Day 3536

Traveling is always more enjoyable than what comes afterwards. Today we unpacked, did a lot of laundry, and resumed our regular routines. I went to the post office and got mail service restored. There wasn't as much accumulated mail as I expected. What was missing was the junk that the mail carrier just stuffs in every mailbox along with the real mail. I wish you didn't need to go on a trip to avoid this clutter.

It was noticeably cooler today. It felt like we got the benefit of a little cold front that proceeded this afternoon's rain. My morning walk was hot and humid as I expected, but when I walked again after the rain clouds passed through town, it felt like Fall. The temperature was still almost 80 degrees, but when you're used to to 102, 80 degrees feels wonderful. The only downside to the cooling rain was that the pumps on the roof weren't working, so I'm going to have to go up on the roof tomorrow and sweep the standing water away.

I'm going to have to rethink my Sky & Telescope article. This is an astronomy magazine and since I didn't actually look through any telescopes while I was at McDonald Observatory, they might not be as interested in what I have to say. You never know though. Weather is always part of any story about astronomy. Even though it rained, I'm still going to write an article and submit it to the magazine. The trip was still quite interesting to me. Maybe it will be interesting to others as well.

One interesting bit of trivia I learned during our trip was that Hotel Limpia where we stayed in Fort Davis was also home base for the first astronomers while the observatory was being built during the early 1930's. The historic hotel has been refurbished but is essentially unchanged. We might have stayed in the same room as Otto Struve or other early luminaries in the world of astronomy.

There was another opportunity to attend a NASA event in my inbox this morning. This wasn't a launch. It was a chance to go behind the scenes with NASA at this year's International Astronautical Congress in Washington DC and meet with scientists, experts and astronauts. Sounds interesting, but I can't afford to spend five days attending a high end Washington DC convention. These are the type of things you usually do on an expense account. Retirement is kind of weird. You have all the time in the world, but business travel is a thing of the past. Everything you do is on your own dime. These days I've got to finish paying for one trip before I can start thinking about another.

I'm definitely going to be thinking about other trips. Travel is a lot more interesting than walking around the lake and counting ducks. Don't get me wrong. I like the local ducks, but there are other birds in the sky. I'll leave you with a picture of one of the Fort Davis hummingbirds. Tomorrow it's back to pictures of half dead Texas flowers.

Tessa is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3532

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.

Cammy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day