DAY 9: ON THE ROAD (AUSTIN to MARFA)

We began our epic day of Texas driving with a few glasses of wine. Texas, as it turns out, has a wine country. We went to this one place, which was dog friendly, and very fun.



We sat on their deck. Look at the lizard!





Feeling pretty good, we headed off with half a case of Texas grape-juice!



The woman at the winery recommended a local watering hole (literal) where Arthur would be able to swim. Texas hill country is lovely.



Can you make a flip-book out of a blog? Here is Artie being a Lab. Adorable, no? We wanted to stay all day...




But we had places to go. Top of the list: Stonehenge II! (That's what it's called, but also well-named as the second of our roadtrip's fake Stonehenges! What's the deal with our country and Stonehenge?)



Some sheep crossed the road (chasing the chicken, no doubt) on our way to the highway.





And then the very long day of driving began in earnest. 300 some odd miles on I-10. (Which goes all the way to Santa Monica, by the way--passing, in order, Kamran's new job, our new house, and Johanna's new job. We're going to take a more winding path, in any case.)

The speed limit on I-10 in this part of Texas is 80 mph! Kamran loves cruise control. What he doesn't love quite as much is how, late in the drive, when Johanna pointed out a mural of a roadrunner on an underpass, she only then remembered that she had seen an actual roadrunner on the side of the road earlier in the day, but had neglected to mention it to Kamran, who loved that cartoon when he was little and has never, to his knowledge, seen a real one. Hmph.



Roadrunners aside, the drive into Marfa was quite something. It got dark, stormy, and VERY spooky. We think we saw the famous "Marfa lights" on the drive in--these mysterious lights, some kind of regular, local atmospheric phenomenon--but there was also an electrical storm, so we weren't sure. Marfa is in the middle of nowhere.




Stay tuned tomorrow for pictures from our weirdest, most beautiful stop yet.