Terlingua, Fort Davis, MacDonald Observatory, Balmoreal, Guadalupe Mountains National Park, Carlsbad Caverns National Park, Roswell, UFO Museum, Lincoln, Valley of Fires
(posted from Coffee and More, Tularosa, NM)
(This post covers 23-28 March, 2010)
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Sunday, 28 March-
It was 29 degrees last night but we woke to an incredibly nice, sunny day. We were in no rush to get into Roswell since we had seen yesterday that most museums didn't open until 1300 on Sundays. We took a side trip to Bitter Lake Wildlife Refuge and drove the wildlife-viewing auto-road. This decent dirt road overlooked a series of artificial impoundments designed for sandhill cranes, ducks, and shorebirds. It turned out to be a very pleasant surprise. At first we saw a few coots and (I believe) canvasbacks and mallards but then began picking out more and different birds. The redwing blackbirds were spectacular with a very distinct yellow stripe under the red shoulder patch. We saw egrets and great blue herons, a kingfisher, two meadowlarks, and many others I can't name. We parked at the closed visitor's center and watched from the back veranda while enjoying the streaming sunlight.
We then drove into Roswell to the UFO Museum. I don't believe in flying saucers and alien lifeforms but I was interested in learning more about the Roswell story. In 1947 a rancher found what later was determined to be the remains of a weather balloon and radar reflector launched from White Sands Proving Grounds a few days before. The rancher did not rush to report the odd finding immediately but after learning about flying saucer sightings in other parts of the country he spoke with the local sheriff who contacted the Roswell Army Airfield. The public relations officer filed a report saying a crashed flying disk had been found, reporting it to be about the size of a safe. No mention of beings was made in the initial report. Eyewitness reports soon surfaced, however, claiming four little beings about four and a half feet tall had been found. Some reports said all were dead, others said one being had survived the crash. Eyewitness reports also said the diameter of the saucer-shaped craft was about 20 feet. Once the report reached Washington the local Army officials were directed to gather all the materials of the so-called flying saucer and forward them to Wright Airfield in Dayton, Ohio for analysis. In very short order the government was accused of a coverup and of staging a fake weather-balloon crash to mislead the public and various citizens stepped forward to tell their tale.
I was very happy to read the various affidavits of the eyewitnesses. Several went so far as to accuse the government of a coverup right in the affidavit while others tended to tell how so-and-so was an officer who told the real story on his deathbed, having been sworn to secrecy (and in one case threatened with death of him and his entire family) at the time of the event.
The museum does a credible job of telling a story but is about as 'fair and balanced' as Fox News in their examination of the facts. It's clearly in the interests of the 'Museum' to keep the story mysterious and to claim they're just providing the facts so you can decide for yourself (IMHO).
I found the research library to be the most interesting part of my visit. They have a fantastic collection of books, magazines, and videos on the subject of UFOs. I loved browsing through the back issues of newsletters like 'The Journal for UFO Research' and (something like) 'Space Vehicle Electrical Propulsion Newsletter” as well as early issues of men's magazines like 'Saga' and 'Argosy' and old 'Popular Science' collections and tear-sheets of UFO articles from newspapers around the world and eyewitness report letters. It's fascinating stuff and you can almost feel the excitement of the time.
After the UFO Museum we drove west out Route 70. We tried the Hurd Gallery at San Patricio but it was closed. We drove on out 380 to Lincoln and spent several hours learning about the Lincoln County Wars involving Billy-the-Kid and Pat Garrett and a host of others (I'm looking forward to reading the Wikipedia article on this one).
We then continued west to Valley of Fire Recreational Area, a small campground beside a massive lava flow. We were lucky to get a great campsite overlooking the lave flow one side with snow-covered mountains and the town of Carazozo (NM) off in the distance on the other.
After supper I walked the Malpais ('bad country' in Spanish) Nature Trail out into the lava flow and then we spent the rest of the evening blogging and reading. It is spec-TAC-ular out here when the sun sets and shows us the pink-and-blue colors and we have the full moon to our east and the town lights of Carazozo coming up. This is really, really nice.
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Saturday, 27 March-
The Motel-6 night wasn't the best. I often don't sleep well the first night in a motel and that was the case last night. But we did wake to a much-improved day. The dust-storm was over and we had a nice, fresh morning sun.
We drove north to Artesia and turned west toward Cloudcroft and stopped for lunch. Fortunately, I noticed Roswell is only about 35 miles further north. We changed the plan and drove to Roswell, arriving in early afternoon.
We first visited the Roswell Museum of Art, one of AAA's gems. It was indeed very good. I particularly liked the re-creation of Dr. Robert Goddard's rocketry workshop and seeing old films about him and his work.
