On the Road: Marfa, Texas to Carlsbad, New Mexico

After days spent exploring Big Bend National Park in Texas, the road leads us to New Mexico to experience both Guadalupe National Park and Carlsbad Caverns National Park. The drive spans Big Bend, surrounding mesas, the Chihuahuan Desert, large pecan farms, and takes us along US Route 90 North from Marfa to Van Horn, Texas.

Marfa pocket park.

Marfa, Texas is a quaint town with modern and historically Western layers, and warrants more than a mere lunch stop. At first glance, the town is a blend of art and ranch. The artful current is wrapped in its locale and ranching community. The small Main Street Marfa area has art installations, southwestern architecture, great local food, and places where hard work on the land mingles with curated coffee shops.

The Sentinel, a newspaper, coffee shop, restaurant & beautifully arranged retail space in a former newspaper building - all with goods of the area. Delicious butternut squash tacos.

The road from Marfa holds more delights. While the highway itself can be rather unremarkable - long and flat and straight as the landscape transitions to open range and grassy plains for miles - the occasional train passes with colorful cars and screaming tags and symbols of graffiti artists. It’s an interesting juxtaposition to the vast desert fields

Then, on the west side of the highway, is an out-of-nowhere surprise. Prada Marfa. Prada Marfa is an artist-created, pop-up faux Prada store in the middle of the desert. Prada Marfa is one of these unexpected delights of travel that punctuates an experience with art and joy and humor and oddity and thoughtfulness.

Prada Marfa, pop art/land art.

Prada Marfa is an art installation by Scandinavian designers Elmgreen and Dragset. In 2005, the duo created the “pop architectural land art project” using nature-based materials to allow the building to retreat back into the earth over time. In an independent partnership, the design house donated items from its Fall/Winter 2005 line to be viewed through the windows. The items complement the desert-tones of the surrounding landscape (www.pradagroup.com). It is fantastic.

Other mysteries, particularly of atmospheric and space origin, abound along the desert highway. Marfa Lights are a phenomenon of unexplained orbs that have been spotted in the night sky above town. There are images and documented accounts of their presence, with viewing opportunities along the highway and at local attractions.

Further north, you’ll pass a tethered radar-detecting craft that looks like a blimp; another mystery for the imagination. This is to be followed by the Blue Origin Launch Site One, Jeff Bezos’ space exploration launch pad near Van Horn, Texas (the one where William Shatner launched into space).

Antelope graze on the range and with a rise in elevation, we find ourselves in the Guadalupe Mountains, covered with a fresh dusting of snow. We are lucky to find a remote, free, dispersed campsite on BLM land in the desert, nestled between Guadalupe National Park and Carlsbad Caverns National Park. We settle in to watch a soft desert sunset over the mountains.

Sunset over the Chihuahuan Desert.