Another Reverse Bucket

Another Reverse Bucket list item? Texas State Highway 90, San
Antonio to Van Horn, either east or west bound.

“Chasing the sunset,” or
“Spinning into a new sunrise.”

East-bound or West-bound, either way works.

Reading about Minnesota, in the their summer, made me think, done that Texas 90, two-three times now.

It’s not the “Mother Road,” but as an excursion through achingly, starkly beautiful countryside, sort a northern mirror to the Rio Grande itself? Mostly high desert, ending just past now-world-famous Marfa. All part of it, I suppose.

Think I first spotted the El Capitan in Van Horn, must’ve been in the dark corridors of time, perhaps even when the building was a bank? An interim solution. Have to wonder what movies have been made with the town as a backdrop. Looks “movie-set” (ish).

But the reverse bucket item, that road, not particularly scenic in the grandiose, manner of speaking, but quietly and evocatively interesting, especially for someone, like me, raised in around the great desert of the American Southwest.

It’s Texas, but it’s also — obviously — a land that is much, much older. The Rio Grande Valley has evidence of civilized habitation stretching more than four thousand years, as seen with the rock art. Think it was Presidio, lore had it that the Devil came to town one day. Didn’t stay.

“We don’t have truck with the likes of him.”
Still, all part of the myth and mystery of the great American “West.”

As a bucket list item , one time, that low road to El Paso is worth it. Just for the sights. It’s rural, a forgotten piece of the American landscape, and as the lonely road, headed westerly? Worth it, once, Think of it as a bucket list item.

Maybe “bucket list” is the wrong term, a small pail?

There’s a kind of openness and grit, the real west, and portions of a landscape that feel untouched for thousands of years. Looking at the rock art down along the river itself? Might be true. Area has been inhabited for several eons.

San Pedro Creek (temporarily free e-book)