Fort Davis, Alpine, Marfa, and Balmorhea
March 15-21, 2014
We had some luck finding and witnessing extraterrestrial light this week! More on that later, but first we headed north from Big Bend and made Fort Davis our home base for the week. We were nestled into the mountains of Davis Mountains State Park. Our first morning there we were surprised to wake up to snow flurries in the air and an inch of snow on the ground! It made for a beautiful morning and great views. Davis Mountains State Park has a lovely scenic drive to the top of the mountain that enables you to have 360 bird eye views. The fresh snow on the ground created picturesque scenery.
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After enjoying the view, we decided to head 30 minutes down the road to Alpine, Texas. On our way to Alpine we marveled at Mitre Peak this pyramid shaped mountain is quite impressive. Unfortunately, it is entirely owned by one rancher and thus private property. A local myth states that the devil was thrown out of heaven and landed on this mountain. The Devil thought it was too beautiful and reminded him of heaven. So he moved to Big Bend, where the landscape was more rugged and harsh. I can vouch that the area is quite beautiful here!
Alpine is the largest city in the vicinity with a whooping 6000 people when Sul Ross State University, the local university is in session. Unfortunately as it was Sunday most of the shops and restaurants were closed. We were hoping to get a brewery tour and tasting at Big Bend Brewing Company but it too was closed for the day. We have been drinking their beer for the last couple weeks and it is mighty good. Oh well, maybe Sunday is still a day of rest for West Texas.
Next we headed to the small, artsy town of Marfa, Texas. We explored the downtown, however it too was mostly closed. Luckily, the local pizzeria, Pizza Foundation, was open. And it was delicious! Who knew you could get authentic, fold and eat New York style pizza in West Texas.
Our next adventure was exploring the world’s largest spring fed swimming pool at Balmorhea State Park. It covers 1.75 acres and stays at 72-76 degrees all year long. In addition it is 25 feet deep and inhabited by fish! It was chilly when we first jumped in because it was not that warm outside, probably low 70s and windy, however once you entered, you did not want to come out. Dozens of minnows swam around you as catfish hovered near the sides and the bottom. There were also ducks enjoying their afternoon snacks. It was more like swimming in a pond, than a swimming pool, but nonetheless quite fun. They also still have a springboard diving board and a high dive! We enjoyed our afternoon swim!
Now on to our search for extraterrestrial lights. One reason we choose to explore this area Texas is because McDonald Observatory is here. Wade has always had a passion for astronomy and this observatory houses the 5th and 15th largest telescopes in the world. In fact the 5th largest telescope the Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET) is currently being upgraded so it will be the tied for the 2nd largest telescope in the world! Pretty cool! We enjoyed our daytime tour of the facilities and solar viewing. It is really quite impressive to stand next to gigantic telescopes. It is even cooler, that they gave us the inside scoop on the most recent research being done! Just a snip bit: they are going to start studying dark energy and measure data on more than 1 million galaxies! (http://www.hetdex.org/updates/facelift.php). We also enjoyed the live feed of the sun, although it was fairly quiet on our visitation day. After dinner, we returned to the observatory for our first Star Party. They open up the facility and allow you to use about 10 high-powered telescopes! Our night was fairly clear for the first hour, so we got to gaze at Jupiter and 3 of its moons, the Orion nebulae, the seven sisters (Pleiades), and other somewhat ‘close’ stars. We also could see the Milky Way with our bare eyes. Remember this is the observatory with the darkest sky in the United States. I learned that the winter Milky Way is much less impressive than the summer Milky Way. (Pictorial illustration here.) But cool nonetheless. The second half of our evening was spent listening and watching a constellation tour of the night sky. It reminded me of the planetarium that visited my elementary school, but this time we were not looking at an inflated sky but the real thing! We had a great time staring at extraterrestrial light!
Our next adventure with extraterrestrial light involved the famous Marfa Lights. These are lights that appear over an abandoned military airfield near the Chinati Mountains just outside of Marfa, Texas. There have been reports of these lights since the late 1800s (way before motor vehicles) and many speculations as to what they could be; ghosts, aliens, ranches, motor vehicles, gases, etc. So we decided to check it out ourselves. I have to admit we were very skeptical when we arrived however by the end of the night we were convinced they exist! We spent about 1-1.5 hours at the nice viewing station that the town of Marfa has set up. Upon arrival, we saw some radio towers and of course car headlights, but shortly thereafter the mysterious white balls of light started flickering and dancing in the far off horizon. There was no obvious source of this light and we are now believers! We watched the lights come and go for about 45 minutes. Pretty cool! In addition I was just watching the Travel channel the other day and they had a show on them. Check it out here.
Our last adventure in Fort Davis was to explore the namesake of this town the historic Fort Davis. Fort Davis is one of the best surviving examples of an Indian Wars’ frontier military post in the Southwest. Parts of it have been restored to their former glory while some of it lies in ruins. It is a very nice fort and we especially enjoyed walking through the restored enlisted men’s quarters and the officer’s quarters. The differences are drastic and you get a feeling for life in the western frontier by the have’s and the have not’s.
The remaining days here were spent hiking beautiful trails. One such trail has a bird’s eye few of Fort Davis. We pretended to be Native Americans coming over the cliff to raid the Fort but I guess we were unconvincing as none of the tourists down below even noticed us. Fun times!
