26th Nov- 1st Dec
We cruised back to Alpine, stocked up on provisions and headed another 20 miles north to a town called Fort Davis. This sits in the foothills of the Davis mountains and is the closest town to the McDonald Observatory, one of the world’s foremost facilities in one of the world’s best dark skies regions. We had booked tickets to one of the thrice weekly ‘Star Parties’ when the observatory hosts an educational evening, with use of some of its smaller telescopes. The observatory, allied to the University of Texas, has some massive telescopes one of which, at 11m in diameter is one of the largest in the world.
Massive telescope
Fort Davis itself, as the name might suggest, was originally a military camp in the second half of the 19th C, and is the highest town in Texas, at about 5000ft. It has an impressive court house and lots of original old buildings, around which one can do a walking tour and the old fort is a national historic monument.
We spent one day mooching around town on foot and bike, doing the tour, browsing gift shops and the historic ‘drug store’, and, on recommendation of the lady in the visitors centre, had a fabulous Mexican lunch at a very unprepossessing restaurant on the other side of town that was so low-key it might have been a military secret itself.
Actual secret mexican restaurant
The Star Party was the highlight of our time here. The observatory was a 17 mile drive up into the hills and having liberated Big Dave from TC and packed a picnic supper, we headed up in time for sunset.
The back deck of Big D was a fine place for a mug of french onion soup and a cheese sandwich whilst we watched the sun go down and we spent an hour chatting to a fellow party-goer, Jack, whilst waiting for darkness. It was a perfect evening for star gazing. Crystal clear, moonless, windless and relatively warm (apparently) and our modest numbers of 120 were far preferable to the 500-600 people crowds of the previous Thanksgiving week. The evening started in a circular amphitheatre dimly lit in red. Our host gave a very informative and entertaining hour-long presentation, pointing out stars, constellations, planets and distant galaxies with the most amazing laser pointer that seemed to reach all the way out into the universe. He blew our minds with facts and figures of size, distance and time and despite the dropping temperatures, we didn’t want it to end. The second half of the evening involved being able to peer into each of the five small telescopes that they had set up, both mobile and in small observatories. All in all it was epic and now (well, this week) we both want to be astronomers.
The next day we took advantage of an unfettered Big D and drove 20 miles to the next town of Marfa. This might be known to some as the location of the 1956 movie Giant staring Elizabeth Taylor, James Dean, Rock Hudson and Dennis Hopper, but nowadays its identity is closely allied to its art community. In 1971 the minimalist artist Donald Judd came to town and eventually bought another old army base to create an artist retreat and location for his massive permanent art installations.
Hampson being serious in the presence of an art installation
One of these is a field containing numerous massive concrete boxes, and the other comprises of countless aluminium boxes housed in two massive artillery sheds.
Me, not being very serious
As with most modern art, our baseline was ‘skeptical and contemptuous’ but the aluminium boxes were impressive for their numbers, uniformity and setting. Photos inside were not allowed unfortunately.
Building containing aluminium boxes, honest
After a very tasty cafe lunch we wandered around the town to discover that it was a bit soulless. Many of the galleries were shut and the the shops that we found open seemed to be catering to a type of wealthy tourist that wasn’t obviously in town today. Our last activity was visiting another massive permanent installation that was a series of semi-crushed car body parts welded together. We weren’t convinced. Unfortunately we didn’t hang around in Marfa long enough to witness its other curiosity, The Marfa Lights. These are unexplained twinkling lights that happen over the plains close to the town that are visible on many nights each year. There are lots of theories, but the car headlights likely explain most if not all of them.
Our next, and last, stop in Texas was the Guadelupe National Park. This was another beautiful drive through the plains of West Texas, back through Marfa and then north. There were a couple of curiosities along the way: an homage to the film Giant just north of Marfa,
and a cool border patrol radar blimp thing further up the road.
The Guadelupe Mountains rear up from the plains, headed by the sheer rock face of the peak El Capitain. The tallest point in Texas, Guadelupe Peak, is also here and we planned to ‘knock the b*&%$#d off’ to quote a famed NZ mountaineer. Our camp was a ‘first-come-first-served’ carpark site without any services at the trailhead. There was plenty of space on our arrival and we found a corner spot with a view of the hills.
One of our nearby co-campers was another big Lance camper, a bit smaller than TC, sat upon a black truck very like Big Dave. Of course a conversation was struck up, how could we not! Val and Wayne, and their beautiful black lab, Jada, were from Colorado and we got on like a house on fire. Due to the arrival of some very windy weather we couldn’t do the peak hike, but the next day they joined us, or we joined them, not sure, for a more sheltered 3 hour canyon hike up a dry river bed to ‘Devil’s Hall’.
Them
Us
Devil’s Hall
Later, although it was only 4.30pm, they came round for drinks. They left nearly 6 hours later after many beers, a bottle of wine, the significant portion of a very nice bottle of 16 yr old Lagavulin, a cobbled together meal and a game of scrabble. It was our first Tin Can entertaining evening and our first doggy visitation after Jada made herself at home on the sofa for the evening. She was at high risk of being dog-napped as we fell in love with her.
Our next stop was the Carlsbad Caverns, a short journey across the state border into New Mexico. Wayne and Val were headed the same way the next morning, so we went in a mini Lance camper convoy of two.