I finally reached Hwy 90, a two lane country highway (speed limit 75, woo-hoo!) that would take me the last 70 miles or so to my one night stay in Marfa. It was just as the sun was setting, and I pulled over twice just to snap a couple shots...it was really quite beautiful. What I didn't think about was how my drive would change when the sun went down...it got very VERY dark. Re-reading my airbnb hosts description later, I learned that it was actually the 5th darkest place on earth (whatever that means). Anyway, real dark. I had already slowed down a bit when I spotted a set of tall rabbit ears. Oh cute! A jackRabbit! As I got closer though, about 20 miles out, I saw another pair of ears, and another, and then before I knew it, they were rushing out into the road all willy nilly like a bunch of jackAsses! Like goddamm Johnny Knoxville on some sick dare akin to Russian Roulette. I was cringing and on the verge of tears as these bunnies were pracially throwing themselves at my car, like a backwards game of whack-a-mole, where I was trying desperately not to hit them. In this twisted game of evolution, I decided to employ a new method to intervene in jackrabbit survival; I started honking. Every time I saw a pair of ears HONK! 2 pairs HONK HONK!! There was one really close call, but I didn't hear or feel a thump or a bump...I did however, run across no less than 10 carcasses, dodging them the same way I did their living brethren. With an oncoming streetlight as my beacon, I rolled into town traumatized, but at least, not a murderer.
I found my airbnb after a couple of wrong turns in that darkest dark, and tiredly lugged my bags in to orient myself and then quickly return to my car for a trip to view the Marfa Lights. Now, these lights, orbs (they have been described all sorts of ways that I'll add to), we're almost the entire reason I had travelled to this middle of nowhere Texas town....and something about a big art installation, again, in the middle of nowhere. I had been warned that food would be hard to come by late, so I settled for a lunch able and a can of Miller High Life from the convenience store for my dinner at the viewing area.
I thought I was through the worst of the rabbit kamikazes, but it started over again as soon as I got through town on the same highway going the other direction... thankfully it was only 10 miles, so I honked and drove about 20 mph less than the speed limit the whole way there. I arrived just as I was finishing the S-town podcast, which was intermittently sad and disturbing, and in the end, made me cry. I'll tell you though, I spotted those "illusive" Marfa Lights as soon as I got parked. At first, it was just one red, blinking light, so I thought it was some sort of runway or other location light....but then, the monotonous blinking turned into a more of a flicker, and then a little white light appeared, whose flicker was less often and more erractic. At some point, a third light came into play, another white flickering light, and the whole scene seemed to me very similar to watching fireflies...like they were communicating, playing with each other. The red light was most active, but not moving as much as the other two, kind of floating low across the desert sky. I sat there waiting for a supernatural feeling to overtake me, but really it just seemed a bit strange...plus nothing would feel more surreal that night than suicidal rabbits. I got a good gander at the stars in that black sky too, and instead of feeling insignificant like they can tend to make you feel, I felt so significant in that moment. I was there to bear witness to all that natural and unexplainable phenomena, me, just like it was there to be witnessed. We were all a part of what was happening.
The photos are of the following morning in Marfa: a stop at a converted barn breakfast and pastry spot call Buns n Roses, the cemetery across the street, and the famous Chianti Foundation, where I could only view the outdoor concrete installation without a tour appointment.