We then found our way to the Anderson Contemporary Art Museum where I fell in love with the sculptures of El Paso artist Luis Jimenez. This museum shows the work of artists who have had artist residencies here. A residency lasts a year and each artist is given a place to live and a small stipend. The artist is not required to give any of his or her work to the museum and in fact the museum often buys some of the work.
Luis Jimenez was an artist-in-residence here several times and he did the most incredible fiberglass sculptures. Think of the most energetic Frederic Remington bronzes of bucking or galloping horses, Indians, buffalo hunts, etc. and that approaches what my favorite Luis Jimenez sculptures are like.
After the Anderson Museum we drove east of town to Bottomless Lakes State Park where we found a primitive site for the night for the bargain price of $10 and all the sky you could want. The wind had died down this evening and we took a walk to see three of the lakes in the beautiful desert-sunset colors of New Mexico. There are other campers out here on this Saturday evening and at one point we heard drums in the distance. Someone else is out there communing with nature on this fine, full-moon evening.
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Friday, 26 March-
It's so nice to be in the Mountain Time zone. The sun now seems to be appearing at the right time of day in the morning. I had expected it to be cold up here at 6000+ feet but the overnight low was a comfortable 48 degrees and with our morning sun, it was quite pleasant.
After breakfast we drove over to the visitor's center for their wi-fi connection and took care of a few calls and emails. I even had a video call with Orat from the veranda of the visitor's center.
We then drove on to Carlsbad Caverns. Today was supposed to get very windy so we thought it a great idea to get away from it underground. We did the two self-guided tours and that was plenty. We started walking on our tour at 0945 and didn't get back until around 1400.
We hadn't really been that enthusiastic about taking a cavern tour but we were awestruck right from the start of this one. Just descending into the natural opening of the cave was amazing. A series of steep switchbacks descends into the cave. And once you enter, you just can't believe the size of the cave, both vertically and horizontally.
After the first hour-and-a-half we finished the natural-entrance tour and that took us to the rest area where there's a lunch counter. It seemed very odd to come upon a lunch counter and tee-shirt shop 750 feet underground. We split a ham-and-cheese sandwich and bottle of water, then moved on to the Big Room tour.
The Big Room was even better than the Natural-Entrance tour. Everywhere we looked were amazing cave features as well as interesting history information courtesy of our rented tour-wands. We were tired by the end our our tour but loved every bit of it. Very highly recommended!
By the time we returned to the van we could hardly walk against the strong wind. The gusts were predicted to fall in the 55-60 miles-per-hour range and I'd say they made it. For our trip to town, though, the winds were wonderful; they were directly behind us and giving Mocha Joe quite a push.
By 1600 we were in the Carlsbad Wal-mart for a re-supply. After our shopping we tried to find someplace out of the wind in the Wal-mart parking lot but it wasn't a good one for that. We drove north out of Carlsbad hoping to find something protected at Brantley Lake State Park. The write-up said the sites had trees but that turned out to be on a hill top and there were only one or two trees on each site. We could see the campers there were getting pounded by the winds. And we were in fact having problems driving in such a wind. Driving into the wind Mocha Joe could only do 55 miles per hour and if the wind came from the side I was weaving all over my lane. After trying both the developed campground and the only-slightly-better primitive campground we gave up.
We drove back to Carlsbad to a Motel 6 I had noticed this afternoon. We checked in there- our first motel stay of the trip--- and then went out to the nearby Chili's restaurant for drinks and supper. We had a couple El Presidente margaritas and our travails of the day didn't seem so bad. And it really hadn't been that bad. We were never in any danger, just frustrated in trying to find some protection from the wind. From past experience in very windy weather, we know we can't sleep with the van being jarred by gusts so we had to find some protection and we weren't finding anything even close.
And when I pulled into my parking spot at the Motel-6 I knew we had made the right decision. There were shingles from the roof here and there on the lee side of the building.
We watched tv for a bit and then turned in after our busy day.
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Thursday, 25 March-
This morning we woke early-- about 0730-- and the thermometer read a chilly 31 degrees but we were comfortable and it only took a few minutes to get the propane heater working for morning. After breakfast we checked out at the office and I had to ask why this park was so expensive ($25) while the one at Davis Mountain is only $18. This one has a nice spring with swimming facilities so I suppose that's the difference though as cold and windy as it was, nobody was swimming. In any case, the clerk said, yes, they are one of the most expensive in the state but she had no idea why.
We headed west out of Balmoreal and were soon on I-10. After a short while we exited at Van Horn for gas, then turned north up scenic Texas 54 toward New Mexico.
