given the absence of signage and streetlights. The resident cat was waiting for me as predicted. She'd left me a dead frog under the kitchen table — a housewarming gift. Coming from a cat, this is a high honor.

The sky was brilliant with stars, no light pollution to dull the sweep of the Milky Way. The night was alive with the humming and chirping and singing of all sorts of critters. I wanted to linger outside and soak in the beauty, but my nerves were fried from three days of hard driving, and all I could do was wash the dust from my feet, curl up with the cat and pray.