51. Marfa, Presidio County

I hit Marfa around 1AM after about 200 miles of driving, a stop, and a stupid inspection stop. After 20 minutes waiting, I get to the front and a border agent asks me “Are you a citizen?” with the subtext of I’d rather be doing anything else. I replied “Yes” with the subtext of What do YOU think? He waved me through and I’ll never get that twenty minutes of my life back. When I got to Marfa, the courthouse looked more like this:

I haven’t been to Marfa in about a decade so I was busy noting the changes in town: the new hotel where the bookstore used to be, the houses that extended out of town farther than they did before, the crappy grocery store bought out by a chain (I especially decried that I could no longer shake my fist at the freaking Pronto-Mart). And, of course, the place was deader than a doornail. This is a small and safe as heck town so I decided to sleep in the car. I leaned back the seat, closed my eyes, and started to sleep until sunrise.

When I was getting my ducks in a row to leave for this trip, I realized that I forgot to pack a blanket as was suggested. I thought nothing of it because I had been planning to get a hotel room somewhere. That’s why I woke up at 4:45am, my teeth chattering because I was freezing my eyeballs off! Well, since I was up, I might as well go find a cache…

Welcome to the former Stardust Motel. This is the first non-micro I managed to find on the entire trip, which meant I was finally able to keep a promise I made a while back. I promised my daughters that I would drop their trackables in a far away place. Originally, I thought it would be Corpus Christi, but Marfa would do nicely. I grabbed the cache and put Kirby and the Bear within. If anyone happens to be in Marfa, maybe you’ll move them about? My daughters will thank you!

I was elated. Marfa represented 20% completion of the Great Project. I got some early morning breakfast, got a photo of the courthouse just as the sun was starting to rise, and then headed off to…