Wheels, Wires, and (not so) Wild Horses

 Welcome to way, way, way down south West Texas!

We made it safely down to Big Bend RV Resort and Adventures in Terlingua after an incredible Thanksgiving weekend stay at Davis Mountains State Park.  We arrived after dark, checked in at the motel front dest, got our site assignment, checked out the site, when back to the front desk to ask for a different site, and then settled in.  When you have a 38' fifth wheel with 3 slides, and a big RAM 3500 truck, you need a the right sized space!

Monday afternoon we had an ATV tour booked with Far Flung Adventures - and talk about easy, it was only 5 minutes from our campsite (and once we were on the ATVs, we actually drove right past our camper to head out east to the mountains).  

Terry, our guide, did an exceptional job at making sure we were safe, had fun, and got to see some really amazing sites!  To keep this post from getting too long, I've got a separate post just for our WHEELS adventure here!

After 3 hours exploring the desert and the mountains on our ATVs, RDB and I took a drive thru town over to the Long Draw Pizza place.  Dine in or carry out, this place was bustling the whole time we were there.  We always manage to find the best pizza places on the way-far-out adventures we have, and Long Draw was no different!

As we turned our truck back towards home, we couldn't help but pull over just a mile or so from Long Draw to stop and take pictures of the sunset.  Ya'll, the vistas here will take your breath away!

Tuesday morning we set an alarm so that we'd have time to get around and make the 25 minute drive over to Lajitas Golf Resort for our Zip-line tour thru Quiet Canyon.  We arrived with plenty of time to get checked in and ask our guide, Lloyd, tons of questions about life in the Big Bend region.  

Come to find out, it was only RDB and me on the tour that morning, so when Lloyd's mom, Christine, arrived (its a family run business!) we ended up with our own private tour out on the WIRES!  You can read all about that over here. 

Tuesday evening we took Terry's suggestion and drove back down the county road to where it ends at the western border of the National Park to watch the sunset over the mountain ranges. 

Now, that map might say 45 minutes, but I think we got there a little faster (and perhaps bumpier!) than that.  Regardless, it was the perfect spot to break out the camping chairs, pop open a bottle of pink champagne and enjoy this incredible moment with each other. 

"To the adventure that is life, and being ok no matter what happens."

Wednesday (is it really Wednesday? Are we sure? Has someone checked a calendar?  I swear, time feels like it's slowed wa-a-a-y down out here!) we took the morning to go hiking a few of the trails in the exterior sections of Big Bend Ranch State Park.  The interior of the park is closed for a drawn hunt this week.  (With only 4% of Texas being public land, it's a great thing that we have state parks where people can take advantage of drawn hunts and not have to pay large hunting lease fees.)

Can I just say WOW  - the hiking out here is truly out of this world!!  

In BBRSP, we hiked Hoodoos....

...and our first slot canyon, Closed Canyon.

As the late afternoon turned to evening, we drove back west again, over to the Lajitas Equestrian Center for a sunset trail ride on a few not-so WILD HORSES.  And guess what? Once again, we were the only people on the excursion, so we had the entire adventure to ourselves! (I'm so glad they didn't cancel on us just because we were the only ones who booked the events.)  You can jump in the saddle with us and ride off into the sunset here. 

And yes, I was just a _little_ giddy to be on horseback again, especially after the last time RDB went on a trail ride with me.

The fun didn't stop just because the sun had gone down. The Big Bend region is an International Dark Sky Reserve, which means that the stargazing out here can be second to none. RDB and I enjoyed our Star Party earlier in the trip several miles north, and decided to go out again later in the evening to see the sky again, this time in the National Park. 

You can see in the above photo, very clearly, the Orion constellation, as well as the Winter Triangle.

Next time, we'll remember to bring the iPhone attachment of the tripod.

Because there will definitely be a next time!  And we'll keep our eyes on the moon phases when we plan that trip so we can have the benefit of totally dark skies.

Thursday afternoon we moseyed over to do a little shopping at the Galeria Chisos, before heading into Big Bend National Park for a drive and evening hike.  We had passed the shop earlier in the week (and I had to pull over to take a picture of the stained glass mountains out front).

We had the chance to chat with Kathy, the proprietor, and learned a bit more about living in this beautiful region.  We have her number and next time we come back, we'd love to take her to dinner and just spend the whole time talking about her experience relocating and living down here.  Not that we're making any plans or anything, but if the Stars Aligned....

If you're looking for unique art, beautiful hand crafted jewelry, or random odds and ends as a souvenir of your trip to the desert, this is your place! (I found a pair of butterfly earrings made from recycled aluminum cans - fun!)

We turned right out of the parking lot and traveled just a few miles to the western entrance of the National Park, paid our entrance fee ($30 for 7 days) and drove on in.  "Splendid Isolation" is exactly what it felt like as we drove the Ross Maxwell scenic drive into the interior; it was utterly beautiful every direction you looked!

If you have only a few hours in the region, I would highly recommend spending them driving this route. The terrain changes so many different times, that it's no wonder the national park is considered geologist's playground. 

