Notes on Texas

[nibot]

* Highway rest stops feature free wireless internet

* Cheapest gas on the trip so far, seen outside of Houston: $1.99/gal

* Texas gas stations all seem to have a big cooler full of cheap domestic 40 oz beers on ice. You know, right across from the coffee machines. Apparently drinking and driving is encouraged in texas.

Comments

[nibot.livejournal.com]

How come everyone knows about Marfa? Is it because of the lights?

We just took I-10 for the most part, except US-290 in and out of Austin.

[rudybang.livejournal.com]

Marfa, TX is a oasis of culture in the desert that is West Texas. Home to the Chinati Foundation (http://www.chinati.org/) for art and artists in residence along with and other cool spots, like the Marfa Book Co. (http://www.marfabookco.com/), yet it maintains a huge small town charm, where everything is on Main St., and a lot of the buildings are abandoned.

Yes, there are also the Marfa Lights, but me and a couple of astronomers debunked the phenomenon's super natural basis when we were able to resolve two distinct sources with a 12" dobsonian telescope honed on what seemed to be a single source, this is consistent with the theory that we are looking at headlights from cars on a distant highway. The highway is paved such that as a car approaches its headlight beams reflect upward and away. This is what you see.