We put together a good old fashioned Road Trip last month. My wife Kim and daughter Sidney and I drove to West Texas and then the Green Chili Trail in New Mexico. We hoped this fit in with our cowboy and culinary roots! And we were so right!

We stayed in Van Horn, Texas, about 150 miles east of El Paso. Hereabout, ranches are 40 miles wide, you drive 30 minutes without a turn or seeing another car. It’s truly in the middle of nowhere. 1,500 ranchers and desert rats live here and we used it as the hopping-off point for Carlsbad Caverns (spectacular; vast, hypnotizing, hike-able; go now, as they only allow about 1,000 people a day and it feels like you have the cave to yourself.) and Guadalupe Mountains National Park (close to Carlsbad; raw, majestic, like the Zion NP of W. Texas; literally nobody there. Nobody. This is a hiker and campers dream!). Van Horn is also home to the El Capitan Hotel, a 100 yr old railroad hotel that has such stately elegance and grandiose western charm: tile-work, beams, stone, elk and moose heads, arches and alcoves. It’s the highlight of Van Horn, but it would also be the highlight of Dallas, if it were there. And the restaurant, full of local ranchers and local beers, crushes it. Go.

The biggest surprise is on the side of a little two lane road, halfway to Marfa: A Prada ‘store’. There ain’t nothin’ within 20 miles but tumbleweeds and lizards. Truly. It’s a work of art to which people arrive in their Prada clothes from all over the world. You can’t go in, but you can see the shoes, bags, clothes through the windows. It is so out of place, and as such, it’s one of the most iconic works of art you’ll ever see.

Marfa is a Last Picture Show kind of town. It ain’t easy to get to and with 2,000 people, it’s no teeming metropolis, But it does have 5 or 6 four-star restaurants, suitable for New York or Bev Hills; there’s funky coffee shops, Tex-Mex sit-downs and take-outs, a Main Street and another old railroad hotel (sister to the El Capitan), the Presidio. Marfa is aflock with art galleries and fashion boutiques. Plenty of Etsy-esque craftspeople, selling western wear to soap. We didn’t see the Marfa Lights, but they filmed Giant here, and No Country for Old Men. High school graduation was going on, and they put big posters with each seniors’ picture up in the town square. The graduating class had 17 people.

I guess I’m supposed to write about books. I’ve finished Chip Rock and The Catalina Kid, which is the sequel to Chip Rock and the Fat Old Fart. Don’t let the title turn you off, Fat Old Fart (so far) has received five-star reviews and NOTHING LESS! Very proud of that. As one reviewer wrote, it “will make your heart bleed and soar.”

Try Fat Old Fart here, and pre-order Catalina Kid, which may well be even better.

Next Stop: Mesilla, NM

Thank you for reading.

MD in AZ