Day 22: Carlsbad, NM to Marathon, TX

Stops:

Guadalupe Mountains NP, TX

Marfa, TX

Marathon, TX

As you enter Texas from New Mexico, you'll come upon the beautiful, tall stalks with red and yellow flowery pads on them known as the agave plant.  They are really quite unique, but we will get more into those tomorrow.

You'll come upon the Guadalupe Mountains and a rocky outcrop known as El Capitan.  Guadalupe peak is the highest point in Texas at 8751 ft.  Here you will also find the Texas Madrone and Texas Mahogany trees.

This is mostly a hiking park, but most the good hikes are 9 miles and uphill. We just didn't have time for it this time around. Maybe a future trip us warranted as the movie at the visitors center made it seem so.

Our next stop is a Prada storefront in the middle of nowhere Texas.  It is an art installation commissioned by Ballroom Marfa. You can't actually enter the store. The door doesn't open. It is a neat and random thing to come upon.  People leave their business cards on it on the backside of the exhibit. It is complete with shoes and purses from the 2005 collection and hand picked by designer Prada herself.

We also ran across this playboy bunny art exhibit.  I believe it is still in progress.  Hugh Hefner owns the land and the exhibit. The locals mostly don't like it though. 

Marfa's big thing is its artist studios. Lots of galleries to visit.  When we arrived, we took a break in a nearby DQ and shortly after, the air siren was blowing indicating a possible tornado warning.

We decided to not hang and find out.  We quickly left town and headed towards Marathon, TX, the town along the road to Big Bend NP.  Just outside of Marfa was another strange phenomena known as the Marfa Mystery Lights.  These lights mysteriously appear in the pictured area of the mountain, below, where the range goes down on both sides. No one has a definitive answer as to what the lights are, but many have speculated.

There's not much in Marathon, TX, but it does have the historical Gage Hotel, a cattleman's house that was converted to the hotel.  It has a very western theme.   We  decided that with sore and sweaty bodies, it was finally time to relax and pamper ourselves with a dip in the pool, a hot shower, and dinner and drinks.

Remember that storm I told you about earlier in Marfa?  Well, it finally caught up to us.  We managed to get our dip in the pool, but when we returned to the room, the lights started to flicker before it finally went out......FOR GOOD!  We tried to make the most of the evening light, catching up with other guests at the bar before heading to our room.  Still no light and the sun was setting.  

It was actually kind of fun, moving around the resort with nothing but flashlights, and luckily it didn't get too hot. However, it was a resort and we couldn't fully use it without electricity, so we finally just went to sleep.  

In the morning we found out that the storm knocked down one of the main power poles into town and it takes a long time for anything to get fixed when you are in the middle of nowhere.