Chinati Foundation and Things That Break

We got on the road again Saturday around 8:15 AM, and arrived in Marfa in time for the 10 AM art tour. Marfa looks like a nice town, with some old buildings in excellent condition, and others empty. The County courthouse is very well restored, built in 1886.

The Chinati Foundation is devoted to large art installations. The facility is an abandoned army base. Some of the installations are outside, some are inside. In several cases, one building is devoted to a single art installation. Our tour included some of David Judd's aluminum boxes, John Chamberlain's art made from old car sheet metal, as well as Ilya Kabokov's art installation made to look like an abandoned Lenin-era Russian schoolhouse. The foundation runs two tours a day, 10 AM and 2 PM. The two tours visit different parts of the Chinati collection. Unfortunately, due to mechanical problems, we were not able to stay for the 2 PM tour.

As we were leaving Balmorhea state park in the morning, we stopped to dump the waste water out of our RV tanks. Unfortunately, when I pulled the handle to dump the sewage, it appeared that nothing happened. There was no sound of water running. The handle moved very freely, so I assumed the cable had become disconnected between the handle and the valve, which are separated by several feet of cable. Not a good way to start the day. Waste water is not one of the nicer parts of owning an RV, and less so when you have problems with it.

Also, when we stopped the RV in Marfa, the vacuum cleaner had fallen out of the closet. When I put it back in, I heard the crack of plastic. Broken in two. My bad.

So we headed to Alpine Texas, a larger town, with better hardware stores, and checked into the Pecan Grove RV Park. I then started removing the bottom panels from the RV to access the valve. I had not removed the bottom panels before, and it was a nasty job. I was crawling on my back under the RV, fighting gooey tar, no power screwdriver, no fun. When I pulled off the first panel, I saw that I needed to take off the large front panel. When I finally got access to the valve, I had my spouse pull the handle, and it looked like it was working OK. We put a bunch of water down the toilet, pulled the handle, and you could hear the water running. Everything seemed to work. So did I jump to conclusions? Probably. I sure am not going to pull off the bottom of the RV again without exhausting all possible testing first. I hope that I don't really have an intermittent problem, rather than just making a mistake.

Anyway, a frustrating day in terms of interactions with equipment. Between breaking the vacuum cleaner and tearing my RV apart to find a problem that probably did not exist, I feel a bit of a mechanical klutz, not a feeling that is normal for me.

Here is to a better day tomorrow. We head for Big Bend National Park, and expect to be out of internet access for several days.

Richard and Marianne

Balmorhea State Park

Friday was an easy driving day. We started in Carlsbad at about 8:30 AM, and arrived in Balmorhea before noon. We had originally planned to stop at Balmorhea for a swim in the pool, and then go on to the Chinati museum in Marfa, but decided that we were not in that much of a hurry, and that we would prefer to spend the night at the state park.

Balmorhea State Park is a pool built as a WPA project from a natural spring. The spring puts out twenty million gallons of water per day. The park is a pleasant oasis in the desert. This is not a chlorinated pool with lifeguards. You share the pool with fish, wild ducks, and turtles. The water is crystal clear, and the pool is 25 feet deep at the deepest point. Most of the people in the water were taking scuba lessons. The water is about 77 degrees year round. Today was a cool but sunny day, and Richard enjoyed a swim in the pool while Marianne looked at birds.

The area is beautiful, with desert flowers and yucca blooming.

We saw a great horned owl in a tree around the pool, lying down on the stub of a huge limb. His "horns" were very prominent. The closest either of us has ever been to a big owl in the wild.

The campground is nice, with asphalt roads, picnic tables with covers, water and electricity. Our large rear window faces the mountains.

Our plan for Saturday is to tour the Chinati museum in Marfa, and then head towards Big Bend National Park. Plan subject to change on a whim.

Richard and Marianne

New Mexico - Las Vegas to Carlsbad

We started the day in Las Vegas, New Mexico, pulling onto the road at around 8:15 AM, 24 degrees Fahrenheit. But, the wind was pretty minimal, so the driving was easy, and the fuel mileage was better.

We stopped at one of the many roadside shrines, typical of New Mexico. The photo is of one of three shrines next to the highway north of Roswell. Note the toy car at the bottom.

We visited the Anderson Museum of Contemporary Art in Roswell, which we always enjoy. They were having a commemorative show for Luis Jimenez, who passed away in 2006. He was one of the museum's visiting artists. Roswell is of course best known for the International UFO Museum and Research Center; kids love the UFO museum.

While Richard was checking email for free at the Roswell visitor center, Marianne did a little fabric shopping at the Calico Cow quilt store on Main.

It was around 3:30 when we arrived in Carlsbad. We stopped at the Walmart to stock up for Big Bend National Park. By the time we got out of Walmart, we decided that it was too late to keep driving. We considered staying in the Walmart parking lot and saving $30, but it did not seem very attractive, so we headed to the Carlbad RV park. We have stayed there before, and they have WIFI, so I am posting from there.

Richard's cousin, Gemma, stopped by to see us for a few minutes, always nice to see her.

In the morning we plan to get on the road fairly early, and head for Balmorhea State Park, a big pool which we understand is very nice. From there we head for Marfa, Texas, where we will visit the Chinati Foundation Art museum, which we understand is very unique.

Headwinds

The word for today was headwind. We were fighting a headwind almost all day. At some points I had the pedal almost floored, and we were going 50 miles per hour, pulling the 5th wheel (trailer). The fuel mileage was abysmal, between 6 and 7 mpg. Some areas had tornados.

The Spanish Peaks near Walsenburg Colorado can be seen for many miles around. The other picture was taken on Raton Pass, I-25 on the Colorado – New Mexico border, with the Colorado, New Mexico, and USA flags.

We started the day in Boulder, finally getting away at 10:15 AM. We made it in to Las Vegas, New Mexico at 5:30 PM. A hard day driving. Our campground is rather basic, so no WIFI connection. I tried to access the internet through my cell phone, but no luck. So I plan to post Wednesday's report on Thursday.

Getting ready to leave for Texas

We are getting ready to leave for Texas. Our grand plan is to head to Big Bend National Park first, and then head to Corpus Christi, Houston, and Austin, to visit relatives. We plan to visit various obscure Texas state parks along the way. We also will be visiting some museums as we go, including some art museums.

This is also my first attempt at blogging, although I have been formally published in the past, most recently at mexconnect.com. We hope to post reports and photos from our trip as we travel, generally from my laptop. I have a cable to connect the laptop to my cellphone for internet access, in case we have cell coverage but no WIFI access. Big Bend park is so remote that we do not expect to be able to post from there at all, so we will pass some days without any postings.

Richard