By 1100 or so we were at Guadalupe Mountains National Park. We saw the introductory slide show and toured the exhibits in the Visitor's Center to get oriented, then drove a few miles further to the Frijole Ranch museum. We really liked this old ranch, particularly the ingenious irrigation canals and spring houses. The ranchers who lived here really took advantage of the strong year-round spring. The house never had eletricity until the mid-Fifties but they did have gas lamps run from a carbide generator behind the house. I'd have loved to see that generator at work.
After our tour, we hiked the Smith Springs Trail, which was about three miles. We had intended to take an easier walk to Manzanita Spring but took a wrong turn. But it all worked out fine-- Smith Spring was beautiful and we sat there quite a while enjoying the sunshine and watching birds.
After returning to the van we drove back to the campground near the visitor's center for the night. I talked at length with two other campers. One was Cam Weaver of the Belgrade Lakes area of Maine and the other's name I didn't catch but he was from Victoria, British Columbia. Cam had built his very unique-looking teardrop-style trailer two winters ago. He and his wife were headed to Washington State to deliver some belongings to their daughter and help her and her husband build a deck. They gave me a tour of the teardrop and it was very nicely done though they said they probably should have built the larger model. Theirs is a 4x8 and the other common size is 5 x 10. The sleeping arrangements are just a bit two narrow. After that tour I invited them over to meet Labashi and tour Mocha Joe. Like all homemade-camper builders, they wanted to look for additional ideas.
The BC fellow was driving a 1987 Road Trek model based on a Dodge extended chassis and it looked great-- very well preserved. He was headed for Big Bend so I told him of our experiences there and we found we both love the Everglades-- at least in winter!
The campground was really just a medium-sized parking lot with the asphalt marked off for RV rigs. I would have preferred to live among the tent campers to avoid the potential for noisy generators and furnaces but the park rules insist you must sleep in a tent to stay in that campground. As it turned out, though, we were lucky and had no noise problems.
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Wednesday, 24 March-
This morning we woke a bit late (0830) but, hey, it's not our fault. We're nearly as far west as the Mountain Time Zone (but still in Central Time) and at 0830 it looks more like 0700 back home. The sun is just above the horizon on the plains and at Davis Mountain State Park, we're among hills.
In any case, by the time we had breakfast and showers and headed up the mountain it was 1000, just the right time to visit MacDonald Observatory.
The Observatory came about because of an $800,000 bequest to the University of Texas in the Twenties. Though UT had never had an astronomy program, the gift was specific about it being for a large telescope and observatory. UT contracted with the University of Chicago, who ran Yerkes Observatory in Wisconsin, to set up and run the new scope. The University of Chicago was interested in a West Texas observatory for multiple reasons, including the view of the sky further south, a large number of viewable nights, and darker sky.
Our tour began with a short film about the history of the facility. After a break we then had a solar viewing session. This was done remotely, meaning that the feed from the solar telescope was piped in to the auditorium. We had a live view of the sun as seen through a hydrogen filter. Our tourguide then gave us a very interesting lecture about the sun alternating live views of the sun with incredible photos and videos. The sun today had a sunspot and that led us through the discussion of prominences, flares, magnetic disturbances caused by the differential rotation of the sun (the equator of the sun turns once every 25 days, the poles once every 35 days). And the size of the prominences is absolutely stunning. We saw gasses rising up off the sun some 25,000 miles and more and they changed over the course of the lecture. We saw a disctinctive 'V' pattern when we first saw it and later the V had closed up.
We also learned that the sun has a very distinct cycle of activity. Photos of the sun at a low-activity period were very bland and at the high-activity period almost frightening in intensity. Photos from the Hubble Space Telescope of the gas clouds following magnetic lines were among some the most sensational photos we've ever seen of space objects.
After our lecture, the tourguide took us by shuttle bus up to the 82-inch original scope. This one has an 82-inch primary mirror that's a foot thick. It has an aluminum reflecting surface which is replaced every few years and is so thin that a single Coke can has enough aluminum to coat it through multiple re-coating sessions. The tourguide moved the scope and the dome, showing how easy it is to point the scope and track a star. He also described how the astronomers originally used to come on site for weeks at a time to conduct their studies but today can often complete their studies within a matter of days and have collected enough data for eight or nine months of processing.
The guide then took us over to the 117-inch Hobby-Eberly scope, which has an entirely diffent idea. It uses 91 mittors focused together to create its reflecting surface. It's also exclusively a spectrographic scope, i.e. it's used to study the spectra emitted from a stellar object. If it had been designed in the same manner as the original scope, it would have cost upwards of $150 million. But its use of innovative off-the-shelf technology such as air-bearings, allowed it to be built for $20 million. And the designers were Penn Staters who came up with it while having lunch at a diner and drawing on napkins.
