We made it to Fort Davis. Texas is a very big state. The drive was a little over seven hours and covered a lot of flat open land. Around Amarillo we started seeing thousands of huge wind generator towers. They stretched from horizon to horizon on both sides of the road. A little later around Midland and Odessa we entered oil country. This must have been the Permian Basin, because there was a lot of fracking going on. The freeway was filled with huge oilfield trucks, but the traffic still wasn't nearly as bad as Dallas. For the first time in a long time I saw speed limit signs that said it was OK to go 80 miles an hour. Most people were going faster.
Eventually we saw the Davis Mountains on the horizon but it took a long time to reach them. As we got off the freeway and made our way toward Fort Davis, the roads became pretty lonely. I realized that this wouldn't be a great place to break down or have a flat tire. The closer we got to the mountains, the prettier the scenery became. At one point we traveled through a canyon that reminded me of Utah. This was where the cell phone service disappeared.
Janet and I have lived in cities for a long time. We both wondered what we'd do in a place like this. Fort Davis is a very small picturesque western town. Less than 2,000 people live here. The place got its name from a fort that used to be a Confederate outpost during the civil war. Apparently we just missed the annual Hummingbird festival which ended yesterday. We still saw lots of Hummingbirds though. They were everywhere.
The long drive wasn't as bad as I expected. We had a very nice car. The rental car place couldn't find the car I reserved and the guy checking me in didn't want to waste a lot of time looking for something similar. He upgraded me to a Cadillac for the same price as a basic Ford Fusion. This was fine by me. I was surprised that I enjoyed driving this car. It handled well, was very quiet, and we averaged 30 miles a gallon. This is a lot better than I normally get in the Land Rover. I was glad I rented a car. We were under an excessive heat advisory for most of our trip. The temperature was over 114 degrees in some places. I would have spent the whole trip worrying that my car would overheat if I drove the Land Rover.
Fort Davis is very small but it happens to have a wonderful restaurant. We were lucky that it happened to be open this evening. Very few Dallas restaurants could top the meal we had tonight. It was a nice way to end a very long day. I even had wine with my meal which is very rare for me. After dinner we watched the hummingbirds for a while and called it a day. The skies are clear tonight. I hope they stay this way tomorrow. The forecast has deteriorated a little bit but I still think that there a good chance everything will work out fine at the observatory. Before I go to bed, I'm going to go outside and take a look at these fabled dark skies I've been hearing so much about.
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