After a rough night’s sleep in Sonora and a long, windy drive across western Texas (windy as in wind, not winding; I would have killed for some winding), our spirits lifted considerably upon landing in Marfa. Our first stop was the Tumble In, a bare-bones but decidedly charming RV park.
Regrettably, no sooner had we set up camp than the wind picked up with a vengeance and snapped not one, not two, but three of our tent poles.
The portion of the tent still standing continued to billow violently while we scurried around it in a panic, bracing poles, pinning flaps, all the while helplessly mesmerized by the magnificent sunset unfurling around us: “Quick, hold it down there! No, over there! Pull that part in — oh wow babe, look at the sky! — Are you pulling?”
Finally, we accepted defeat, took the tent down, and headed into town. At this point it was around 9 PM, and the few hotels in the area were closed, so we ended up renting a “safari tent” at a luxury campground (yes, you read that right) called El Cosmico.
While neither of us was particularly happy about paying Best Western rates to sleep in a tent, that tent did have metal poles and a real bed, which was more than our current setup offered. We slept like two dirty, cranky babies.
The next day we managed to Frankenstein some extra poles together and reconstruct our tent, and snagged a much cheaper spot on the more primitive side of the campground. While by no means economical, El Cosmico was undeniably magical — I’d glanced briefly at a Google review that described it as having a “Moonrise Kingdom” vibe, which was utterly accurate.
The grounds are populated with tipis, yurts, and a rainbow of vintage campers, as well as solar showers, an outdoor cantina, and bountiful “hammock groves.” They even hosted karaoke on Saturday night, where Sean brought the campground to its knees with a powerful rendition of Harvey Danger’s “Flagpole Sitta.”
We spent a hot afternoon roaming around downtown Marfa, exploring a handful of quiet little arts boutiques and galleries — notably an Andy Warhol gallery that housed just three wall-sized prints of his “Last Supper” series. (I found the work itself less intriguing than the gallery’s giant, cumbersome iron-and-glass door, naggingly postered with “DO NOT SLAM” on both sides.)
The town itself has a kind of majestic sparseness that seems to mirror west Texas landscape. Lots of windswept earth tones accented with flashes of color, terse neon signs proclaiming “bar” or “hotel” or “open.” After the tent debacle, and after getting safely situated at El Cosmico, Sean and I took the edge off at the Lost Horse Saloon, where a lanky Sam Elliott type served us strong gin and tonics and what could well have been the entire 20-something population of Marfa turned out for an electronic show.
Overall, however, we spent most of our time at El Cosmico, lolling in hammocks and playing guitar at our campsite, doing shots of tequila to prepare for karaoke (we had to lick salt off of the paper of Sean’s sketchbook because our hands were covered in bug spray).
It wasn’t until we were heading out of town and passed by the famous Prada installation on Highway 90 that it occurred to me we hadn’t really seen (or — gasp! — photographed) any of the things one is supposed to see in Marfa. I think I can live with that, however, and I hope you, dear reader, can too. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from traveling over the years, it’s that there’s always going to be something you didn’t do, so you might as well focus on what you’re doing.
Until next time, Texas.
The Good Ship Watermelon 