Janie and I are leaving the itinerary behind....

Well, I did it. I've left the itinerary. I knew that I probably would, because it was quite ambitious, but I was strangely comforted by the structure of it. But yesterday it became impossible to follow, and now, I'm officially off of it, save for one hotel reservation in Cloudcroft, NM, which I made for tomorrow night.

Yesterday morning, I left Big Bend, and drove along the "River Road", which goes west from the park along the Rio Grande. It was a gorgeous drive. There's a picture attached; amazing how lush and green the desert is near the river. That's Mexico to the left of the river, by the way.

At Presidio, TX, I drove northward to Marfa, which is this tiny little town in the middle of nowhere which has turned into this major artist colony. I saw the Chinati Foundation, a contemporary art museum in Marfa. It's so surprising, given the small town in the middle of the West Texas mountains! The museum is housed in many, many buildings, an old army fort, actually....it took 2 hours to see just half of the exhibit (the other half is only viewed in the morning, so I missed it).

That afternoon, I drove to Fort Davis, TX, to see the McDonald Observatory. Unfortunately, they weren't doing an evening show last night, so I just stayed in town. I stayed in a gorgeous little cottage called the Butterfield Inn....the only weird part were the Cowboy Ten Commandments hanging in my room.

This morning, I went to the Observatory finally, and took a very cool tour of the telescopes there, and got to watch the sun live. Unfortunately, the tour took quite a while, and I didn't leave until after 2pm. I bagged Guadalupe Mountains National Park (didn't get to see El Capitan, too bad), but tried to make it to Carlsbad Caverns. No luck....the last tour of the caverns leaves at 3:30, and I didn't arrive until 4:30 mountain time.

Tomorrow, I have this reservation at Cloudcroft Lodge. Otherwise, I'm not sure what's on the agenda yet....Carlsbad Caverns? White Sands National Monument? Both? Neither? Hmmm....

Oh, and I've named the Jeep. Name's Janie.