Jim & Jo's Adventure in Marfa, TX

My good friend Jim and I have planned for months to fly Jim's RV-7A from his home base in Taylor, TX to Marfa, about 350 miles west. Marfa is deep into the West Texas Desert, across vast plains and tall mountains. We finally found a weekend in which we could both make the trip, and that the weather was good, on the 9th October. Tally-ho!

Here's the route we followed; from T74 (Taylor) to KOZA (Ozona) - fuel stop - to KMRF (Marfa):

Chart courtesy of Skyvector.com

The landscape in Central Texas is mostly green, we have lots of trees and farmland around here. Once you get past the Hill Country to our immediate west, the land flattens out into plains and scrubland, before carving itself into valleys and plateaux.



We stopped for fuel in Ozona, a little over half way to Marfa. The folks there were friendly and supplied us with water.

Here is Marfa from the air. It's pretty small! It is an artists' colony, only about six blocks wide, and maybe fifteen long. The airport lies three miles out of town, out of shot to the right. The kind folks there gave us a ride into town. They were enjoying the presence of many business jets, as there was an art festival going on this weekend. We later saw the price tags on some of the art pieces were in keeping with the owners of business jets...



Some of the architecture on Marfa's main street is fabulous. This is an old bank building. At least three of the most interesting buildings have been taken over by an architecture company, appropriately enough.



Here's an old Porsche. There's a number of good looking older cars around town.



This is Jim, posing against the town marker at the top of Main Street.



Jim then took the camera and shot me, in the garden behind.



This is the very nicely kept Courthouse; the seat of justice for Presidio County.



And again.



We got lunch at a mobile food vendor which arrived just after midday; named 'Food Shark', they sold really fabulous Mediterranean food. Judging from their web site foodsharkmarfa.com, this is one of several cars that follow the wagon about.



Soon enough, it was time to call for our ride back to the airport (Thanks Shelley!) where we fueled the aeroplane. Here is our aerial chariot parked on the edge of the desert.



And before long, we were over the mountains, which were rugged, desolate and impressive.



We got bounced around a lot flying over them; updrafts and downdrafts pummeled us around the sky as the warm air currents had their effect. We soon got past these and enjoyed a smooth ride home.



We arrived back at Taylor happy but tired, so went for some Mexican food to recuperate before heading our separate ways. It was a fabulous adventure!