Before relocating to LA, our last few days in Austin were a nightmare, working literally around the clock to get our condo fixed up for the renters. So when we finally left for LA, we decided to take our time and enjoy the drive.
Our first stop was in Marathon, TX, where we stayed the night at the historic
Gage Hotel. Marathon is the gateway to Big Bend, but aside from the Gage, it's a ghost town. It was pretty eerie and amazing driving down the long, open highway through the desert at dusk, the violet sky rimmed by the dark shadows of the Christmas Mountains. It was a truly stunning, almost spiritual drive.
There really is nothing at all in Marathon, so after checking into our room, we spent the entire evening in the hotel's White Buffalo bar, which boasts the enormous mounted head of a rare white buffalo on one wall. I don't know how they were able to lure a gourmet chef out to the middle of nowhere, but the menu at the Gage is top notch and well worth a full day's drive. You've probably already read that in
Texas Monthly many times over.
You might wonder what random assortment of characters would assemble at an upscale hotel bar 100 miles from nowhere in the middle of the desert. The White Buffalo did not disappoint.
Janet & I were just sitting at the bar minding everyone's business but our own, when the bartender reached up to a lesser-used top shelf and pulled down a comically oversized margarita glass — the kind you might see a gaggle of sorority sisters sharing on the Riverwalk. As the bartender mixed shaker upon shaker to fill the glass — it took three or four — we asked how much a giant margarita costs. He didn't know. He'd never made one before. It wasn't even on the menu.
Intrigued, we had to see what party in the small bar had ordered this ridiculous cocktail, so we turned and watched as the bartender carefully walked it out and set it squarely in front of a lone middle-aged man dressed in a red western shirt, jeans tucked into dusty boots and a well-worn cowboy hat slightly larger than the drink arriving before him. He thanked the bartender loudly and began slurping on the single straw, all the while talking on his cell phone. Wow.
Janet & I exchanged a look that, after many years of sitting in bars together, we both understood as, "Jackpot." And wasn't that guy already kind of stumbling when he walked in? As we returned focus to our food and conversation, the cowboy was busy making friends with the tables around him, and the White Buffalo was quickly becoming our favorite place ever.
We kind of lost track of the cowboy for awhile. Janet had become enchanted with a guy sitting to her right who was getting shit-faced and about to drive off into the black night in search of his buddy's father's hunting ranch. He hadn't a clue how to find it and was pounding drinks because when he got there he thought he might be "uncomfortable." I was enjoying the conversation of a lawyer from Alamogordo who represented the Apache tribe and looked exactly like Larry David's manager on
Curb Your Enthusiasm. He was drinking an expensive bottle of bourbon. I say "bottle," because the bartender broke the seal to pour his first, and as we talked, he kept ordering "just one more," "just one more," "bartender, just one more." By the end of the night the bottle was dry.
Next time we checked in with the cowboy, he'd ordered food, and what would you expect the guy who ordered a giant margarita to eat? Of course — a giant steak. It may not have been 72 ounces, but it fully eclipsed the plate. By this point he was telling stories to new friends in every direction, and a much younger girl had materialized in the seat across from him. He ordered another margarita — this one normal-sized — and held court.
When he finally got up to leave, he couldn't find his keys and began to make quite a scene, asking everyone in the bar if they'd seen them. "You wouldn't miss 'em," he promised. We wondered if perhaps it was for the best — he'd be wise to get a hotel room instead. Eventually, after much commotion, he emerged from the bathroom with a triumphant grin, holding aloft the largest constellation of keys and daisy-chained keychains you could ever imagine, enough to put any janitor to shame. "Found 'em!" he said, and disappeared into the night.
