West Texas Triology Part 2: Gateway to Big Bend and a little Hollywood

I couldn't resist visiting Alpine and Marathon while in Marfa. The three towns are like beads on a necklace called US 90. Alpine was vaguely familiar to me. Once there, I realized that it is the home of Sul Ross State University. SRSU is a rival of Stephen F. Austin so I grew up hearing that name without really having any idea about Alpine. Alpine has double the population of Marfa at 5700 people. It has cute downtown street with a few shops and galleries. I stopped at a cafe that had been a gas station in its prior life. I saw a number of those--it is pretty popular cafe style in the Big Bend Gateway area of Texas. From there I went on to Marathon. I am only slightly less smitten about Marathon than Marfa. The downtown is a couple of blocks of galleries and shops. Most of the buildings are a unifying adobe. Marathon just drips with charm. I stopped at another former gas station for a coffee. The Gage Hotel in downtown is a historic building with a number of outbuildings and an oasis of a pool. It was built by an oil baron ( what else) in the twenties. If Joe and I come back to Big Bend, I would like to spend a couple of nights there. I spotted a Day Spa around the corner. Marathon, however charming, has a population of 600---so I suspect it gets a little slow there after a day or two. Oh I should mention that Amtrak stops there three times a week. I suspect those days bring excitement.

I got back to Marfa in time for a stop at the Squeeze, which is a juice/smoothie bar across from the beautiful courthouse. As it was near closing time, the girls inside stepped up the gossip flow. The proprietor told her staff that her friend "Fred" has been approached by Inside Edition to get pix of Randy Quaid. In case you've been busy, Randy and his wife were arrested in Marfa on Thursday for skipping out on a $10k hotel bill in Los Angeles. They spent a few hours in the slammer before posting bail. Well, "Fred" told Inside Edition to stick it. He did not want to be anybody's papparazzi. Then a waitress told the story that her daughter, who works at the Hotel Paisano, had been somewhat harrassed by Inside Edition to get info about Randy's where-abouts. She stuck to her guns that she would not give out info about hotel guests. Texans really stick together and nobody in Marfa was ratting out Randy this past weekend to any Hollywood news show.

My honored hero this weekend is Adam Culliver who died at age 4, only four days after diagnosis. Adam died of AML, one of the worst forms of leukemia and the type from which my father died Adam's parents and his church community formed Adams Angels Ministry to help families where there is childhood cancer. It's mission can be described:

A Awareness in the community

N Needs of families fulfilled

G Giving from the heart

E Encouraging involvement

L Loving children

S Serving childhood cancer families

The biggest challenge I have in writing this blog is balancing the emotion of writing about those who have died with the hope for the survivors. This cause is about hope. It is about finding even better treatments so that more people live good quality of life after diagnosis. While doing that, however, we want to honor the memories of those who succumbed.

Something to be thankful for: sunrise over a West Texas prairie.