Fort Davis, Texas-The Night Sky

As predicted, we were internet and cell service deprived.  This posting is a little late coming.

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Not to far west out of Fort Worth, the terrain became flat with slightly rolling hills.  Most of the land is consumed by big cattle ranches.  The ground is mostly dried up sage grass in among the densely covered mesquite trees. I don’t know how cattle can survive in this harsh environment. The further west we drove, the flatter it got with very little vegetation. Oil and gas wells were visible in all directions.  But in Sweetwater, Texas, there are hundreds of wind turbines all turning and making electricity. And for the oil and gas guys, they need electricity for their stuff to work.  West Texas is definitely about energy.

On our way to Big Bend National Park, we decided to spend a little time in Fort Davis, Tx. We took Highway 17, a two lane road, through the Barilla Mountains and into Wild Rose Pass.  The pass is just wide enough for the road with very tall mountains on each side.  This has been the best scenery of our trip so far.  Two miles outside of Fort Davis and a mile high is Davis Mountain State Park.  We will be spending a couple nights there.

Last night we visited McDonald Observatory.  The observatory is open to the public on Tuesday evenings.  We had signed up in advance because the program sells out quickly. We started off with an hour long lecture using computer modeling and props to explain constellations and planet rotation. The lecture was fun and interesting. It gave me a much better appreciation of the constellations and their importance.  They were the means to tell the month of the year and direction for navigation in the pre-electrical age. The next couple of hours was viewing the night sky in one of the darkest places in the US.  It took us about a half hour for our eyes to adjust to the darkness, but once we focus in, the sky was lit up with millions of stars. The instructor used a hand held high powered laser light beam pointing to different celestial objects in the sky. It appeared that he was touching those objects with that light  The coolest thing was, we were able to see the milky way right above us.  It was so clear!  After the viewing, they had four telescopes set-up on different celestial objects. We saw three stars that had numbers for their name and one planet, the number seven planet (Uranus).  I could not tell the difference, they all seem the same to me but I can now say I have seen them in a very up close on a high powered telescope. That is pretty cool! It also made me aware that I am one very, very, very, very, very small particle in this universe. Billions of light years from some astro star, in a universe that is endless.  Very mind boggling.

I was not able to take any pictures. Any source of light, they wanted off. I can understand.  Once we saw light after a period of darkness, it was blinding.

We are staying at the Davis Mountain State Park in Fort Davis, Texas.  We paid $30/night which includes 50amp electric, water, sewer, cable TV and internet. This is a nice park and the view is one to remember.  There is plenty of distance between sites and they are big. The internet is down.  They have experienced some major flooding in the last couple of months that has compromised their internet service.