74 Miles and No Services (Andre)

Due to a scheduling mix-up, we were given 4 days off in a row from our visitor center responsibilities. We had been thinking of visiting El Paso, 340 miles away, and saw this as a great opportunity. So, we left Sunday evening after work (Memorial Day weekend) and headed west for El Paso!

En route, we came across this sign:

As you will see on the map below, this sign is located just west of Marfa (#2 on the map) as we drove away from Big Bend (#1 on the map). There are no services or much else to speak of for 74 miles until the highway town of Van Horne (#3 on the map). Our final destination was El Paso (#4 on the map) and since we were so close to New Mexico, we also decided to drive 30 more miles to Las Cruses, New Mexico (#5 on the map).

When we saw the 74 mile sign and a warning of no services, it made us think of the sign on the Kancamagus Highway in New Hampshire. As you begin driving the Kancamagus, you are greeted by a warning sign that there are no services for the next 32 miles. That used to seem so long – 32 miles with no gas stations. Well, by my math, 74 is a bit longer than 32 and a nice way to add to our continuing developing understanding and appreciation for just how big things are out here in Texas!

Of course, we did see one thing in that 74 mile stretch (okay, there were some houses and a pretty empty town of Valentine, TX – with of course, no services, along the way). As you will see by the picture below, there was this Prada store.

It is of course, not a real store, though in the ‘store’ is real Prada designer shoes and handbags from the 2005 collection when the building was built. The building is actually an art installation built on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. As you might have seen from previous posts, Marfa is among other things, an arts town and the Prada store was an extension of the art presence from Marfa into the middle of the desert. You are free to draw your own interpretations. Note – the ‘store’ door cannot be opened so no purchases are allowed!