Okay, last time, I had us headed out from Ozona...and from a Walmart where I’d just managed to cut myself up like a gad-danged salami on a slicer while trying to get a jug of milk out of a refrigerator. In a word, Phooey. Or maybe Gosh. Or maybe, even, all the way to Pshaw. Oh, I’m a master of Expletives and Invective when I get started. You betcha.
Anyway, we drove on, and I began to notice that the landscape was changing rather dramatically. Where Central Texas--which is where Georgetown and Austin are to be found-- is sometimes a little hilly (that’s why they call it the Hill Country), and much of Western Texas is wide-open plains, Southwestern Texas starts picking up bluffs and highlands. There are places that are clearly volcanic in origin, and you see not wheat or even grass, but sage brush, tumble weeds, and other desert life.
Even more striking, particularly when you get to the Big Bend area and when you get closer to New Mexico, you actually find mountains--specifically, the the Chisos Mountains(1), the Chinati Mountains (2), the Davis Mountains (3), and the Guadalupe Mountains (4). That is astonishing for Texas, which is otherwise so very flat in so many places.
An aside, I suppose the mountains aren’t as impressive as some. The highest peak in the whole state is Guadalupe Peak which is 8,751 feet (2,667 meters) above sea level. In my old home state, New Mexico, Sandia Peak...which is right next to Albuquerque... is 10,679 feet (3,255 meters) above sea level. And Sandia’s a rather medium mount as far as the state is concerned. The highest point in New Mexico is Wheeler Peak at 13,161 feet (4,013 meters). And we simply won’t get into Colorado, California, Washington State, or...God help us...Alaska.(5)
About the photos: First, a photo of the land on the route between Ozona and Marfa. You see what I mean when I say it feels like New Mexico. And, second, just in case you don’t, here’s a panoramic view of the landscape just outside of Acoma Pubelo (the sky city). And, finally, here’s Martha on one of our trips to Taos, long ago and far way. (Dang! I miss New Mexico.)
But, even so, these mountains are wild and rugged, and impressive by any real measure. They’re also much like landforms you’d see in New Mexico. In fact, as we went further west and south, I felt more and more at home. This was just like Central New Mexico, or the southern central parts of the state, as if you were on the highway from Albuquerque to Las Cruces on Route 25...or, maybe, if you were on Route 10 from Las Cruces to El Paso.
And it struck me, as we drove along, that here we have another place where geography and geology conflict with politics. Just as Eastern New Mexico could, logically, be considered a part of Texas, so Southwestern Texas could easily be absorbed by Central and southern New Mexico.
It’s kind of an arresting image, really. A new New Mexico without its eastern grasslands...the area sometimes called the Llano Estacada(6)...but including all the rocky uplands of today’s far western Texas, and including El Paso, which has always felt as New Mexican as it does Texan.
On the other hand...I’m a good Albuquerque boy, loyal to my childhood home. What would happen to ABQ if...yikes!...the state border no longer divided it from El Paso, which has a strong economy and a strong business culture, and which is an important inland port, to boot?
Could my old hometown hold its own? What comes to mind is New York vs. Boston, and that didn’t work out well for the more Northern city.
Ah well...maybe things are better off left the way they are.
Anyhoo, we drove along...past rocky hills, what seemed to be volcanic bluffs, and then back into flatland and rangeland, though still quite arid. And then...then...
We saw it.
On the horizon. A silvery water tower standing high and proud on the edge of the world. At its feet...a collection of buildings, some small, some large, some ancient, some new, some quite grand, some little more than collections of poles and boards, as rickety and fragile as those popsicle stick houses we all built in grade school crafts classes...
We had arrived.
Marfa was before us.
And things were about to get complicated.
As usual.
More to come.
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Footnotes:
5. Alaska’s Denali peak, a.k.a., Mount McKinley, is the highest mountain in North America, at a (literally) breath-taking 20,310 feet (6,190 meters) above sea level. In a word, Whoa. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denali
6. Llano Estacado https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llano_Estacado
Copyright©2024 Michael Jay Tucker
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