After the tour we had a late lunch and realized the next sun lecture was about to start so we sat through it again, this time with a different guide. It was great to have a different perspective and though we planned to stay only long enough to see the current live feed from the sun telescope, we stayed for the entire lecture.
Afterwards we toured the exhibits and gift shop and finally finished up about 1530. What a great day!
We then drove the scenic tour route around the Davis Mountains. Along the way we saw our first ringtail and we saw what we think are ibexes imported for exotic-species hunting at one of the ranches.
By 1700 we made it back around to Fort Davis. After a short stop to re-provision, we headed up Texas 17 to Balmoreal State Park. The drive up 17 ran through beautiful ranchland with classic stone massifs in all directions. What spectacular country.
We arrived at the state park by 1800 and took a short walk, had supper then blogged and read through the evening.
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Tuesday, 23 March-
I LOVE sleeping out in the desert. What a great, peaceful night. The desert here is almost spookily quiet. There are no peepers, no bugs but the occasional moth, and views across desert scrub to rocky hills in all directions. Once darkness fell we could see the lights of the little town of Study Butte and Terlinqua (Texas) off in the distance, twinkling as the day's heat waves rose off the desert floor.
Once we said goodbye to our campsite at Rattlesnake Mountain, we drove the four miles or so to the hard road and exited the west gateway of the park. This took us to Study (pronouned 'STEW-day') Butte. We stopped for ice at the Cottonwood Store, which turned out to be a very nice little country store which even had a few mangoes for sale. In addition to the normal country-store stuff they had a very good selection of wines (and many under $10) and a few hard-cheeses. Heck, they even had block ice at a reasonable price ($2.25 for 10 pounds).
We gassed up in Terlingua at $3.10 per gallon where we had paid $3.31 and $3.41 inside the park. Prior to reaching the Big Bend area we were paying around $2.65.
As we drove through Terlingua we say a coffee shop and I stopped for a capuccino. The lady was very apologetic about not serving espresso drinks there but directed me to El Pasado at Terlingua Ghost Town a few miles south. There we found a great little espresso bar with a patio and, of all things, a wi-fi connection. It was odd to see Terlingua Ghost Town's abandoned houses – mostly fallen-in mud-and-straw adobe structures and a few shops, including this one. The building was very small but the deck and patio had a half-dozen tables and a reed-matted roofed pavilion. You order your drinks through a large window. And they had fresh-squeezed fruit juices!
We had a fresh-made guacamole-and-chips, fresh grapefruit and orange juices, and a very competent capuccino made with Big Bend Espresso Roast from nearby Marfa. We check mail and I updated the blog, then we moved to the van and used the wi-fi connection to make a Skype video call to Mom and Dad, back in PA. The closing on the Michigan house went fine yesterday and they were very happy. The weather back home was good the last few days (though cloudy today) and they've been enjoying it. Excellent!
After the sinful yuppie indulgences, we headed west toward Presidio. Following the Rio Grande is Texas 170 and it scoots in and out, up and down between rocky hills and the Rio. We stopped at the visitor center for Big Bend State Park and picked out another backcountry campsite but learned we'd have to do 27 miles of washboard to get there. After having such a wonderful few days in the National Park, we decided we'd bypass the state park after all. We've been having good luck with Mocha Joe on some pretty rough roads in the backcountry so we're not going to push our luck today.
We only briefly saw Marfa because we wanted to catch the Marfa Mystery Lights center before it closed and that's eight miles east of town. We made it by 1630 (thinking they'd likely close at 1700) only to find it's not a staffed center at all. It's more like a very nice road-side rest. Plaques explain that the mystery lights were first recorded as a sighting by a cowboy watching over the herds in 1883. It was reported that he thought they might be Apache campfires.
Though the lights are not explained, it is intimated that the lights are believed to be caused by reflections of terrestrial lights due to the mixing of hot and cold air. That's not much of an explanation but I suppose they don't want to go any further and ruin the mystery. You might want to Google 'Marfa mystery lights' for more info.
After Marfa we drove on to Alpine, where Labashi wanted to check out some of the art galleries. But we soon learned that all of the galleries take Tuesdays off and of course today's Tuesday.
We drove on through Fort Davis to Davis Mountain State Park, where we selected a spot for the night. Though the RV section of the campground is busy, the tent portion is nearly empty.
While Labashi made supper I walked over to check out the showers, then walked to a nearby campsite where a motorcylist (Wayne) was setting up his tent. We spoke for the better part of a half hour, our conversation ranging from his hometown (Lubbock) to his motorcycle (a Suzuki V-Strom 650) to travels in Alaska.
