Our Marfa digs: El Cosmico

Is it glamping if the toilet is 100 feet away?

Fab BBQ and beautiful art at Convenience West

E A S T

As they fly…

Must have: yellow rose of Texas

We enjoyed the best margaritas of our trip and super service at the Hotel Paisano. The eats weren’t too shabby, either.

Non-vacation related, but SUPER important – ask for your beverages without a straw, even though they might give you one anyway. The United States uses 500 million straws PER DAY, enough to fill Yankee Stadium nine times every year. Say whaaat? If you’re feeling even more bold, try giving up single-use plastics altogether, as they are the largest source of debris in the ocean. The hubster and I avoid as much plastic packaging as possible, and bring our own cups, carryout containers, and utensils to restaurants that use plastic or styrofoam (we keep them in the car with our shopping baskets). It’s so easy to do! It’s also a great way to be remembered by your server. You’re the people who bring a container for PIE! You want the coconut, right?

So long, Marfa!

Quebec City! We arrived at sunset, after a long day of travel. The skies were crystal in their clarity and the air bracing, but I was sweating, nervous over the fact that we got stuck in traffic and our phones don’t work in Canada. Surprise! Oof. Many thanks to the kindness of strangers, we made a call at a local restaurant to connect, just five minutes late, with our weekend landlord. The world is good, and so were our lodgings.

It was a short walk to cobbled streets and every manner of wonder, a sculpture or two or a dozen, and a fabulous public market. These are our breakfast provisions for the duration of our stay in Quebec City, black pepper smoked mackerel, tart crisp apples, a wild mushroom quiche, and ground cherries. Do you know them? They taste like an apple kissed a cherry, with the the look and texture of an orange tomato under that lovely husk. Delicious! Not wanting to leave any local stone unturned, we also bought nougat, more hard cider than we ought, and maple butter, velvety sweet goodness.

It is a marvelous place, a time capsule from the late 1600’s opened anew each day. When I began studying French in seventh grade, my text book had a photo of the Chateau Frontenac on the cover, and young me had many a fantasy about what it would be like when I saw it in person for the first time. Friends, none of them was as joyous as rounding that corner and having my thirteen year old self gasping from my fourty-four year old lungs before squealing at the hubster, “There it is!” Of course I got teary at the silly sentimentality of it all. Dreams come true.

A delectable lunch at Cochon Dingue, poutine for the hubster, and a seafood gratin in the cutest cast iron pan for me. Don’t my arms look long?

Shazama-bama diggity-pop! I love my life!