April 19, 2006 - Leakey, Texas
Submitted by woodstrehl on Wed, 04/19/2006 - 3:30pm.
Our visit to Ft. Davis was punctuated by attending a "star party" at the McDonald Observatory of the University of Texas. We were hesitant to give this a shot, but everyone we met said we had to do it.
The telescopes are conspicuous and visible from our campground at the state park fifteen miles away. The three classic astronomical domes are silhuetted on the distant ridge. We arrived early as the sun was setting, looked for birds on the grounds, explored the museum and gift shop, and enjoyed coffee before the 9:30 program.
The loudspeaker came to life and invited us to walk out to the amphitheater. Faint lights lined the walk. All of the lights in Ft. Davis County are faint. It is the law! The speaker welcomed us and started the session with a few questions. He then illustrated a brief discussion of the universe with a tour of the heavens much as is done in a planetarium. Only his pointer was a six foot long flashlight and the sky was the surrounding dome.
Of course he started with the big dipper and polaris. He worked his way around the sky to Orion and back to the north. Then he invited us to visit the seven telescopes set up for our inspection. Two were on the moon, one on saturn, and others on various galaxies. The views were magnificent on this clear night, and at each scope was a knowledgeable and friendly operator. At first the lines to the scopes were several minutes long, but as the evening grew late and chilly, the crowd thinned. We never went in to warm up and look at the video that was also part of the show. We were among the last to leave.
As we were about to go, we noticed that one of the smaller scopes was pointed in a different direction, low to the horizon. The young woman there told us that Jupiter had risen and she had set the scope for a view. We took it.
Whereas at Big Bend we were struck by the sense of time, seeing sediments of Cretaceous origin broken into range and basin and intruded by much younger igneous rock, the whole lot now much eroded away, at Ft. Davis the focus on the sky gave us a sense of space. The universe is huge and we range only on this small planet. The two of us give thanks for our lives and the consciousness to glimpse the miracle of creation.
We are now in the Texas Hill Country. The land here is a plateau also of Cretaceous rock that has been elevated without significant alteration. The flat strata have however been eroded for about 60 million years or so and so consist of canyons between narrow flatlands that remain at the top.
This is a land of trees and streams with water, in contrast to where we have been for the last several weeks. A welcome contrast. More on this later.
Our visit to Ft. Davis was punctuated by attending a "star party" at the McDonald Observatory of the University of Texas. We were hesitant to give this a shot, but everyone we met said we had to do it.
The telescopes are conspicuous and visible from our campground at the state park fifteen miles away. The three classic astronomical domes are silhuetted on the distant ridge. We arrived early as the sun was setting, looked for birds on the grounds, explored the museum and gift shop, and enjoyed coffee before the 9:30 program.
The loudspeaker came to life and invited us to walk out to the amphitheater. Faint lights lined the walk. All of the lights in Ft. Davis County are faint. It is the law! The speaker welcomed us and started the session with a few questions. He then illustrated a brief discussion of the universe with a tour of the heavens much as is done in a planetarium. Only his pointer was a six foot long flashlight and the sky was the surrounding dome.
Of course he started with the big dipper and polaris. He worked his way around the sky to Orion and back to the north. Then he invited us to visit the seven telescopes set up for our inspection. Two were on the moon, one on saturn, and others on various galaxies. The views were magnificent on this clear night, and at each scope was a knowledgeable and friendly operator. At first the lines to the scopes were several minutes long, but as the evening grew late and chilly, the crowd thinned. We never went in to warm up and look at the video that was also part of the show. We were among the last to leave.
As we were about to go, we noticed that one of the smaller scopes was pointed in a different direction, low to the horizon. The young woman there told us that Jupiter had risen and she had set the scope for a view. We took it.
Whereas at Big Bend we were struck by the sense of time, seeing sediments of Cretaceous origin broken into range and basin and intruded by much younger igneous rock, the whole lot now much eroded away, at Ft. Davis the focus on the sky gave us a sense of space. The universe is huge and we range only on this small planet. The two of us give thanks for our lives and the consciousness to glimpse the miracle of creation.
We are now in the Texas Hill Country. The land here is a plateau also of Cretaceous rock that has been elevated without significant alteration. The flat strata have however been eroded for about 60 million years or so and so consist of canyons between narrow flatlands that remain at the top.
This is a land of trees and streams with water, in contrast to where we have been for the last several weeks. A welcome contrast. More on this later.
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Hill country--LBJ country?
The Texas Hill country that you are now in--is that where LBJ began? there were memorable descriptions of life in this area in the first third of the 20th century in Robert Caro's "The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power"--which was volume 1 of the 3 volume, so-far, biography of Johnson. Caro said when the first European descended settlers arrived they encountered tall lush grass and thought this would be excellent cattle-raising country. Little did they know that the grass had taken decades to grow and when the first few years were up the grass was insufficient; however, the jaws of the trap had now sprung and the people hung on despite the evidence of nature. The foolhardiness of LBJ's parents which resulted in great poverty for his family was humiliating to LBJ, so he became obsessed with becoming successful and never being played for a foll again. Caro always takes a lot of time describing the land and the forebears of his subjects because he beleives that it is necessary to know this to truly understand the choices they make as they become powerful. You must be encountering bluebonnets now.
Yep
That was overgrazed land. There has been some recovery on protected land. Ranches hang on elsewhere.
We were largely south of the blue bonnets but saw a few. They are now finished as are the azaleas, redbud and dogwood. We will move back into spring when we reach the Appalachians in a few days.
Chuck & Anne