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Cross-Country Ramble
22: Beyond Balmorhea
Sent: 96-05-26 23:21:34 EDT
I'm lounging in the parlor of the Greek Revival home that Captain
Shepard built for himself here in Marathon, TX in the late 1800's.
It's a quiet small-town Sunday afternoon: sunny, breezy and rather
comfortable (in the shade) outside; cool and subdued inside behind
two-foot-thick walls. We've rented a room at this B&B adjunct to the
Gage Hotel and so far, we've got the whole place to ourselves.
People told us that we simply had to eat at the Gage when we went
through Marathon on our way towards Del Rio. They were right, for
two reasons: The food is good and it's the only eating place for
thirty miles around. We elected to splurge a bit and stay here among
the period furnishings, rather than go back to the tin-roofed
collection of cabins we passed on the way into town late this
morning. I prepared myself to write this ramble by playing 20
mindless games of FreeCell on the laptop; now I'm ready to begin.
Whoops, I see by the clock on the lower right corner of my screen
that it's almost time for dinner. We have reservations for 6:00 PM.
I'll write more later. Do you get the idea that we've relaxed a bit
since you last heard from us? If you thought so, you'd be right.
We spent a day in Balmorhea working on our minds before starting
the 2000+ foot ride up to Fort Davis. We decided that uphill could
be OK, that we'd take it easy on ourselves, walk before we really
had to and let ourselves enjoy what people had told us would be a
nice ride up a pleasant valley.
It WAS a nice ride, actually. Yes, 2000 feet up, but nothing we
couldn't handle. Yes, 10-30 mph headwinds all the way, but it did
keep us cool. And "only" 38 miles. As we went up, the terrain around
us got a little greener, the roadside flowers slightly more abundant
and the birds rather more vocal.
The mile-high little town of Fort Davis proved to be a great
place to spend a day. We walked all over town, touring the restored
fort, visiting late-1800's vintage churches, looking at original
buildings and finally, checking out the library. This latter is
installed in a little building across from the courthouse that used
to be jail. The cells are still there, each with its own
classification of books. This place gives a new meaning to the word
"booking." This little old town has taken pretty good care of
itself. It would appear that when someone wants to start up a new
business, they refurbish an existing building rather than building a
new one.
It was in Fort Davis that your responses to Carol's "Refiner's
Fire" Ramble came pouring in. You knew just what to say. Your advice
was to the point and experience-based. Your encouragement was
heartfelt. We were moved. Something new is happening here which I
can't describe yet. For the moment, suffice it to say that this
electronic linkage is changing our experience of this tour in quite
unexpected ways.
As we planned to leave Fort Davis, we had a decision to make:
Should we pedal 26 miles to Alpine, or keeping on going to Marathon
for a total of 57 miles? The pull (compulsion?) to go all the way
was almost irresistible. Remembering all the good advice we'd gotten
and our original objective (which emphasized seeing the country over
getting to St. Augustine), we chose Alpine.
This was our day to sight wildlife--deer, antelope and
jack-rabbits. I broke into song: "Home, home on the range: where the
deer and the antelope play; where seldom is heard a discouraging
word and the sky is are not cloudy all day." True, all true. We got
into Alpine in time for lunch, found an interesting historic
hotel-cum-B&B, napped, walked the town, grazed in an idiosyncratic
bookstore, nuked our lunch sandwiches for dinner in the room and
went out to a play that evening.
This morning, we had a similar choice: 31 miles to Marathon or 85
miles through to Sanderson. We're getting better at these decisions.
We quickly chose short over long. We've got an 88 mile run ahead of
us in a few days, so why rush it?
Ken
Itinerary:
- Day 40: Van Horn, TX
- Day 41-42: Balmorhea, TX (pronounced BAL-mo-RAY, not like that
disease you thought of)
- Day 43-44: Fort Davis, TX.
- Day 45: Alpine, TX.
- Day 46: Marathon, TX.
PS: Here's the answer to the quiz question about what, if
anything, Del Rio, Texas, reminds you of. Well, of course, I worded
the question wrongly. I should have asked you to guess what Del Rio
reminds ME of. What it reminds you of is a whole ‘nother
thing--Delores Del Rio, mostly, or some place you've been to in Del
Rio. But there are a few of us for whom Del Rio recalls late nights
long ago spent listening to a distant radio station playing strange
(to our ears) gospel and country-western music and advertising all
sorts of things you could mail away for from bibles to baby chicks.
That was XERF, mailing address Del Rio, but covering North America
with 500,000 watts (ten times the maximum allowed by the FCC) from
across the Rio Grande in mysterious Mexico. Sorry about the little
excursion, folks. I'll try not to do it again.
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