After supper Labashi and I read and blogged.
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(posted from Coffee and More, Tularosa, NM)
(This post covers 23-28 March, 2010)
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Sunday, 28 March-
It was 29 degrees last night but we woke to an incredibly nice, sunny day. We were in no rush to get into Roswell since we had seen yesterday that most museums didn't open until 1300 on Sundays. We took a side trip to Bitter Lake Wildlife Refuge and drove the wildlife-viewing auto-road. This decent dirt road overlooked a series of artificial impoundments designed for sandhill cranes, ducks, and shorebirds. It turned out to be a very pleasant surprise. At first we saw a few coots and (I believe) canvasbacks and mallards but then began picking out more and different birds. The redwing blackbirds were spectacular with a very distinct yellow stripe under the red shoulder patch. We saw egrets and great blue herons, a kingfisher, two meadowlarks, and many others I can't name. We parked at the closed visitor's center and watched from the back veranda while enjoying the streaming sunlight.
We then drove into Roswell to the UFO Museum. I don't believe in flying saucers and alien lifeforms but I was interested in learning more about the Roswell story. In 1947 a rancher found what later was determined to be the remains of a weather balloon and radar reflector launched from White Sands Proving Grounds a few days before. The rancher did not rush to report the odd finding immediately but after learning about flying saucer sightings in other parts of the country he spoke with the local sheriff who contacted the Roswell Army Airfield. The public relations officer filed a report saying a crashed flying disk had been found, reporting it to be about the size of a safe. No mention of beings was made in the initial report. Eyewitness reports soon surfaced, however, claiming four little beings about four and a half feet tall had been found. Some reports said all were dead, others said one being had survived the crash. Eyewitness reports also said the diameter of the saucer-shaped craft was about 20 feet. Once the report reached Washington the local Army officials were directed to gather all the materials of the so-called flying saucer and forward them to Wright Airfield in Dayton, Ohio for analysis. In very short order the government was accused of a coverup and of staging a fake weather-balloon crash to mislead the public and various citizens stepped forward to tell their tale.
I was very happy to read the various affidavits of the eyewitnesses. Several went so far as to accuse the government of a coverup right in the affidavit while others tended to tell how so-and-so was an officer who told the real story on his deathbed, having been sworn to secrecy (and in one case threatened with death of him and his entire family) at the time of the event.
The museum does a credible job of telling a story but is about as 'fair and balanced' as Fox News in their examination of the facts. It's clearly in the interests of the 'Museum' to keep the story mysterious and to claim they're just providing the facts so you can decide for yourself (IMHO).
I found the research library to be the most interesting part of my visit. They have a fantastic collection of books, magazines, and videos on the subject of UFOs. I loved browsing through the back issues of newsletters like 'The Journal for UFO Research' and (something like) 'Space Vehicle Electrical Propulsion Newsletter” as well as early issues of men's magazines like 'Saga' and 'Argosy' and old 'Popular Science' collections and tear-sheets of UFO articles from newspapers around the world and eyewitness report letters. It's fascinating stuff and you can almost feel the excitement of the time.
After the UFO Museum we drove west out Route 70. We tried the Hurd Gallery at San Patricio but it was closed. We drove on out 380 to Lincoln and spent several hours learning about the Lincoln County Wars involving Billy-the-Kid and Pat Garrett and a host of others (I'm looking forward to reading the Wikipedia article on this one).
We then continued west to Valley of Fire Recreational Area, a small campground beside a massive lava flow. We were lucky to get a great campsite overlooking the lave flow one side with snow-covered mountains and the town of Carazozo (NM) off in the distance on the other.
After supper I walked the Malpais ('bad country' in Spanish) Nature Trail out into the lava flow and then we spent the rest of the evening blogging and reading. It is spec-TAC-ular out here when the sun sets and shows us the pink-and-blue colors and we have the full moon to our east and the town lights of Carazozo coming up. This is really, really nice.
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Saturday, 27 March-
The Motel-6 night wasn't the best. I often don't sleep well the first night in a motel and that was the case last night. But we did wake to a much-improved day. The dust-storm was over and we had a nice, fresh morning sun.
We drove north to Artesia and turned west toward Cloudcroft and stopped for lunch. Fortunately, I noticed Roswell is only about 35 miles further north. We changed the plan and drove to Roswell, arriving in early afternoon.
We first visited the Roswell Museum of Art, one of AAA's gems. It was indeed very good. I particularly liked the re-creation of Dr. Robert Goddard's rocketry workshop and seeing old films about him and his work.
