Monday morning at the Gage Hotel in Marathon is its own thing, the serenity of the lush gardens, the large and numerous shaded courtyards, the quiet of the town, the shadows of the sunrise, the Glass Mountains to the north, the Chisos Mountains to the south. Check out time was 11am, I departed at 11am. The art on display inside the hotel is among the finest and most valuable on earth. In the late 90's, Houston oilman, J.P. Bryan, bought the place and restored it to its luxury desert oasis status. Its been voted the finest hotel in Texas twice, I could have walked around for days dazing and gazing and buzzing.
The coffee was good, the sticky buns were sticky, a 6 foot taxidermied mountain lion stared down at the lounge from an antique hutch. I packed up my car and left in a state of rested peace, the shunpike drive home was 9 hours, I breathed easy and deep. Then, as I headed north to Ft. Stockton, another member of the fuzz in a decked out suburban gets tight up on my ass for a couple of miles, backs off, does an illegal U-turn, and heads back south, just like in Marfa days earlier. What assholes. They ran my plates every which way, I was disappointed I didn't get stopped and eyeballed, figured I was on some sort of neon blue outlaw list, guess not, guess I need to get busy.
Missed out on return visits to the Museum Of The Big Bend in Alpine, the Chinati Foundation in Marfa, the telescopes of the Davis Mountains, and the Mystery Lights Viewing Deck, but there are only a finite number of hours and this 2nd trip to the Hook Of Texas was for tunes and tune folks. Other places were left to the future, among them: Balmorhea, Blackjack At Lajitas, Cibolo Creek Ranch, Castolon, and the Boquillas Canyon Trail. These travels seem perpetually incomplete, like ever-expanding space or everlasting life, or both. Not an escape from anything, not a getaway, but an experience, an instant in time, a joy. A song.