The Left Coast: Part 3 Texas
Candalada
NikkRichPhoto
By drive friendly what that really mean is drive fast!
iphone photo Had to slow down to catch this took 3 attempts :)
Dallas was going to be our first stop in Texas. I was excited it was daytime and we would have a chance to look around a little. 30 minutes out from Dallas Nikky found our food spot.
Ellen’s Southern Kitchen 1718 N. Market St., Dallas Texas 75202
I had the mac and cheese with broccoli and diced tomatoes. It tasted like it had bacon in it. The waiter assured me it was smoke flavoring and not invisible bacon bits. Nikky had grilled cheese and tomato soup. I had a bite of sandwich. Unfortunately some type of mayo was in her grilled cheese and that temporarily ruined my life. The atmosphere at Ellen's was lovely, they had a full bar that was very lively. The wallpaper was very pretty.
Texas
At the dinner table in Virginia before we hit the road Nikky decided she wanted to see Prada Marfa and White Sands National Monument. She showed me a few pics online and I kept looking at her like she was crazy. Thinking to myself, “Driving across the country is not long enough? We have to make it even longer?"
Instead of driving through Oklahoma and the panhandle of Texas taking 40 West as a straight shot, we took a bit of a lower route and drove through the entire body of Texas in order to get to Valentine,Texas. Yes the letter B!
Stay with me, we left Dallas and we were headed to the letter B. What was in Valentine, Texas that was so important?
The Letter B : Prada Marfa in Valentine, Texas
We were in the middle of the desert, late at night and 35 miles off of our route to California. I wouldn’t say that we felt perfectly ok on this road, where even the GPS went out. We started to see the lights of the sculpture in mid uncertainty. We became so excited and as we pulled up the internet magically started working.
We really didn’t want to get out of the car. We thought about it, we drove over 24 hours as non-stop as possible. We could not let the opportunity to document Prada Marfa slip away. An officer pulled up asking if our purpose of being parked on the side of the road was the sculpture. I replied, ”Yes!” and asked him to stay for our safety. His headlights surely helped with visibility you can see them vividly in Nikky’s photo. Trust me it was dark out there!
Even Beyonce went in the daytime (2012) .....
2012 google image
We left Prada Marfa at 10:50pm and our next target was Letter C: White Plains New Mexico. Many of the exits had Spanish names and there were tons of tiny yellow lights. After hours and hours I started to wonder if I missed the sign. Nikky, "Am I in Mexico? Am I in New Mexico?” I just felt really confused. Why isn't Texas over yet? I passed El Paso and it wasn’t like when I fell out of Memphis into Arkansas. I was driving and driving and driving and driving and hoping the welcome sign to another state was on the way.
Those tiny yellow lights to my left were Mexico. I was riding along the boarder for hours. Looking at it on a still map makes much more sense than did that night looking at the little blue ball on my tiny phone from a zoomed in angle.
Wow route 10 you really basically almost let me almost fall into Mexico and cover every single little tiny peace of land Texas had to offer.
I dare you guess what I discovered next.
