This day was long.

We left the Lofts.

Theresa rec­om­mended a stop at Bread & Break­fast for cof­fee, where I stared long­ingly at giant cin­na­mon rolls and home­made donuts. For once on our jour­ney I exer­cised a bit of restraint (at one meal, but it’s some­thing, right?) Our lit­tle diver­sion off of I-10 looked like this:

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Going to Marfa with­out actu­ally hav­ing the whole Marfa expe­ri­ence was a lit­tle hard for me. (The Chi­nati Foun­da­tion is closed on Mon­days and we needed to get to Ari­zona.) Some­times when I travel, I get into the unfor­tu­nate mind­set that I may never be in this par­tic­u­lar place again, so if I don’t have the Ulti­mate Travel Expe­ri­ence, all will be lost. As I type this, I real­ize it sounds crazy. And I know it’s part of being me—I like a plan and lists and all the vaguely OCD trap­pings that go with that. But, seri­ously, am I going to go to a part of Texas that is three hours from a major air­port ever again?

I hope so—what we did end up see­ing was enough of a taste that I’m hun­gry for more. We were able to see Don­ald Judd’s con­crete works from the road.

Ryan and Harry had a cin­e­matic moment while I was walk­ing through grass.

We were stopped by Bor­der Patrol, which was excit­ing. We made our way to Prada Marfa.

A pray­ing man­tis was on the window—but it looks like it’s on the Prada bag. I knew that art major would come in handy some day.

Did I men­tion the size of Texas? We kept dri­ving. We did not see Lance Arm­strong, who, Theresa tells us, keeps a condo in Marfa.

(But this was pretty close.) Almost out of Texas, we stopped for lunch. Through the mir­a­cle of the GPS and Chowhound, we found the Lit­tle Diner. If you’re ever in Canu­tillo, you are going to eat some gordi­tas or some enchi­ladas. Then you will look into Canutillo-area real estate.

We drove some more. Finally out of Texas, we cruised through New Mex­ico. Then Ari­zona, where we spent the night at my new favorite hotel. More on that in another post.