We then found our way to the Anderson Contemporary Art Museum where I fell in love with the sculptures of El Paso artist Luis Jimenez. This museum shows the work of artists who have had artist residencies here. A residency lasts a year and each artist is given a place to live and a small stipend. The artist is not required to give any of his or her work to the museum and in fact the museum often buys some of the work.
Luis Jimenez was an artist-in-residence here several times and he did the most incredible fiberglass sculptures. Think of the most energetic Frederic Remington bronzes of bucking or galloping horses, Indians, buffalo hunts, etc. and that approaches what my favorite Luis Jimenez sculptures are like.
After the Anderson Museum we drove east of town to Bottomless Lakes State Park where we found a primitive site for the night for the bargain price of $10 and all the sky you could want. The wind had died down this evening and we took a walk to see three of the lakes in the beautiful desert-sunset colors of New Mexico. There are other campers out here on this Saturday evening and at one point we heard drums in the distance. Someone else is out there communing with nature on this fine, full-moon evening.
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Friday, 26 March-
It's so nice to be in the Mountain Time zone. The sun now seems to be appearing at the right time of day in the morning. I had expected it to be cold up here at 6000+ feet but the overnight low was a comfortable 48 degrees and with our morning sun, it was quite pleasant.
After breakfast we drove over to the visitor's center for their wi-fi connection and took care of a few calls and emails. I even had a video call with Orat from the veranda of the visitor's center.
We then drove on to Carlsbad Caverns. Today was supposed to get very windy so we thought it a great idea to get away from it underground. We did the two self-guided tours and that was plenty. We started walking on our tour at 0945 and didn't get back until around 1400.
We hadn't really been that enthusiastic about taking a cavern tour but we were awestruck right from the start of this one. Just descending into the natural opening of the cave was amazing. A series of steep switchbacks descends into the cave. And once you enter, you just can't believe the size of the cave, both vertically and horizontally.
After the first hour-and-a-half we finished the natural-entrance tour and that took us to the rest area where there's a lunch counter. It seemed very odd to come upon a lunch counter and tee-shirt shop 750 feet underground. We split a ham-and-cheese sandwich and bottle of water, then moved on to the Big Room tour.
The Big Room was even better than the Natural-Entrance tour. Everywhere we looked were amazing cave features as well as interesting history information courtesy of our rented tour-wands. We were tired by the end our our tour but loved every bit of it. Very highly recommended!
By the time we returned to the van we could hardly walk against the strong wind. The gusts were predicted to fall in the 55-60 miles-per-hour range and I'd say they made it. For our trip to town, though, the winds were wonderful; they were directly behind us and giving Mocha Joe quite a push.
By 1600 we were in the Carlsbad Wal-mart for a re-supply. After our shopping we tried to find someplace out of the wind in the Wal-mart parking lot but it wasn't a good one for that. We drove north out of Carlsbad hoping to find something protected at Brantley Lake State Park. The write-up said the sites had trees but that turned out to be on a hill top and there were only one or two trees on each site. We could see the campers there were getting pounded by the winds. And we were in fact having problems driving in such a wind. Driving into the wind Mocha Joe could only do 55 miles per hour and if the wind came from the side I was weaving all over my lane. After trying both the developed campground and the only-slightly-better primitive campground we gave up.
We drove back to Carlsbad to a Motel 6 I had noticed this afternoon. We checked in there- our first motel stay of the trip--- and then went out to the nearby Chili's restaurant for drinks and supper. We had a couple El Presidente margaritas and our travails of the day didn't seem so bad. And it really hadn't been that bad. We were never in any danger, just frustrated in trying to find some protection from the wind. From past experience in very windy weather, we know we can't sleep with the van being jarred by gusts so we had to find some protection and we weren't finding anything even close.
And when I pulled into my parking spot at the Motel-6 I knew we had made the right decision. There were shingles from the roof here and there on the lee side of the building.
We watched tv for a bit and then turned in after our busy day.
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Thursday, 25 March-
This morning we woke early-- about 0730-- and the thermometer read a chilly 31 degrees but we were comfortable and it only took a few minutes to get the propane heater working for morning. After breakfast we checked out at the office and I had to ask why this park was so expensive ($25) while the one at Davis Mountain is only $18. This one has a nice spring with swimming facilities so I suppose that's the difference though as cold and windy as it was, nobody was swimming. In any case, the clerk said, yes, they are one of the most expensive in the state but she had no idea why.
We headed west out of Balmoreal and were soon on I-10. After a short while we exited at Van Horn for gas, then turned north up scenic Texas 54 toward New Mexico.
