A new American president has arrived in the form of Barack Obama, so George W Bush can finally slip off his presidential shoes, pull on his cowboy boots and return to what he has called ‘the brown, brown grass of home’ – West Texas, where he has a ranch in the small town of Crawford. Texas might not be everybody’s choice for a spell of R’n’R. Most people tend to think of this vast state – the size of Germany, Italy and Denmark combined – as populated by rednecks, fundamentalist Christians and religious cult leaders brandishing heavy-calibre arsenal behind barricaded walls.
As it happens, my elder brother, Jeff, has spent the past few years commuting between Louisiana and New Mexico, during which he regularly traversed the Lone Star state. This made him the perfect guide on my quest to discover whether Texas had charms for quiche munchers like us, as well as red meat-eating Republican ex-presidents. Could we cohabit with coteries of Busharoos and cowboys by the six-pack. We were going to drive 2,000 miles in six days in order to find out.
I landed at Houston to be greeted with the announcement that ‘any inappropriate jokes’ to customs officers would result in my arrest. Resolving to keep my humour fully appropriate, I jumped on a connecting flight to that oddball city hiding within redneck heaven, Austin, where I am meeting Jeff at the Hotel San José, a hip boutique low-rise. There are poems pinned to the back of all the room doors, and the clientele look like they want to be rock stars – or at the very least roadies. My brother looks the same as ever – shorter than me, but better-looking and with more hair.
Day one: Austin to Marfa(440 miles)
We take off in our sumptuous Lexus Hybrid and drive through the endless exurbs. Pick-up trucks drag trailers of horses down the IH10 interstate highway. It’s a wonderful, limitless feeling, travelling west into the great emptiness. The landscape is populated by little more than mesquite trees and hard-edged sunshine. Jeff talks of once visiting Marfa and seeing white balls of light travelling along the road – he thought he had seen a UFO. These were the famous Marfa Lights, a phenomenon observed by many visitors but never explained. Best guesses are headlights in the far distance given a peculiar refraction by the landscape. Or aliens.
In the distance, we see ‘walking rain’ that leaves the clouds in dark streaks, but which evaporates before reaching the ground. The mesas (table-top shaped hills) unfold past us and Jeff points out a dust devil spinning like an unquiet spirit across a flat, desolate, but starkly beautiful landscape.
We stop briefly at the Lyndon B Johnson ranch, where the creator of the Great Society was born, lived and died. The ranch was temporarily closed – we had to content ourselves with the visitor centre that seems mainly devoted to his wife, Lady Bird Johnson, exhibiting her crimson suit and the White House china specially designed for the Johnson administration. If you feel inclined, you can listen to LBJ give a (somewhat hokey) talk about his heartfelt love for the hill people of Texas.
After six hours of driving, we reach Balmorhea, where the San Solomon Springs come out of the ground to make a huge natural spring swimming pool. I throw myself in, sharing the pool with a scary school of giant catfish. I dry off and we finish the journey to Marfa, the town where Giant, featuring James Dean, was filmed.
Day two: Marfa to Las Cruces (233 miles)
We take an early walk through Marfa, where the sense of space and nothingness is entirely benign. There are crazily wide streets, vivid colours, electric blue skies. Jeff takes photos of the giant chrome water tower that dominates the town. There is a healthy trade in James Dean posters. In our hotel, original letters and memorabilia from the film are posted on the walls.
We make our way to Alpine, an old mining community, which describes itself as ‘the hub of Big Bend’ (an area defined by a bend in the Rio Grande). It was built around mercury mines at the beginning of the last century, but the mines have gone and, like many Texas towns, it is simply a main street selling antiques, ceramics and souvenirs. The only hotel here has the notice: ‘Ernest Hemingway drove through here once.’ Outside, four Vietnam Veterans for Peace gamely wave banners that no one is there to see.
