Marfa, Day Two

After accidentally  sleeping in on Saturday (I blame the grilled cheese), we were in a bit of a time crunch on our second morning in Marfa. We were set to arrive at our second "hotel", Ciblo Creek Ranch, at 1:00 pm for lunch and we still had to make the 35 min trek out to Valentine to see the Prada Marfa building. This left not much time for a sit down breakfast, so we were in luck that the small German cafe and juice bar Squeeze was located just around the corner from our hotel. We ordered up at the tiny counter and sat outside in the colorful courtyard on a big picnic table to enjoy our meal. I chose to stick with the German theme and ordered some scrambled eggs with knautworst while the rest of my family opted for pastries and yogurt. Naturally, I took bites of everything and was really impressed with the high quality of the chocolate in the pain de chocolate as well as the freshness of the fruit in my bothers yogurt and granola bowl. While the food was good, the highlight of the trip was absolutely the homemade "cream sodas" that my brother and I ordered to go on our way out. I more ordered the drink for the novelty of it but I was actually blown away at how good it was. The sodas combine fresh squeezed juice, soda water, and homemade whipped cream that is placed on top and then stirred in. I chose to get a pineapple, mango, coconut combo while my brother picked a three berry concoction. They were insanely refreshing and very reasonably priced at $4. We also stocked up on some imported Swiss dark chocolate that was for sale....how could we not?
After breakfast we jumped in the car to check out Prada Marfa. Located about 30 mins east of town in the tiny town of Valentine (pop. 150), The Prada Marfa building is an art exhibit that is designed to look like an actual Prada store. Inside its walls is contains actual Prada shoes and bags hand picked by Muiccia Prada herself. I have always had a really creepy fascination with tiny towns, so I was pretty excited to both see the exhibit as well as drive though Valentine. Although I have driven through West Texas a handful of times and seen many tiny towns, I have never seen one as hard pressed as Valentine. The whole town is only one block long and if you didn't know better you would think it was a ghost town. Very very eerie. The best part about the whole experience was probably seeing my brothers reaction when we drove up to the Prada. Apparently, he is the only Texan in the world who had no clue what it is. The whole time I had been talking about "stopping at Prada Marfa" he assumed that was just the name of a town I wanted to have lunch in. He was pretty tripped out/confused  when we pulled up to the store, hahahah. It was awesome.
After Prada, we began the hour long drive to Ciblo Creek Ranch. It is honestly amazing how much the landscape changed in such a short amount of time. While Marfa is extremely flat with very little trees or plant life, Ciblo Creek is located at the foot on the cianti mountain range. The grounds are incredibly lush and green, filled with trees and rolling hills. Upon arriving we were greeted by a heard of sheep and a donkey who were roaming around the court yard munching on the grass. It was magical. The ranch itself is a an old pre civil war fort that has now been converted to a lodge. Despite its large size, it can only accommodate about 40 guests at a time to ensure a tranquil experience for all the guests. The front part of the ranch features rooms that have been turned into exhibits illustrating the history of CCR as well as a large dinning room where all the guests eat meals family style. Towards the back there are several guest rooms which surround a large man made lake, a swimming pool, and a spa and fitness center. While the ranch offers various types of activities for guests such as ATV yours and horseback riding, we decide to for go these and just explore on our own. My brother and I checked out all the room exhibits and climbed to the top of the watch tower and squeezed in some time on the lake with a couple of the little kids who were staying there who we helped fish. Sadly, it started to rain only 2 hours after we got there (after a 3 month long drought, so figure), so we had to cut our activities short and go inside our suite to wait for dinner to begin. At 7:00 we went to the dinning hall for dinner and while  I wasn't impressed with the food at the ranch  it was nice to get to eat and talk with the other guests who were from all different parts of the US. After dinner everyone went out by the lake and sat around the huge fire pit and drank wine and used the NASA quality telescope to view the stars. While the starts weren't nearly as good as the ones in Marfa because of the storm  it was still a pretty spectacular way to end the evening.