Wide Open Spaces

I know I said I’d get back to that story from the Bad Rabbit Café, but last night I arrived in Austin at my friends and by far and large found myself in THE most comfortable bed I’d been in since the movers took mine away on June 28^th.  So, instead of staying up to write, I went to bed and savored every last minute in that cozy bed.  So here we are two days later with the story I promised.  I say “promised” like you were all anxiously sitting at the edge of your seats or something (insert my self-directed eye roll here).

Let me just start by saying that West Texas is one big country song with it’s Amarillo Sky, Wide Open Spaces and being out in the middle nowhere. 

On the drive down to Texas from Arizona, I drove past numerous ghost towns.  Legitimate ghost towns.  Not the one you saw on the Brady Bunch or one you’d visit with your family on vacation. Countless shops, homes and gas stations all deserted.  I was equal parts fascinated and sadden by the amount of emptiness and things left behind. It made me wonder, what had happened here? What had caused these once inhabited towns to be deserted?  There were a few towns along the route that stuck out in my mind.  One being Valentine, Texas, population 217. Now if you ask me, the person in charge of that town either needs to politely ask three residents to leave or perhaps grease the palm of someone in the census bureau so that they can be Valentine, population 214!  It would make a whole lot more sense if you asked me, great for t-shirt sales too.   When you get into the close to the town of Marfa, Texas you are met with what you might think is a mirage.  As you are driving along the highway, a solitary storefront about the size of a shipping container catches your eye and then as your passing and trying to look and drive at the same time, you realize it’s a PRADA store, but wait no, why would there be a PRADA store out here. Not wanting to miss this,  I casually slammed on my breaks and turned around to check it out.  It was indeed a very fake store and I don’t just mean fake PRADA. It gives you the appearance from the road that it is a store but in fact it’s nothing more than a container with a few fake shoes in the window. However, in the short time that I had been checking it out, I saw more cars pull in to take pictures than I had passed all day on the highway.  I went and looked it up after and it turns out it was erected in 2005 by the artists Elmgreen and Dragset. The last town you come to before you make the really long trek down to the border where Big Bend National Park is, is Alpine, Texas.  Here I planned to grab something to eat, some ice, a few groceries and gas up.  Well, the gas and groceries worked out just fine, but for some reason, every restaurant in Alpine is closed on Thursdays.  Now I know a few posts back I said I had forgotten what day it was, so my initial reaction was that it was Sunday and this was a religious thing, but upon realizing it was actually Thursday, it had me wondering why.  If you’re wondering too, I’m sad to report I never looked up the reason why and can only make up my own pretend theories.  To get to the Ranch that I was staying at, I had to travel down a dirt road for about 40 minutes. Normally, I think I would have been annoyed to slow down, but I had a lot of fun looking at the different property markers.  Most folks did not put their number or last name out front, but I saw signs of “Dennis and Debbie” and “Hank and Mary”.  Last names, totally unnecessary in Terlingua, Texas.

I truly loved the Ranch that I stayed at in Texas, however,I think my love for TV shows and their representation of things had me a tinge let down.  I was expecting a ranch a la “Hey Dude” a Nickelodeon show from the early 90’s.  You know, horses, corrals, maybe a rooster or two.  What I got was basically just a huge property with some cabins, a café, and my personal favorite, the deer cooler. (FYI, my Grammarly app wanted me to change that to say “beer cooler”  With the exception of the deer cooler it was quite charming and I was glad to be staying there for more than one night.   I got there after the office closed at 5 pm and they very trustingly left the keys and a map out in the mailbox for me to pick up when I got there.  There was a small booklet of information on the desk of my cabin and wanting to familiarize myself with the place, I started to read up on it.  I stopped abruptly at the section labeled “safety”.  Please beware or tarantulas and snakes it read.  Now listen, I love being IN nature, but I have to draw the line and say no thank you to tarantulas.  Right now, is anyone else thinking about the Brady Bunch episode where Greg has the tarantula on his chest…total willies.  I decided I would stick to my cabin’s little porch for a night of sunset and people watching.  I was causally spying on my neighbors who had pulled in a little bit after me. At one point, one of the guys came out in head to toe camouflage and asked the girl who was with them if SHE remembered the bug spray.  So many ways I secretly was hoping she’d respond 1) How’d you remember all that camo, yet no bug spray? 2) With all the camo, maybe the bugs won’t see you? 3) Is Camo really necessary when it will be dark soon?  Unfortunately for my entertainment purposes, none of that was said and it really was time for me to go inside.

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The next day, I wanted to get to Big Bend nice and early so I could explore multiple parts of the park before sundown. The first part I was hoping to adventure to was the Santa Elena Canyon.  In photos, the Rio Grande is running beautifully through the canyon. In reality, well at least at this time in the season what was there was a running river of brown water.  And I don’t just mean a little brownish…full blown dense brown that you put your toes in and never see them again. Well until you pull them out again, but hopefully you get my point.  I knew that you had to cross the river to get to this specific trail, but once again I was at this meeting place of loving nature and being afraid of what lies beneath.  I took a look at the crossing spot, realized it wasn’t too wide and figured it wouldn’t be so bad.  I convinced myself that there were no such things as water moccasins, those were simply a type of water shoe and not a snake.  Happy to report, I made it across the river with only mud on my shoes.  No bites of any kind.  I met another woman who was coming back on the trail and she shared her path with me and also mentioned that if I wanted there was a nice spot of high grass that I could sunbathe on.  Sunbathe? In high grass?  Listen, woman, I get that my ever darkening skin would lead you to believe that I spend my days out sunbathing like Magda but this body will not be lying down in high grass that is potentially riddled with all kinds of creepy crawly things.  I realize I’m painting a very wimp like picture of myself…and I’m not even remotely embarrassed.

