Road Trip: Texas

A failed expedition to marfa

Expectations can be detrimental. When we set off on our indefinite journey across America, some expectations were fully formed, while others weren't at all. Texas was a place for which my expectations were embarrassingly low, and as it usually tends to go when this is the case, I was blown away (almost literally).

Most of these photos were taken in or around Marfa, TX, an artsy ghost-town just north of Big Bend. After we left Austin, we had no set plans for months to come. We headed for Marfa, expecting to find things. What? I have no idea. Perhaps the cool L.A. parties or Instagram worthy glamping we had heard about. But instead, as life in the desert will have it, we found nothing. The entire city was dead.

We noted this absence of life just after discovering giant Goathead burrs embedded in all four deflated bike tires, and just before a giant sandstorm came rolling in. As sand stung our faces and we pushed our bikes miles back to camp, I had a very deep and permanent realization that for the next two months, we'd be going wherever the wind wanted to take us.

Photos posted here were taken in Austin, Marfa, Big Bend National Park, Terlingua, Route 90 and Mt. Guadalupe National Park. Little did I know I would return to these same roads in Texas a few years later in a completely different capacity… (read Boquillas Canyon blog here).