Keepin' it ReaL: Marathon, TX

We took Highway 90 from San Antonio and traveled 328 miles to my favorite place (I think, thus far) on our road trip. We contacted a host through couchsurfing who said we could definitely stay at his home/hostile/woofing camp for a couple nights. He was actually in Missouri on a job but he gave us a phone number and told us that the Goat Queen would hook us up. ? ? ? We actually drove right through the middle of Marathon and passed it up because we didn't realize what we were driving through was a town. We had to turn around twice (yes, we passed it up twice) and then we had to search for a human being because the display of addresses is definitely not a priority in Marathon. We found a guy feeding some sheep and asked him if he knew where our host Gill lived. He said something like, "Oh yeah. He lives on the other side of the rail road tracks. Just look for some funny houses. We call it Gillville."

Nobody was anywhere to be found when we arrived so we took the liberty of showing ourselves around. Above is Gill's house. It looks pretty decent... and I guess it was the nicest structure of the bunch. Still, it wasn't really sealed anywhere so we had freezing cold breezes at night and lots of dust everywhere. Indoors it was set up hostile style so Jake and I were in bunk beds but since it was the "slow" time of year, we weren't sharing our quarters with anyone else. The kitchen, or sink and hot plate, were outdoors just on the other side of the house and there was actually a radio that picked up one weird radio station.

The room pictured above is made out of soda cans, mud, an old satellite dish, and blankets soaked in concrete. Yes, people sleep in here during "tourist season." If you're traveling through Texas (especially on a bike), there aren't too many options when it comes to getting across the western half of the state. I'm guessing that the train used to stop in Marathon back in the day which gave the town a starting point. Now, offering a local pub, it has become a resting point for many people journeying across the desert. After trekking across TX for a few days, people will take whatever shelter they can get. For only $2 a night you can bunk up in Gillville. It's totally worth it since they have running water in the kitchen sink and community bathtub.

Recently a man who does beautiful rock work moved into Gillville and he's been helping build these structures. The room above actually goes down into the ground about 12 feet. It's just a big egg shaped room with a staircase and nothing more. Below is a tiny room that has nothing to do with dance. It was just somebody's artwork. The other rooms in the background were pretty much six pieces of plywood nailed together to form a box.

The first time we looked in the building pictured above, it smelled really, really, really bad. It was like a combination of multiple animals feces. There was a canoe upstairs and a bare mattress covered in filth. Obviously nobody had been in this room for a long time... WRONG. Later that day we met the guy who lived there. He pretty much smelled like his room mixed with the body odor of a man who hasn't showered in weeks. He was one of the most open, honest and interesting people I've ever met. He had tattoos all over his face and graced us with the story of how they came to be there. In short, he was inspired by the book Moby Dick and he got the tattoos to "cut all the bull$h!+ out of his life." Right away his parents disowned him and there were other people that wouldn't give him the time of day. He says the people he meets who don't judge him by his face are always the ones worth getting to know. Jake and I really enjoyed talking with him... outside of his bedroom. The picture below is a water storage unit. They have a windmill that pumps their water from a pretty deep well.

Above is another decent structure-- the community bathroom. There wasn't a water temperature control so you either got FREEZING cold water or BURNING hot water. So I understood a little better why a lot of people around here stunk! We didn't shower while we were here. It was scary enough walking to the bathroom in the middle of the night with no unnatural light coming from anywhere and the fear of stepping on a rattle snake. The structure they built in the picture below is a "steam room." Three or four people can sit in there and throw water on some hot rocks that sit in the middle of the room. You can remove the eagle on top to allow excess steam to escape. High class stuff...

Jake and I took a day trip down from Marathon to Big Bend National Park. We didn't actually go into big bend because we didn't feel like spending $25 just to drive through and not camp, but our friend went and took a couple pictures. Below is a picture of a nice guy we met on our way down there in a city called Terlingua, TX. He lives in his car and travels around visiting his hippie friends all over the west. He played us some music and asked us if there were any single women up in Marathon who didn't look too bad. People in Terlingua are living in weird underground solar structure things too. We also met another old cowboy named Johnny. He was something else! Jake is such a better writer than me, I'll see if he wants to add a post about dear old Johnny. Otherwise, I'll get around to it soon.