The Incredibly Monotonous Permian Basin

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North of Alpine, Texas

Leaving the hills and canyons of the Alpine, Texas, area for a drive north, we were soon entering the Permian Basin. Maybe we were always in the basin as it stretches in all directions for a total of 86,000 square miles or 250 miles (400 km) wide and 300 miles (480 km) long. Our path is being dictated by roads not previously travelled by us that we had tried to identify by looking at a very low-res image of our Map of America shared here on the blog in 2018. After we get home from this trip, I’ll be posting an updated map of the roads we’ve driven over that includes last year’s trip up the middle of the U.S. and the roads we’ll travel today.

Buzzard seen north of Alpine, Texas

After passing by this “ornamental sculpture,” we needed to turn around to determine if we’d seen what we thought we had. Pulling up after a quick U-turn, the buzzard had pulled its wings in but once again threw them back out. Obviously, it was not a sculpture. A buzzard buddy was also perched nearby, warming his wings in the sun, but I couldn’t fit the two in a single shot, nor could I capture a more detailed image as lazily I had taken only a single lens with us on this trip. As a matter of fact, I didn’t bring my tripod either, which will hurt my ability to take pictures of the main reason we are on this trip; more about that tomorrow.

Proud of oppresion in rural Texas

Is that three bullet holes that have chipped into the historical marker that’s making me hysterical? This sign from 1936 celebrates the clearing of Indians and bandits back when the “country” was being cleared of those scourges. The land didn’t need clearing if it wasn’t for the invading hordes that wanted an abundance of free lands that those pesky Indians didn’t hold a title to. Maybe I’m just too woke, but I find it an affront and demeaning to Indigenous Americans to equate them with bandits and the suggestion that they needed to be pushed away in any case.

Highway 17 south of Pecos, Texas

The area we were out traversing from about Saragosa, Texas, to Hobbs, New Mexico, is home to the incredibly monotonous landscape that is nothing but dirt, oil and gas wells, and sellers of brine. Brine is a salt solution used by the mining industry; we had to look that up. This is pretty much what everything looks like in the Permian Basin.

La Norteña Tamales in Pecos, Texas

This was a coup that only happened due to the demands of the bladder. After stopping at a gas station here in Pecos, Texas, Caroline was admiring a sign next door and said she wanted to take a photo of it. Often, when I hear that, I’ll also move to take the same image using my DSLR, should her sense of the aesthetic have been correct, and later, I regret not having taken the same photo with a better-quality camera. Good thing I did because after taking this, I wandered to the front of the building believing that La Norteña Tamale Factory was closed due to the open sign being off in the drive-thru, but sure enough, they were open. I ordered a couple of tamales for each of us, one green chili chicken tamale and the other a spicy red beef. Back on the road heading north, we shared one of the green chili tamales and immediately turned around to return to the shop.

Caroline Wise at La Norteña Tamales in Pecos, Texas

We did not go back to register a complaint; we were not unhappy. On the contrary, we were ecstatic that a $2 tamale should be so amazingly perfect. That’s right, perfect. Our return was to collect a dozen of the green chili chicken and a dozen of the Hatch chile “Rajas” tamales, along with a packet of spicy peach ring candies by Nooshka’s Candies. Beaming with enthusiasm and exclaiming our delight, the owner came out of the kitchen to thank us and explained that the quality of everything they offer is due to the efforts of the amazing staff. Before we left, he generously gifted us with a melon/mango aqua fresca. Good thing we brought the ice chest with us on this trip.

Oilfield near Jal, New MexicoFarther along the road, the smell of gas permeated the area on occasion while we also drove through wafting invisible clouds of more fragrant petroleum. At least petroleum is somewhat interesting smelling, whereas gas is anything but. The eye sees sand, low bushes, discarded and unused equipment, and 10,000 pickup trucks interspersed between countless tankers and various other semi-vehicles, pulling and pushing every manner of equipment across the otherwise barren land.

