Scenes from Marfa -- Part One

* update -- if you want to hear some of the tunes we were listening to on our eight hour trek to Marfa, I have a little "Roadtripping" mix up over on K.I.D. Collective...











the beautiful shop Tienda M...





There's just too much goodness that I want to share with you guys from our trip to Marfa, so in an attempt to avoid (completely) photographic overload, I'm going to split my "scenes" up into two posts... I'll share some of the highlights of our trip today, and, since several of you have asked for tips on visiting Marfa, I thought I'd include a little "stay/eat/do" guide with tomorrow's photo extravaganza in gratitude for indulging me.

I realize it's a bit simplistic and obvious to characterize Marfa as "magical", but really in every sense of the term, it is pure magic. It's this shimmering little mirage in the middle of majestic West Texas...all high art and good food and interesting, smart, creative people tucked quietly amidst beautifully broken-down buildings and eerily empty roads. Being there is restorative and inspiring and inevitably prompts every person I've known who's visited to dream of packing-up and reinventing themselves in that seemingly limitless landscape.

Our trip consisted of mostly ambling about... We spent a lot of time with our dear friends Buck and Camp at their amazing house, ate some excellent meals (the restaurants are few but stellar), visited Chinati and marveled over the Flavins and the foresight of Donald Judd, swam in bracingly cold spring-fed pools at Balmoreha State Park (and were in awe of the crazy "finger mountains" on our drive there that the girlies likened to "drip castles made by God") and rode our bikes everywhere.

I'm always heartened by how the girlies come alive in environments like this. They were literally never bored, never complaining; despite the fact that there were very few of the trappings typically deemed "essential" to occupying kids. They roamed and explored, played with the dogs that were hanging out at restaurants, put pennies on the train tracks and delighted in searching for the little flattened pieces of copper the next morning, wrote in their journals, climbed trees, invented games. In this space they could be wild and inventive and free...

But most important, in this space, they could be kids -- a state that has become far too rare.












millie and our friend Buck sharing a moment...



a shot by Audrey who demonstrated quite the photographic prowess on this trip...