Every once in awhile, in the middle of nowhere you find a
somewhere. We found it today –
Funkytown, aka: Marathon, TX, population about 425.
We got on the road today about 10:00 a.m. and had a nice
cruise through the countryside into Alpine on state route 118. I am still amazed at what I’m seeing in
Texas- not at all what I expected. The
first part of the ride today was through grassland dotted with oaks against a
backdrop of rocky outcroppings (hills??).
We rolled into Alpine, a town of 5900, about noon. Alpine seems to draw quite a few people and
the outskirts are dotted with “ranchettes”.
(We heard the housing prices are high here.) Stopped at a local Italian place, La
Trattoria, for lunch. The food was very
good and our wait person, Marian, was excellent! Prices not bad either. TripAdvisor gave the place a 4 out of 5, and
we’d have to agree!
After lunch we had 31 miles to go to our destination for the
day – Marathon, TX. We’re not really
sure WHY it’s called Marathon, but we learned they do have a marathon there –
yes, the Marathon Marathon! About 13
miles out from town we saw the starting line for the half marathon. We also stopped for a break and “chatted”
with some local bovines.
Okay, I have to talk about Rick’s “moo”. He can make quite convincing cow-like
sounds. More like a “maa” than a
“moo”. He’s been doing it all along this
ride. Today I started moo’ing too. It was really “moo’ving”….Anyway, we stopped
for a break and there was a herd of cows across the road, so we started moo’ing
at them, and this time, they moo’ed
back!! We kept moo’ing (spurred on
by Budweiser, King of Beers), and they kept responding and we all had a good
ole time for about 20 minutes or so.
We arrived in Marathon about 4:30 p.m. and went searching
for our lodging for the evening, a hostel – La Loma de Chivo (meaning,” the
hill of the goat”). We had heard about
this place from several cyclists (Pete and Cory) traveling east to west; they
said it was quite the place, a throwback to a 60’s hippie commune. Absolutely spot on. After wandering around the side streets of
Marathon (and getting chased by a few small but mighty Chihuahuas), we came to
the end of the road on southwest 6th Street to find….
FUNKYTOWN!!!!!
….and yes, we had a headwind most of the day.
What is so surprising is that this place is really
comfortable, kick back. Ingrid
(originally from Slovakia) greeted us and showed us around. I felt right at home, cleaning the toilet
before we used it. After getting settled
in, we rode back to town to visit the market, the French Grocer, but got
sidetracked on the way to the White Buffalo Cantina at the Gage Hotel.
The Gage is a destination hotel. People actually travel great distances to
this out-in-the-middle-of- nowhere place.
We struck up several conversations while we downed a couple of
beers. One couple actually had moved
HERE from Ft. Worth and were building a house.
He said “this is as good a place as any to die” (!!!!). Everyone around this little town is very
friendly, or at least, a character of some sort. They all seem so happy. Maybe they’re all high on something?
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