By 1100 or so we were at Guadalupe Mountains National Park. We saw the introductory slide show and toured the exhibits in the Visitor's Center to get oriented, then drove a few miles further to the Frijole Ranch museum. We really liked this old ranch, particularly the ingenious irrigation canals and spring houses. The ranchers who lived here really took advantage of the strong year-round spring. The house never had eletricity until the mid-Fifties but they did have gas lamps run from a carbide generator behind the house. I'd have loved to see that generator at work.
After our tour, we hiked the Smith Springs Trail, which was about three miles. We had intended to take an easier walk to Manzanita Spring but took a wrong turn. But it all worked out fine-- Smith Spring was beautiful and we sat there quite a while enjoying the sunshine and watching birds.
After returning to the van we drove back to the campground near the visitor's center for the night. I talked at length with two other campers. One was Cam Weaver of the Belgrade Lakes area of Maine and the other's name I didn't catch but he was from Victoria, British Columbia. Cam had built his very unique-looking teardrop-style trailer two winters ago. He and his wife were headed to Washington State to deliver some belongings to their daughter and help her and her husband build a deck. They gave me a tour of the teardrop and it was very nicely done though they said they probably should have built the larger model. Theirs is a 4x8 and the other common size is 5 x 10. The sleeping arrangements are just a bit two narrow. After that tour I invited them over to meet Labashi and tour Mocha Joe. Like all homemade-camper builders, they wanted to look for additional ideas.
The BC fellow was driving a 1987 Road Trek model based on a Dodge extended chassis and it looked great-- very well preserved. He was headed for Big Bend so I told him of our experiences there and we found we both love the Everglades-- at least in winter!
The campground was really just a medium-sized parking lot with the asphalt marked off for RV rigs. I would have preferred to live among the tent campers to avoid the potential for noisy generators and furnaces but the park rules insist you must sleep in a tent to stay in that campground. As it turned out, though, we were lucky and had no noise problems.
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Wednesday, 24 March-
This morning we woke a bit late (0830) but, hey, it's not our fault. We're nearly as far west as the Mountain Time Zone (but still in Central Time) and at 0830 it looks more like 0700 back home. The sun is just above the horizon on the plains and at Davis Mountain State Park, we're among hills.
In any case, by the time we had breakfast and showers and headed up the mountain it was 1000, just the right time to visit MacDonald Observatory.
The Observatory came about because of an $800,000 bequest to the University of Texas in the Twenties. Though UT had never had an astronomy program, the gift was specific about it being for a large telescope and observatory. UT contracted with the University of Chicago, who ran Yerkes Observatory in Wisconsin, to set up and run the new scope. The University of Chicago was interested in a West Texas observatory for multiple reasons, including the view of the sky further south, a large number of viewable nights, and darker sky.
Our tour began with a short film about the history of the facility. After a break we then had a solar viewing session. This was done remotely, meaning that the feed from the solar telescope was piped in to the auditorium. We had a live view of the sun as seen through a hydrogen filter. Our tourguide then gave us a very interesting lecture about the sun alternating live views of the sun with incredible photos and videos. The sun today had a sunspot and that led us through the discussion of prominences, flares, magnetic disturbances caused by the differential rotation of the sun (the equator of the sun turns once every 25 days, the poles once every 35 days). And the size of the prominences is absolutely stunning. We saw gasses rising up off the sun some 25,000 miles and more and they changed over the course of the lecture. We saw a disctinctive 'V' pattern when we first saw it and later the V had closed up.
We also learned that the sun has a very distinct cycle of activity. Photos of the sun at a low-activity period were very bland and at the high-activity period almost frightening in intensity. Photos from the Hubble Space Telescope of the gas clouds following magnetic lines were among some the most sensational photos we've ever seen of space objects.
After our lecture, the tourguide took us by shuttle bus up to the 82-inch original scope. This one has an 82-inch primary mirror that's a foot thick. It has an aluminum reflecting surface which is replaced every few years and is so thin that a single Coke can has enough aluminum to coat it through multiple re-coating sessions. The tourguide moved the scope and the dome, showing how easy it is to point the scope and track a star. He also described how the astronomers originally used to come on site for weeks at a time to conduct their studies but today can often complete their studies within a matter of days and have collected enough data for eight or nine months of processing.
The guide then took us over to the 117-inch Hobby-Eberly scope, which has an entirely diffent idea. It uses 91 mittors focused together to create its reflecting surface. It's also exclusively a spectrographic scope, i.e. it's used to study the spectra emitted from a stellar object. If it had been designed in the same manner as the original scope, it would have cost upwards of $150 million. But its use of innovative off-the-shelf technology such as air-bearings, allowed it to be built for $20 million. And the designers were Penn Staters who came up with it while having lunch at a diner and drawing on napkins.