Ruin on Highway 62 Eastern Texas

With nearly 150 miles (240km) driving north before turning east for more of the same, the majority of our day was spent in this seeming wasteland with no redeemable qualities other than being an epicenter for economic activity that contributes to an incredible resource wealth for Texas and New Mexico. Well, that stuff and the town of Pecos with those tamales.

Near Seminole, Texas

Big-time nerd action was had on the side of one of the roads we traveling when we stopped to watch a crew working on electrical towers putting up high-voltage transmission lines. We kept our distance until I noticed one of the guys starting to cut a cable, and I asked if we could see the cable up close; he said we had to keep our distance, but he then cut off a length of the aluminum and steel cable and brought it to me. Sadly, it was too long to fit in our car, and he’d already moved on, so there was no asking him for a shorter piece. No matter; we were as happy as if we’d spotted wolves in Yellowstone.

Wind Turbine South of Stanton, Texas

While much of the Permian Basin is this flat, dry environment with sporadic areas that are farmed, the area is big on energy extraction of not only oil and natural gas but of wind too. With about 2 billion barrels of oil produced worth around $150 billion annually and 10.5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas extracted worth about $38 billion, the wind might be a small part of the economy, but still, they are producing about $6 billion of electricity by harnessing this resource.

Stiles Courthouse in Big Lake, Texas

On the side of State Highway 137 near Big Lake, Texas, stands the old Stiles Courthouse which is looking like it won’t be of this world much longer. If this was part of a larger town at some point in the past, evidence of that is hard to see out here. The building was still in use in 1966 by the highway department before being abandoned. In 1999, an arsonist burned it after two previous failed attempts.

Ozona, Texas

Twenty-four years ago, while returning from our first cross-country road trip, we passed through Ozona, Texas, and took a photo of this sign; you can see it by visiting this ancient page from that trip. Tonight, we are staying here in Ozona. By the way, our original attraction was due to the sound of the name of the town, which reminds us of our home state, Arizona.

Desert to Desert

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Dimitri at Simpson Hotel in Duncan, Arizona

Good morning, Dimitri! Nice to see you here on your perch, and thanks for guarding the parlor of the Simpson Hotel from intruders overnight. When we got in last night, the table I sat at for writing on my previous visits was set for dinner as we were joining Deborah, Clayton, Gavin, and Richard for dinner to celebrate Richard’s birthday. While Dimitri wasn’t uninvited, he was nowhere to be seen, which was just as well, as there wouldn’t have been enough cake to go around.

Stuffed owl at Simpson Hotel in Duncan, Arizona

This is not a writing trip but a respite from the task, which meant that we slept in, as much as remaining in bed until 6:00 a.m. can be considered sleeping in. By the time we emerged from our ablutions, Furry the Owl, a friend of Little Burrowing Owl who lives in a hole in a field on the outside of town next to their friends, the ground squirrels who live in a nearby mound, was surprised we hadn’t shown up earlier. We informed Furry that we’d been distracted by dreams that saw us looking to the clouds for the red-tailed hawk so we could warn everyone of its presence with chirping sounds. Or was all of that part of a dream? The more likely truth is that Clayton was the one surprised that he was downstairs in the kitchen well before my arrival in the parlor and then shared the song Little Burrowing Owl, from Mr. Elephant with us, which influenced this narrative and subsequently lodged itself in our ears like a worm for the duration of our adventure to stand under the shadow of the moon that promised to blot out the sun in two days.

South of Deming, New Mexico

A surprise road we’d not traveled previously became the route we’d journey on today as we were informed about a major freeway construction project on the west of El Paso, Texas, that we could bypass if we took this southerly trail. Prior to reaching this dusty stretch of highway, Caroline and I had traveled out of Duncan over to Silver City, New Mexico, to visit with old friends Tom and Sandy. The time spent out their way was brief, but we had to consider the two hours we’d lose today going east. This photo was taken about halfway between Deming and Columbus, New Mexico, on Highway 11, and as you might be able to guess from all the dust in the air, it was seriously windy out here in southern New Mexico.

