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| AAA can you hear me? |
We awoke (Well, Judy did) to an amazing desert sunrise buffeted by a stiff wind that lasted all day. After our normal morning of coffee, oatmeal, semel (Semel is only normal after Judy bakes it; it's a great treat while it lasts), and luckily, another victory for me, we lounged around for the morning. Judy knitted; I caught up on my Newsweek's, and we listened to the wind whistle outside. Around noon, we made a jaunt into town for the homemade burritos we'd read about. They were good; the young Hispanic kid who sold them to us was a local who had grown up in Balmorhea. He was also a basketball fan, so he noticed our Gonzaga sweatshirts. He knew they were a top twenty-five team. He even knew the names of a few of the players. It's always good to jaw with another junkie. After lunch, we began our one and only sortie into the wilds of west Texas. Thirty seven miles south is Fort Davis, which was active on the frontier for five decades, but was deactivated in 1891. Several buildings still stand, and a few have been restored enough to present a snapshot of what life was like. Let's just say I'm pretty happy with the accident of fate that put me on the planet when and where it did. We then scooted another twenty-five miles to Marfa on the strength of what we'd read as well as the recommendation from the bicyclist (Thomas) we met. Thomas said, "Marfa is a nifty town, kind of an artist's community." Well, they must have been on siesta when we got there because the town felt hostile and empty. By far the dominate presence was the green and white border patrol vehicles. We saw more of them than we did people. In fact, we found little redeeming about Marfa. In stark contrast to the friendly people we've met in Texas everywhere else, the people we did see in Marfa avoided eye contact. It left us uncomfortable. I can only attribute it to how hard it must be to exist there. Life looks hard in Marfa. There is one building that it pretty cool. It's the Paisano Hotel, which was built in anticipation of a oil boom that never materialized. We left Marfa, had medium dinner/lunch in Fort Davis, and then decided to take a dotted line loop on the map (Scenic route), which was basically the long way to the McDonald Observatory where we had reservations for the nighttime star party. The long way turned out to be about seventy miles on a road not much wider than Fric. We saw a few cows, including some beside the road, and one other truck passed us. I would not have liked to break down out there. Thankfully, Fric held up his part of the deal and we ended up enjoying the evening shadows as they danced through the dry grass. The star party was way cool. We got to look through big telescopes that showed us a 17,000 ft deep crater on the moon, a cluster of stars in some galaxy far far away, the nebula glittering in Orion's sword, and the gas cloud belts around Jupiter. Our star wizard had this cool laser pointer and he spun around showing us various sights in the sky, and at precisely 7:42 P.M. he pointed out the Hubble Telescope as it zoomed across the sky. We were wildly successful getting home because the five little deer we saw grazing by the roadside decided not to dart in front of us, and we were home safely before ten confident in the knowledge that life is good, especially today.
There is beauty in the desert, especially early and late when the shadows get to play.
The Bunny says I spend so much time writing the blog that we have to document the fact.
Look at the cute little bunnies, all three of them.
Home of the home made burritos.
The burritos.
A replica of the enlisted barracks at Fort Davis.
A soldier didn't really want to visit the doctor. Medicine involved purges, chloroform, and amputations.
This tree has a few tales to tell.
The porch of the commanding officer, whose billet was dead center in the line of officer quarters.
A side view of the line of officer quarters. This line faced the open parade ground.
Marfa's courthouse.
Downtown Marfa.
Enlisted man's billet's in Marfa. One guy is lost.
The courthouse in Fort Davis. This is the only one in Texas we've seen with Greek columns.
Strawberry gruel.
Suck it up, buddy!
The scenic view.
Heading up the mountain to the observatory.
One of the telescopes, the almost full moon, and Jupiter to the left. the moon was so bright, it was amazing. I can only imagine how dark it is up here when the moon is at the other end of its cycle.
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