After the tour we had a late lunch and realized the next sun lecture was about to start so we sat through it again, this time with a different guide. It was great to have a different perspective and though we planned to stay only long enough to see the current live feed from the sun telescope, we stayed for the entire lecture.
Afterwards we toured the exhibits and gift shop and finally finished up about 1530. What a great day!
We then drove the scenic tour route around the Davis Mountains. Along the way we saw our first ringtail and we saw what we think are ibexes imported for exotic-species hunting at one of the ranches.
By 1700 we made it back around to Fort Davis. After a short stop to re-provision, we headed up Texas 17 to Balmoreal State Park. The drive up 17 ran through beautiful ranchland with classic stone massifs in all directions. What spectacular country.
We arrived at the state park by 1800 and took a short walk, had supper then blogged and read through the evening.
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Tuesday, 23 March-
I LOVE sleeping out in the desert. What a great, peaceful night. The desert here is almost spookily quiet. There are no peepers, no bugs but the occasional moth, and views across desert scrub to rocky hills in all directions. Once darkness fell we could see the lights of the little town of Study Butte and Terlinqua (Texas) off in the distance, twinkling as the day's heat waves rose off the desert floor.
Once we said goodbye to our campsite at Rattlesnake Mountain, we drove the four miles or so to the hard road and exited the west gateway of the park. This took us to Study (pronouned 'STEW-day') Butte. We stopped for ice at the Cottonwood Store, which turned out to be a very nice little country store which even had a few mangoes for sale. In addition to the normal country-store stuff they had a very good selection of wines (and many under $10) and a few hard-cheeses. Heck, they even had block ice at a reasonable price ($2.25 for 10 pounds).
We gassed up in Terlingua at $3.10 per gallon where we had paid $3.31 and $3.41 inside the park. Prior to reaching the Big Bend area we were paying around $2.65.
As we drove through Terlingua we say a coffee shop and I stopped for a capuccino. The lady was very apologetic about not serving espresso drinks there but directed me to El Pasado at Terlingua Ghost Town a few miles south. There we found a great little espresso bar with a patio and, of all things, a wi-fi connection. It was odd to see Terlingua Ghost Town's abandoned houses – mostly fallen-in mud-and-straw adobe structures and a few shops, including this one. The building was very small but the deck and patio had a half-dozen tables and a reed-matted roofed pavilion. You order your drinks through a large window. And they had fresh-squeezed fruit juices!
We had a fresh-made guacamole-and-chips, fresh grapefruit and orange juices, and a very competent capuccino made with Big Bend Espresso Roast from nearby Marfa. We check mail and I updated the blog, then we moved to the van and used the wi-fi connection to make a Skype video call to Mom and Dad, back in PA. The closing on the Michigan house went fine yesterday and they were very happy. The weather back home was good the last few days (though cloudy today) and they've been enjoying it. Excellent!
After the sinful yuppie indulgences, we headed west toward Presidio. Following the Rio Grande is Texas 170 and it scoots in and out, up and down between rocky hills and the Rio. We stopped at the visitor center for Big Bend State Park and picked out another backcountry campsite but learned we'd have to do 27 miles of washboard to get there. After having such a wonderful few days in the National Park, we decided we'd bypass the state park after all. We've been having good luck with Mocha Joe on some pretty rough roads in the backcountry so we're not going to push our luck today.
We only briefly saw Marfa because we wanted to catch the Marfa Mystery Lights center before it closed and that's eight miles east of town. We made it by 1630 (thinking they'd likely close at 1700) only to find it's not a staffed center at all. It's more like a very nice road-side rest. Plaques explain that the mystery lights were first recorded as a sighting by a cowboy watching over the herds in 1883. It was reported that he thought they might be Apache campfires.
Though the lights are not explained, it is intimated that the lights are believed to be caused by reflections of terrestrial lights due to the mixing of hot and cold air. That's not much of an explanation but I suppose they don't want to go any further and ruin the mystery. You might want to Google 'Marfa mystery lights' for more info.
After Marfa we drove on to Alpine, where Labashi wanted to check out some of the art galleries. But we soon learned that all of the galleries take Tuesdays off and of course today's Tuesday.
We drove on through Fort Davis to Davis Mountain State Park, where we selected a spot for the night. Though the RV section of the campground is busy, the tent portion is nearly empty.
While Labashi made supper I walked over to check out the showers, then walked to a nearby campsite where a motorcylist (Wayne) was setting up his tent. We spoke for the better part of a half hour, our conversation ranging from his hometown (Lubbock) to his motorcycle (a Suzuki V-Strom 650) to travels in Alaska.
After supper Labashi and I read and blogged.
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posted by Bezabor&Labashi | 23:59
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