We stopped off in the town of Fort Davis for some breakfast. It was a lovely little town with old fashioned buildings dressed up ready for the 4th July which was only a few days away.
We had breakfast outside a place called The Porch. It was nice to watch the world go by sitting on the porch of The Porch as we munched on our sausage sandwiches.
Our cracked windscreen was slowly getting worse and we were starting to worry that it wasn't going to make it to Albuquerque so I did some Googling over breakfast and read somewhere that if you put clear nail varnish on the crack, it will slow it down. Do not follow this advice. As soon as I started to put the nail varnish on, the crack grew by another 10 cm all of a sudden! I ended up calling the windscreen replacement company who told me not to worry, the crack can go across the whole windscreen and still be fine and to leave it alone.
We were just 5 minutes down the road from the Fort Davis National Monument and since it was free to enter with our National Parks Pass, we decided to take a look.
Fort Davis was used during various wars and as we walked around the visitors center and the building within the monument, we learnt about the history of the battles and the lives the people lived whilst living and working in the fort.
The National Park Service has restored a number of the building on this site but there are also a number which have fallen down and even some where only the foundations are left.
We enjoyed walking around the officers' houses, all neatly in a row at the back of the fort. A couple of the houses had been restored and included contents from the time the fort was most active.
We had a great time in Fort Davis and spent longer than we had planned looking around. Over the weekends, they have people who dress up act out daily life on the fort from the soldiers and officers, to the ladies and the maids. I bet this is a lot of fun to watch, especially if you have kids or a big kid like Lee.
We continued on our journey towards the mountains until we reached the next place we wanted to stop off at, the McDonald Observatory.
We hadn't planned to stop here originally but when Lee saw it on the map and then saw the little white domes poking out of the landscape as we were driving near, we had to stop and find out if there was a tour.
Initially, all we wanted to do was a self guided tours around the outside of the domes but when we reached the visitors center, we found out that a Solar Viewing and Guided Tour only cost $8 per person and included an 45 minute lecture on the sun including pictures and videos taken from one of the telescopes (normally this would be live but it was too cloudy the day we visited) and then a 1.5 hour guided tour around the telescopes. We visited two of the telescopes.
The first was the Otto Struve Telescope which was the first telescope to be built at the observatory in 1939 and after a few upgrades is still used today. The tour went up into the building where the telescope was housed and it was explained how it worked, this included a demonstration of the floor, telescope and the dome moving!
The second was one of the newest telescopes, the Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET) which is one of the largest optical telescopes in the world and has a mirror that is made up of 91 hexagonal segments.
The observatory was really interesting and the view from the top was stunning of the landscape below, you can easily see which this was such a good sight for an observatory! I am so glad we went in and asked about tours as the guided tour was excellent. That night they were doing a star party too where you can see the night sky through the telescopes and someone points out the sights to you. I have Lee to do this for me and whilst it would have been good to look through a telescope, our campsite was a 2 hour drive away (a little too far to go there and come back) and it was due to be cloudy!
Our final stop was the Guadalupe Mountains National Park, containing the highest point in Texas and not far from the border with New Mexico. Yet another fire ban meant we had to use the propane again so dinner consisted of pasta with a tomato sauce and lots of cheese.
Some fab photos and the fort and observatory looked well worth the trip, I really liked the observatory and again some amazing scenery and views.
ReplyDeleteNice to see another campsite and looks like you had a great pitch.
Some very good pics of you both and the scenery. The observatory must have been right up Lee’s street. The pasta supper looked yummy and I would have gladly shared with you :-) liked your pitch.
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The Breakfast on the Porch looked lovely and really healthy. Sam I thought the hats suited you especially the Female one you got the facial expression 100% :-)
ReplyDeleteLove to you both xx