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It was mid morning before I let the gentle light of day in this mountain town rouse me from my sleep. Aimee and I finally pulled in last night at around 8 in the evening and were greeted by her mom and dad. They have a beautiful house, mostly wooden interior, high ceilings with all sorts of nick nacks on display.
I am staying in Aimee’s old room which is the old attic converted so it has a sloping ceiling – there is also a window which looks out over her yard. At the moment we are surrounded by a cake of fog so I can’t see much out of the window at all, but I know that what lies beyond the fog must be beautiful. I wonder what it was like growing up here in Fort Davis, population around 1,000 and fresh mountain air for everyone, just a one hour drive to Mexico.
Aimee’s mum made us enchiladas last night – they were real nice, it was a bit like a casserole. After dinner we went to pick up a cousin of Aimee’s who car had broken down in a nearby town, he was staying the night here as well, and on the back way home we spotted a Javelina in the headlights and when we drove a little closer we saw a whole group of them, then a couple of them started, well, you know, doing the ‘deed’ - so I witnessed my first Javelinas (pronounced Havalina’s) Humping. We tried to take a photo, but if we got too close they might have charged at us. Anyhow, we got back to the house and settled in for the night, I had a good nights sleep and now here I am basking in the wonder of this place, Fort Davis, TX.
Once up and showered, Aimee and I bid farewell to her parents and cousin as they made their way to Florida for thanksgiving. We rustled up some old bikes from the shed and pumped up the tires, cracked from age and squeaked our way on un-greased chains into the Fort Davis town centre.
After moseying through a few gift shops and marveling at javelina souvenirs we met one of Aimee’s old school friends, now a real estate agent, at the local ‘drugstore’ for some lunch. Deciding against cow fries (deep fried cow balls – a little gristly I hear) I opted for some BBQ nachos and we chatted over lunch about the different sorts of weird and wonderful people who live in a town like Fort Davis.
With bellies full, we mounted our bikes and rode down to Aimee’s local Methodist Church and met the pastor who will be marrying Aimee and Jerry in April – after an interesting natter we headed off on our bikes once against and bumped into the editor of the local paper ‘The Mountain Dispatch’ – Aimee had written an article for this paper each week while she was in Australia, and the editor suggested a write a piece for the paper as well, I took him up on the offer and Aimee and I will work on a nice piece for the paper when we get back to Cleburne.
Next stop was Aimee’s local school, and on receiving our ‘hall passes’ we caught up with a few of her old teachers, including her Spanish teacher and they were all very interested to meet an Australian Gal. Finally – with tires flat and bicycle bum we headed back to the homestead and fed the dogs, Salty and Millie. Salty is a highly intelligent boarder Collie who will wait until the count of three to retrieve a ball and Millie is an interesting mix of dog whose talents are opening doors and playing dead – all in the hope of a belly rub.
Dogs fed, we jumped back into the car and headed to Marfa detouring through the little Mexican establishment they call ‘Little Chihuahua’ which is actually part of Fort Davis but was once a separate little town of Mexican settlers.
Next we arrive in Marfa, a smallish town who’s claim to fame is the ‘Marfa Lights’ an unexplained set of lights that dazzle the sky some nights. It is also a bit of an arty town which came to be this way after minimalist artist, Donald Judd started coming here to escape the hectic New York art world in the 70’s, and ended up buying a house, and later a property which is now, since his passing in 1994, maintained by the Judd Foundation. Both established artists, writers and wannabe’s come here now for inspiration and the once deadbeat town – with only a Dairy Queen to its name (apparently there is a Dairy Queen in every town of Texas) is starting to thrive and form its own collection of t-shirts, shot glasses and key rings like every other tourist destination in the world.
We visited the bookshop and selected some Texan literature to stimulate our senses and moved on to El Paisano Hotel for a stiff drink on the patio, underneath the six flags of Texas, namely France, Spain, Mexico, Republic of Texas, Confederate States of America and of course, the United States of America. Feeling puckish we hunted down a slice of pizza and a Greek salad at the best Pizza place in West Texas, ‘Pizza Foundation’.
Fuel in our bellies, we drove on down to the mysterious Marfa Lights viewing area, and stood for what seemed like ages observing two small lights on the horizon – they seemed to jump and wiggle and change colours sparking heated disputes among viewers as to whether or not they were actually the ‘Marfa lights’. Lights aside, the whole view of the Texan sky was amazing, I have never seen so many stars in the sky – Aimee and I sang along to ‘the stars at night – are big and bright – deep in the heart of Texas’ and made our way back to the warmth of the car, and back home to Fort Davis for the night, pooped from our days adventures.
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