Van Horn, Texas

Our stay in Van Horn was short, but interesting. We shopped at a small grocery store called Porter’s. It was the smallest true grocery store I’ve seen outside of a large city such as New York. There were eight narrow aisles, and that included a produce section. They had a good selection and prices for a store in such a remote place. I doubt there’s another grocery store within 50 miles. I know there isn’t a Wal-Mart for about 85 miles. A real find at Porter’s was the fresh, ready-to-cook tamales. They were locally made and delicious. We stopped at Porter’s again this morning to buy more to bring with us.

If you’ve heard of Van Horn before, it’s probably because Blue Origin launches the space tourist rockets from Jeff Bezos’s ranch about 20 miles from town.

This morning after getting our tamales and we drove around to take a few more photos. When I was photographing Chuy’s Restaurant, I realized we’ve been here before. In 2010 we drove from Mississippi to Southern California. We stopped at Chuy’s for lunch on a leg from Odessa, Texas, to I’m not sure where, maybe Tucson. The restaurant’s big claim to fame it John Madden gave it a shout out in the late 1980’s.