Page 4 - Marfa Road Trip_ Thelma and Louise, With a Happier Ending - The New York Times

1/26/2018 Marfa Road Trip: Thelma and Louise, With a Happier Ending - The New York Times
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Past the border patrol checkpoint, past an abandoned truck stop, with a great old

(nonworking) Art Deco-style neon sign that simply read “Truck Stop
(https://www.loc.gov/item/2014631006/),” a 1960s relic; when Interstate 10

bypassed Sierra Blanca and it became something of a ghost town
(http://www.nytimes.com/1989/10/17/us/sierra-blanca-journal-highway-was-
born-and-town-is-dying.html). That’s when it sunk in. We were really, finally
nowhere.

Nightfall came quickly and the bluish Chinati Mountains disappeared in the

darkness as we turned onto U.S. 90, a two-lane road leading into Marfa. A
refurbished neon sign (http://bigbendnow.com/2015/08/stardust-motel-light-
shines-again/) glowed in the pitch dark night; it read, vertically, in pink,

“Stardust,” then underneath in blue, “Motel.” Except there was no motel. Not a
soul in sight. And when you’ve been driving for two-plus hours down a dark
desert highway, it gets creepy. Sara and I had fallen under the spell of the

hypnotic yellow lines down the center of the road. Awful country music streamed
from the radio, coming in and out of frequency.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/22/travel/marfa-texas-road-trip.html?hpw&rref=travel&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region®io… 4/19