Columbus, New Mexico

This is the oldest building in Columbus, New Mexico, dating from 1902. Operating as a train depot until 1960, when the line was closed with the track and ties sold off, it is now the local museum next to Highway 9, which used to be the route of the train.

Mexican border wall in southern New Mexico

That’s the infamous fence protecting us Americans from the invaders from Mexico who arrive to steal our jobs. While I’m mostly in agreement that people should take the proper steps to emigrate to the U.S., there are pathways for that to happen for those who are well-qualified and educated to bring skills to our country, but we have millions of dirty jobs that average American’s do not want, and this is where those less-fortunate souls to our south come in to take “all of our jobs.”

Art Car in southern New Mexico

We passed this art car at 80mph and whipped a quick U-turn to catch the guy before he pulled away. Weapons, ammunition, odds and ends, a couple of images of Greta Thunberg, mannequin parts, antlers, and assorted car parts made up this oddly balanced vehicle out here next to the Mexican border.

Prada Store in Marfa, Texas

It turns out that it’s been 22 years since Caroline and I last passed through this corner of Texas on a trip that took us through Valentine, Marfa, and Terlingua down to Big Bend National Park. This famous Prada Store art installation outside of Marfa didn’t show up until 2005, a few years after our visit.

The Holland Hotel in Alpine, Texas

The historic Holland Hotel here in Alpine, Texas, was built back in 1928 and was where we were checking in to spend the night. Of peculiar coincidence, Deborah and Clayton of the Simpson Hotel are also staying here this evening before continuing eastward to San Antonio, Texas, in the morning. They were a few hours behind us, which had us staying up writing and knitting before they arrived around midnight, as we didn’t want to lose the opportunity for this chance encounter with the proprietors of the Simpson so far away from home.

Looking for Star Light

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Mt Graham in the distance on the way to Duncan, Arizona

We are traveling in the general direction of where millions of others are going: to the eclipse. Months ago, when we snagged a motel room outside of the eclipse totality. We knew we’d be positioning ourselves a couple of hours north of where we wanted to be with the hope that the drive to our destination wouldn’t be a road of mayhem. The booking in Ozona, Texas, was hundreds of dollars cheaper than in the path of the totality, where we were seeing places that would have normally cost about $100 a night going for close to $1,000 for the evening of April 7th, 2024. Flights into the areas of the totality were also too pricey, so we are driving, which is what we were doing when I snapped this image of the setting sun. Once again, we are staying out at the Simpson Hotel in Duncan, Arizona, right near the New Mexico state line.

Happy New Year From Out Here

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Simpson Hotel in Duncan, Arizona

Happy New Year, and welcome to 2024. I took up my place in the first sunlight of the day while Clayton was busy in the kitchen making coffee and presenting us with a parfait breakfast starter.  Caroline is on the phone with her mom in Germany, and I try basking in the warm sunshine while writing, but enjoying the ambiance of the Simpson Hotel is a powerful distraction.

Karthik and Lakshmi at the Simpson Hotel in Duncan, Arizona

A newly married young couple who arrived last night joined us for our morning meal: Lakshmi and Karthik, who also live in the Phoenix area. They’ve been out wandering around the area for the past week, trying to get more of the Southwest into their senses before Karthik takes off for India to deal with some of the beaurocracy involving working on an H1B visa. While he’s gone, Lakshmi will be dealing with their move up to the Portland area. When they told us about their travels from the Petrified Forest to Gallup, over to Santa Fe and Albuquerque in New Mexico, and various points between before finally landing in Duncan, Arizona, it was nice to see a mirror image of Caroline’s and my enthusiasm for sharing time together exploring our world. In the popular vernacular of the day, they are vibing. Over breakfast, sumptuous as always, we discussed the drive home, in which all four of us were traveling in the same direction but talked of a detour through Virden, New Mexico, to try catching sight of some sandhill cranes.

