West Texas
I love road trips. The open road is an invitation to change. Change in perspective, ideas, priorities. Gravity is a powerful thing, and the city is a magnet. You give in a little here, a little there, and without noticing life becomes…stale. Practicalities take over, causing each day to feel the same.
American roads fascinate me. I love roads everywhere, from the winding estradas in the mountains of my native Minas in Brazil, to the mysterious paths of Cambodia on a tuc-tuc. But there is something unique about the roads in the U.S. The country is so vast, the sceneries so diverse, and the roads so wide… They cut through the land in search of something…infinity, perhaps. And the mythology surrounding the American road is so rich. Whose heart does not beat a little faster when they hear of Route 66? Easy Rider, On the Road, The Americans are works that left an indelible mark. So many photography monographs that have captured our imagination were conceived on U.S. roads: Stephen Shore’s Uncommon Places, Lee Friedlander’s America by Car, James Fee’s Photographs of America.
West TX matched my idea of a reflective journey. For starters, it is inconveniently far, nine hours of flat roads that discourage most from coming here. Which is why Big Bend is the least visited National Park, despite being the largest, and not lacking in natural beauty – rough, exquisite, natural beauty.
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Terlingua is the closest city to the park, except that it is not really a city. It is a ghost town with a population of 78 people as of the 2020 census, very much a base camp for the brave souls who find their way here each year.
We stayed in a casita near the town, which provided our basic needs as we prepared to explore the region each day. Just the right comfort-roughness ratio for these city slackers wanna-be explorers.
The park was as beautiful as we imagined. Not a lush beauty as in Colorado or California, but a dry, rough beauty that reminded us at times of the Himalayas. There is something about the desert that awakens our most primal survival instincts. We feel alive, connected, grateful for the basic necessities of life; like water, food and gasoline, which is not always available at the one station that serves the city.
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I have watched the sunrise in many beautiful places around the world. There is something vital to seeing the first rays of light paint the landscape before your eyes. Inside, your soul feels the warmth as it awakens to the possibilities of a new day. This was as beautiful as I had seen it.
The vast Texas landscapes put us in our place, causing mundane problems to seem so small, dragging us out of the self-consuming cavern of introspection into daylight, where the same sun rises above all.
In time, I realize that great part of this spectacular TX landscape is actually in Mexico, as we are on the border. Astronaut Bruce McCandless points out that a unique aspect of flying to space is realizing that there are no visible borders. “You can see continents, islands, geographical configurations, but you cannot see political boundaries.” This is true at Big Bend. Nature knows no boundaries, animals migrate freely, oblivious to artificial lines on maps created by humans, here today, gone tomorrow. The Earth remains.
We stop to bask in the crisp morning light, stretch our legs, and eat the sandwiches we prepared in advance. We’re alone in the desert, surrounded by indescribable beauty…and silence. We say very little. When we speak, our voices sound clearer here in the desert.
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Late in the afternoon we visit the local cemetery. We find here a serenity akin to the peace we experienced in the park. Once more, we are put in our place, reminded of the ethereal nature of life and the vastness of the universe. // Cemeteries are peaceful places, where every detail whispers “memento mori,” remember that you are mortal…and live now. This is a paradox that never gets old. In the cemetery we stop running and face our mortality. Here, we accept the cycle of nature, and embrace our place in it.
The sun sets over the tombs. This is a beautiful place.
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From the desert we drive to Marfa, another place on on my wishlist for a long time.
Imagine transplanting 1800 Soho New Yorkers to a place in the middle of nowhere in West TX and you get Marfa: artists, creatives, chefs and financiers with plenty of money to finance their madness.
Marfa is an oddity, a sore thumb in the desert – and I love it. What creative wouldn’t? The town combines the sophistication of the big city with the rhythm of a small town. The streets of Marfa are quiet, the air is fresh, and the stores are mostly closed. To experience Marfa you need to connect to people. That’s when doors open: you get a private tour of a closed museum, or meet an artist about to take off to SE Asia, just because you entered a closed gallery by mistake. Things like that. This is not a 9-to-five city. It resists consumerism, backed by invisible forces that make possible extravagances such as a world-class minimalist art museum occupying over 100,000 sq ft in 22 buildings. Or yet another one, only open 1-5 Fridays and Saturdays.
Perhaps Marfa’s best known extravagance is the Prada Store, an art installation roadside, 30 minutes out of the city. That the installation is the work of a Berlin based artistic duo should not be a surprise, given Marfa’s international appeal. “Prada Marfa” is the title of the work, which perfectly illustrates the town: utmost sophistication in the middle of nowhere.
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All good things must come to an end. It was time to head back. We chose to take the freeway this time, to save time and see something different. And boy, something different we saw. On the way to Big Bend we had traveled mostly on farm roads, surrounded by ranches and open landscapes for hours. The return route was much different.
We cringed as soon as we entered I-20 with its 18-wheeler filled lanes. But the worst was yet to come. As we approached Odessa, one of the ugliest stretches of road I have ever seen awaited. Warehouses, rigs, trucks and utilitarian hotels stood side by side as an endless monument to ugliness. I am a fan of industrialist art, but not even Charles Sheeler could find beauty here.
While I felt repulsed by the diselegance of the scene and what it means to the planet, I was not in a position to cast any stones. After all, the vehicle we were traveling on was powered by the very liquid produced by the infra-structure filling both sides of the road. I am too aware of my dependence on gas and oil to level any condemnation. Yet, the contrast between the raw beauty we had just witnessed at Big Bend and the suffocating unsightliness that surrounded us now demanded a reaction. “ There has to be a better way,” was the thought in my mind. We are 8 billion people on the planet, and growing. We must find a better way.
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We slept at Settles in Big Springs, a 1930s hotel built by a local rancher in whose ranch oil was found…how appropriate.
Back in Dallas, it was time to reflect on the journey. What did I learn? How was I transformed? There were no ground-breaking revelations, but a big confirmation: we had driven well over 1000 miles, far enough to disconnect and examine our lives from a distance. And if we were to be honest, we liked what we saw. The call to simplicity was renewed, the desire for a life closer to the earth, to kindness and wonder.
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