Back home again in Indiana ...

Praise the good Lord, we made it back home safely!  Got in about 4-ish Saturday afternoon.  Spent most of that evening and Sunday afternoon unpacking, doing laundry, etc.  Today we went and got our mail from the post office!  Wow!  So I spent about two hours going through it.  Fun, fun, fun.  Now I have a PILE of magazines and catalogs to go through.  There were some seed catalogs in there ... great!  Looking at them always gets me excited about planting the vegetable garden and trying some new flowers.  On our trip I had some wonderful pickled okra one day with a salad for lunch so for the first time I have decided to grow okra this summer.  And learn how to pickle it, too.

Our trip home went great.  The first night we spent at the Gage Hotel in Marathon, which is about an hour out of the Big Bend National Park.  What a wonderful place!  If you ever get a chance to stay there, do.  I'm posting some pictures from that place.  The room was all Texas!  A steer hide rug at the foot of the bed as well as another, smaller one, in front of the bathroom sink.  Chaps over the bed.  A saddle on a plank.  Spurs on the wall.  And lots of typical west Texas decor.  We liked that town so much that we are trying right now to rent a house there for next Jan. & Feb.!  Wish us luck.  

The second day was pretty uneventful.  We tried a reservoir in northwest Texas, right at the NM line, but it was a bust.  We did end up eating a picnic lunch there, then on through SE New Mexico, which was BORING ... all oil wells and cattle, oil wells and cattle ....  Third day we spent driving through the south of OK because we didn't want to get on the interstate ... it took all day.  Beautiful country!  We found the nicest little cafe somewhere in south central OK (and I had that wonderful salad with the pickled okra I mentioned).  We met the three sweet little ladies who ran it as well as two of the husbands!  Wonderful people.  We have met some special people on this trip!  Wandered across the south of MO the last full day out.  We stayed in Sikeston MO that night and had throwed rolls at Lamberts!  What a kick!  I had fried chicken livers there and they were WONDERFUL!  And the rolls were good, too.  It is an enormous place!  Lots of servers and they were super nice.  You should go there!  Got up Saturday a.m. and headed for home.  Stopped at the grocery in Linton so we would be ready to stay in for awhile (the cupboards and frig were bare of course).  Sunday went to church and got a nice welcome back!  

NOW ... today is not so good.  We noticed that our water pressure was low so Wendell found out that there are a couple broken pipes in the well pit and, bless his heart, he has been trying to get that fixed for the longest time this afternoon.  One trip to the hardware and one to a neighbors for something he forgot at the hardware!  It's now 4:30 and we've been without water since 10 this a.m. .... so I am thinking I should pack a bag for us for a night in a motel because I don't see this getting done before dark sets in.  Oh well ... nothing is ever easy, is it?  Later ...

Great week, but all good things must come to an end ...

[A Donald Judd aluminum sculpture at the Chinati Foundation, Marfa, TX.] 

Today is a sad day.  Packing to leave Marfa early tomorrow!  We're off to the Big Bend National Park for a couple days, then we head slowly back toward Indiana.  We hope to swing up through the Guadalupe Mountains on the way (at the TX/NM border) and Wendell wants to do some fishing in a reservoir near there.

This week was fantastic!  The weather has been good (70s during the day and cool at night).  On Monday we toured the MacDonald Observatory and that was so interesting.  Tuesday spent around here and around town.  Wendell got a tour of the town, learning all of the local history from a new friend from church one day.  Our 48th wedding anniversary was this week and we got a beautiful bouquet from our youngest son and his family; went to a local restaurant for a special dinner that night.  Took a long bike ride on Wednesday.  Last night we had a last-blast special dinner at an over-priced restaurant in Alpine then stopped at the Marfa Lights Viewing Center (again the lights were a no-show but the moon rising behind Cathedral Mountain was spectacular). 

Most unique day was Friday.  We toured the Chinati Foundation here in Marfa for an all-day tour of several art installations on the grounds and at an off-site location downtown.  I am posting some pictures of that tour below.  What a day!  Lots of walking but well worth it.  The grounds are just wonderful; very unique use of an old army base in the desert.  The spaces are well used; artillery buildings, barracks, mess halls, gymnasium, etc.!  Donald Judd bought this place and installed some of his work as well as several other minimalist artists.  He used these large spaces to install large pieces of art!  Not always available in the average gallery or museum.  Some of the work was not interesting to us but lots more was than wasn't.  (You have to keep an open mind!)  Close as I can remember, artists represented are John Chamberlain, Carl Andre, Ingolfur Arnarsson, Dan Flavin, Roni Horn, Ilya Kabakov, Richard Long, Claes Oldenurg, David Rabinowitch, and John Wesley.  I'm sure I've spelled some of the names incorrectly!  If you're interested, read more about the place at www.chinati.org

It was sad saying goodbye to all of our new friends at the First United Methodist Church here in Marfa this morning.  Clementine, the pianist, played some Bill & Gloria Gaither songs for us (since we're from Indiana)!  And they gave us a couple of UMC coffee mugs!  What more could you ask!?  We feel blessed to have spent each Sunday with them.

I may not post again before we get home ... who knows?  Let's pray for nice weather back home in Indiana.