Sandhill Cranes in Virden, New Mexico

These large birds were in short supply, and the ones we did spot were quite distant from where we could observe them. We’d brought binoculars, but even so, nobody got a great view of the cranes. No matter, we’d seen wildlife and were able to share some enthusiasm with Lakshmi and Karthik about how incredible these opportunities are.

Cow sign in Virden, New Mexico

With nothing left to do, and instead of trying to wedge something else into the last minutes of our getaway, we accepted that our long weekend was coming to a close and that by focusing on the drive west, we’d be able to go further into In Search of Lost Time.

On a final note, Clayton left us with a quote from historian Charles A. Beard to ponder: “The bee fertilizes the flower it robs.”

Into The Shadows With 2023

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At the Simpson Hotel in Duncan, Arizona

Now, here we are in the early sunrise of the final day of the year, perched in our respective comfy spots in a room about to turn 110 years old. Not the oldest place we’ve ever taken up, but a cozy location nonetheless. As for the other side of the windows, it’s a wintery freezing morning out there where the warming cup of coffee would quickly lose its potential, followed by turning cold, too.

At the Simpson Hotel in Duncan, Arizona

Before any thoughts of finding the bravery to venture beyond our lazy comfort arise, the clinking and clatter of kitchen sounds clue us in that to head out for a walk at this time would be nothing short of rude as the symphony from that side of the hotel could only signal one thing: we were soon to find ourselves feasting.

At the Simpson Hotel in Duncan, Arizona

Meanwhile, we, too, bask in the warm indoors to avoid the bitter cold that is ushering out the year that was. This guy is Crocket, the trust fund kitty I’ve mentioned before. Through the cosmetic surgery available in Photoshop, I tried cleaning up the worst of his lung condition, which is the reason why, in the early part of the day, he’s a snotty, mucusy mess of a cat. Yet aside from trying to bite me if I attempt to pet him, he seems nice enough.

At the Simpson Hotel in Duncan, Arizona

This is beyond eating. Eating is too vulgar a word: all who pull up to a table this day will eat. Instead, we dine on a feast of flavors and textures that conspire to punctuate the end of 2023 with a duel in which this final breakfast takes up a sword and, with a challenge, says en garde! to the 364 morning meals that came before it.

This wicked concoction from the genius imagination of the artist in front of the stove can be described as a perfect mystery demanding that we forge a way to decipher where our taste buds are traveling. Flavors arrive from numerous points on the globe, maybe Oaxaca, a little bit of Persia, and the American Southwest, while the other locations must remain offshore in the chef’s repertoire of tools and brushes he used to craft this canvas.

Mystery must remain a part of this extraordinary beginning of the day because revealing precisely what went into our breakfast might chase away some of the enchantment. With my own imagination swirling around just what was on this plate, what Chef Don Carlos brought to our senses, and how it will flavor the experience of this last day of the year, I am allowed to savor what has been presented as though I were gazing into a culinary diorama.

Entering New Mexico between Duncan, Arizona and Lordsburg, New Mexico

With the proverbial one thing leading to another combined with the knowledge of proximity due to this weekend’s destination, Caroline had already coordinated a meeting with a friend we’d not seen in more than ten years on Sunday, that’s today. The couple we are visiting are Sandy and Tom, who now live in Silver City, New Mexico, following an extended stay in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, where Tom was teaching engineering. Well, here we are, crossing the desert into New Mexico for the 75-mile drive to our destination, thus violating what I wrote earlier about trying to accomplish nothing on a lazy close of the year.

As isolated as they could find, up in the hills and quite similar to where they used to live in Prescott, Arizona, we found Tom and Sandy awaiting our arrival. While Caroline and Sandy have kept in touch over the years, this was the first time they were seeing each other face-to-face in the intervening years. Over coffee and about three hours of the afternoon, we chatted and chatted before making a date to visit again on April 6th, when we’d be passing through the area again on our way to the total solar eclipse on April 8th. This time spent with old friends added a nice punctuation to the last day of the year.