Next stop for the day was to the Lost Mine Trail is Chisos Basin.  I was informed by the ranger that this was one of the most scenic hikes and to just make sure that I brought lots of water and a snack.  I mean at least that’s what I thought I heard her say.  I might just automatically hear the word snack in my life even when people don’t say it.  I’m thinking this, mostly because when I got to the trailhead there was not 1, not, 2, not 3, but 4 signs warning me about beers and food.  Not to take any chances I took all my food out of the backpack and locked it in the car.  I’m sure I’d be fine for a few hours without food, but I would not be fine becoming bear food.  After slathering on what I thought was a sufficient amount of sunscreen, I started to freak out a little.  My sunscreen actually smells quite delicious and I couldn’t help but wonder if the beers would like the smell of it and in turn like the smell of me.  As I started up the trail, I had almost convinced myself to turn back.  Instead, since I’d be hiking alone, I figured I would share my location with a friend and be confident in the fact that it is more likely that I would get struck by lightning than get attacked by a bear. Obviously, I would have lead with the title “Bear attack” if that had been the case, so clearly we know I’m fine. Even though I was alone, I kept getting this reminder that I wasn’t really alone.  In our family, we have this idea or belief that when you see a butterfly, it is someone you love who has passed away coming back to be by your side for a little while.  While I know that there is no way it could have been the same tiny yellow butterfly that followed me the whole way, I can say that pretty much around every turn and switchback, there she was reminding me to keep going and that I didn’t need to be scared. Or maybe that being a little scared of something is ok because then we get to take those risks and steps to overcome it.  For anyone keeping track, my irrational fears are birds, the dark and yogurt (don’t ask) and my somewhat rational fears are tarantulas and bears.  The Ranger was right, the views were tremendous and it almost felt like you were on top of the world.

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You might be wondering if I was ever going to get to the part about the Bad Rabbit Café. Well, wait no longer.  I saw in my cabin welcome booklet that on Friday nights the Café stayed open until 9 and that they sometimes even had live music.  For once in this trip, I can say I did not get my hopes up, but since I was super hungry after hiking all day and was a little sick of the snack life, I thought why not give it a chance.  As long as they weren’t literally serving up “bad rabbit” I would be fine.  I walked to the café and as I got closer, I was trying to suss out if it was truly open so I slowed down my walk and out of nowhere a voice rang out, “You hungry?”  I didn’t know where the owner of that voice was located so I just awkwardly shouted back, “Uhh yup” and moved a little closer to the entrance.  It turned out there was a screened in porch that you had to be really close to know that there were folks inside.  Upon my getting to the door, the voice said, “Daryl you tell her what’s good here.”  Daryl appeared out of nowhere and began asking me the usuals, Where you from? What are you doing out here? You all alone?  I politely answered the first two questions and while I didn’t get a creeper vibe from Daryll I also didn’t think publicizing my aloneness in the middle of nowhere was in my best interest so I left that question unanswered.  Inside a sweet young boy, led me to a seat and handed me a menu to peruse.  I’m not quite sure where Daryl had gone off to but I didn’t have to wait much longer for some company.  The owner of the porch voice walked over to my table and asked, “You’re moving back to Boston.?”  Me..”uhhh yeah.” He’s like, “No $#!+, I’m from North Reading.”  Whaaat???? For all of you not from Massachusetts, North Reading is a town literraly within a half an hour of where I grew up.   Of all the remote places in the middle of nowhere Texas and their chef is from North Reading.  Now what happened next, I couldn’t have made up if I tried, but this gentleman proceeded to sit himself down and tell me his life story, filled with east coast colloquialisms like “Not fah nuthin’ but” and asking me if I liked the fried clams at Kelly’s at the beach.  I don’t imagine he has too many people to talk to on a regular basis out here and I was wanting to be polite, but I was also looking forward to sitting, enjoying my book and eating my burger.  When he came back a third time to ask me about the book I had and also ask if I liked any of the authors he’d been reading, I think I put him off by saying I wasn’t a huge Stephen King fan.  However, I quickly was back in his favor when he told me all about how he just got Netflix and was binging on shows.  Not going to lie, my curiosity was piqued as to what this 63year old guy (who doesn’t look 63 if he does say so him…shhh he totally does, but that’s beside the point).  I was expecting the usual suspects, Breaking Bad, Stranger Things or Black Mirror.  He led with West Wing and Grey’s Anatomy.  Thankfully, he had to get back to cooking, so I could get back to my burger and book, but not before he told me that I should “use my accent more”.  I told him not to worry, my friends in California are anxiously awaiting for when I revert back to my Boston accent and I’m sure it will be soon enough. In case anyone was wondering about the burger. Quite possibly one of the best I’ve had in years!

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Just like Texas, this post is big and long, so it might be time to put it to bed and also put me to bed.  It has been so long since my body has seen a real run and hoping that with some directions and an early wake-up, I’ll be able to gently remind it that we used to do this thing all the time.  Road life is fun, but not so conducive to the exercise regime.  More to come on the standoff between me and Hurricane Barry and where his detouring ways took me!  Good night for now.  XOXO, Caitlin