Leaving Silver City, New Mexico

Leaving when we did offered us all the fireworks we’d need to usher in 2024 because the sunset delivered a performance that sang to our senses. As the sky brought a song, our dinner with Clayton and Deborah, owners of the Simpson Hotel, would be a symphony performed in the Philharmonic de Paris, only better.

Caroline Wise in New Mexico

Caroline and I have shared very few New Year’s celebrations with others and to be invited, unexpectedly, to the table of our hosts to note the arrival of the new year over a sumptuous meal and a bottle of sparkling Riesling wine from Wiesbaden, Germany, well, that surpassed everything we might have otherwise considered as a potential celebration of the change from one year to the next.

Dusk in Arizona and the end of the sunset

There are so many parts that lend themselves to what is experienced. It is not simply food or alcohol, not only the ambiance of this 110-year-old art hotel. Our remote location in a beautiful corner of the sparsely populated Southwest also factors in, but the real front of the orchestra is the chemistry between the quartet and a passion for the aesthetic found in the love of time and what these participants in life are able to bring to it.

Dithering in Duncan Arizona

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Breakfast at the Simpson Hotel in Duncan, Arizona

Before we know it, we are waking in a bed not our own, just before sunrise. This being a lazy closure of the year that was 2023, we are in no hurry to discover anything that hasn’t already been collected this year. Okay, that is mostly true. Last night, upon reaching Pima, Arizona, Taylor Freeze was luring us in to accentuate our state of fullness by offering us a chocolate malted that might be our favorite anywhere, but that and Guayo’s was really it.

Now, it is time to linger once again in the parlor of the Simpson Hotel, awaiting the warming rays of the rising sun. A cup of coffee from our hosts, who woke much earlier than expected, arrives, and based on the sounds emanating from the kitchen, we can anticipate breakfast will be coming up soon. Lord Chef Don Carlos, under a different hat, is the renowned artist of the same name, sans the beneficial title Lord Chef. True to my perception, another of his famous vegetarian repasts is in the works. We have come to understand that these creations rival any other early-day meals we’ve taken from Stockholm to Santa Monica or Portland to Vienna. World Class eating of the gourmet variety right here, miles from the New Mexico border in the middle of nowhere, Arizona.

Duncan, Arizona

From there, we did what anyone else would do who was trying to escape the year that had been, we merged into a transitional state where little was allowed to happen. This type of being is often referred to as vegging, and we were practicing hard to enhance our mastery of this skill. Caroline was back at the window, you know, the one with the cushy seat where the cats tend to congregate due to the slightly closer proximity to the sun spilling into the front window of the Simpson. My place in the parlor is at the same spot I was last night, where I took coffee and was served that amazing frittata, breakfast bruschetta, and sauteed veggies. Seems that by neglecting to include a photo, I might have otherwise missed that prior to the savory, we were offered a sweet in the form of a Crème fraîche-topped hearty pastry studded with a rainbow of various colored fruit. Lethargy was obviously the third course, but the cold, hardwood of my chair meant my butt would pay for it.

West of Duncan, Arizona

While my heart was into accomplishing little, my bottom insisted I get up and move as it’s been hours in the parlor, although time seemed to be standing still. Ah, coffee and maybe some lunch could be in our future? Heck, we can also get into some more Proust on a drive over to Safford.

Starbucks in Safford, Arizona

At Starbucks, we were able to duplicate our efforts and much of the positioning we’d taken at the Simpson. Sitting down, we got busy doing what needed to be done. But then, just as a new routine of being in place was finding comfort, we’re informed that they must close for unexplained reasons at 4:00, which is only 15 minutes away. Even had we known the reasons, our need to depart would have remained the same.

Undeterred, we took the opportunity to finish volume six of In Search of Lost Time and finally put The Fugitive behind us. Our speed of return to Duncan was adjusted in order to best facilitate our goal. And guess what? We won. Volume six has been vanquished.

Of the details that followed, nothing of import is noted as simple things one might do in the front parlor of an Old West hotel from 1914 were actively engaged. The quiet, warm lighting, purring cats, and wonderful setting carried us into the evening, and that was that.