There were several hikes along the scenic drive that I would have loved for us to take, but with limited time - and the sun dipping behind the plateau -  I drove us all the way back to the Santa Elena Canyon Trail.  I _thought_ this one was marked as 'easy' but once we got started, and had to hunt for a way to get across the creek _without_ crossing the creek, I realized perhaps it was a bit more than we thought we were in for.

Mexico on the left, the US on the right; the Rio Grande in the middle.

See the tiny little brown sign with the hiker on it? Yep, you're supposed to wade thru the creek to that point to start the hike up the canyon.

Yeah, nope. Not. Happening.

See that really steep well-loved path?  Yeah, that was the 'alternative' entrance.  I walked past it at first, thinking: there is no way I'm going to try to mount that, but came back around in a moment with a "what the hell, why not?" attitude, and up, up, up we went!

And I'm so glad we did - the views from the top of the trail (the _real_ trail, once we got back to it) were outstanding.

I couldn't help but giggle at the conversation RDB and I had as we made it back down the last few yards of slanted, slippery slope:

"It's all downhill from here."
"Don't say it unless you mean it."
"I think it's probably all downhill from here."

And? He was right.  Because Thursday nights lead to Friday mornings, and we were scheduled to pack up and start heading back towards Houston. 

We were at Big Bend RV Resort and Adventures, site #41 (full hook-ups). The RV resort was practically barren the week after Thanksgiving; in fact, pretty much the entire town was.  Seems that we were here perfectly between the holiday crowds, and, from what we understand, there's barely room to turn around at the annual Chili Cook-off weekend the first Saturday of each November.  Not sure that we'd come for that, but we sure are looking forward to coming back again.  And soon.

Star Party at the McDonald Observatory

Along the same windy Texas road as Davis Mountain State Park resides the McDonald Observatory, a research facility of the University of Texas in Austin. Knowing that our Thanksgiving camping trip was taking place during a new moon, and that the Big Bend Region is an International Dark Sky reserve, we made it a point to plan a visit.  In fact, we bought tickets for the Star Party on Friday night - which, unfortunately was cancelled because of the first snow of the season that evening. 

I checked online to see if there were any tickets left for Saturday night, but it was showing sold out.  RDB and I went over to the Observatory Saturday afternoon anyway, as general admission was under $10 for the both of us, and we could at least check out the exhibits.

The visitor center has a relatively small museum (appropriate for the relatively small ($3/person) entry fee) and a few interesting learning points. (Case in point: the museum space was made in partnership with a well-known oil company out of Houston.... same company that I partnered with for several years who planted a tree in my honor!) Being self-guided, you had the ability to travel to the domes there on campus and check out the telescopes - except that the snow/slush/ice still hanging around kept us from visiting the two larger domes.  They definitely got more snow up here on the mountain tops than we did in the campground.

We drove up to the Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET) dome and the George T. Abell Gallery - built into the side of the telescope dome so that visitors could see the telescope without being cramped inside the dome housing (and behind a glass wall so we wouldn't accidentally mess with anything either!)

The magnitude of the HET and its innovative 10-meter, 91-segment primary mirror makes it one of the largest optical telescopes in the world.  The current research being done under the HET Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX) will search a large region of the sky 10 billion light years beyond the visible stars in the Ursa Major constellation. 

It is such an incredible thing that there are so many individuals devoted to the sciences beyond just what we see here in the natural world.  That was obvious to us from the staff and volunteers who were in attendance at the Star Party that evening (we were in luck - I asked at the front desk if there were any options for attending since ours had been canceled the night before, and yes! they had several cancelations, so there was space for us.)

So after a quick trip back down the mountain to the camper for dinner, we came back after dark for what will be one of our most memorable nights of this trip!

Behind the visitor's center is a rock-hewn amphitheater where the program starts. Kevin was our host for the evening and he just radiated love for the galaxy and knowledge about the stars.  He spent the better part of an hour walking us thru techniques for getting the best view in a telescope (averted gaze), how to protect our night-eyes ("You traveled hundreds, maybe even thousands of miles to be here tonight, so Be. Here.  Please, turn off your cell phone."), where to see shooting stars, ("Always in the direction that I'm not looking!"), even how to leave the parking lot with our headlights facing away from the Observatory to protect the night vision of those still looking thru the telescopes ("If you see a bunch of angry people in the headlights front of you, you did it wrong.")

Hard to get really clear long-exposure shots without a tripod.

As he transitioned into the constellation "tour" part of his talk, I looked up and could clearly see the Milky Way above us.  As it has before, it brought tears to my eyes to be reminded that there is so much more out there than the everyday hustle-and-bustle that is our daily grind. Kevin continued our education of the stars, explaining why and how the various constellations came to be, guiding us with his bright green laser pointer to various places in the dark sky, pointing out satellites as they flew by, including the only satellite orbiting the Earth with people on board - we saw the International Space Station  ("Everybody wave!") 

Kevin finished out the educational part of the Star Party by reminding us of the importance of minimizing light pollution. I've commented on the impact of it on the blog before, too, on another trip to an International Dark Sky Park.  Pointing to the northern horizon, Kevin talked with us about how the glow of light pollution from the Permian Basin region, and all the oil and gas exploration/drilling that's been increasing over the years, has become a problem.  Thankfully many companies have been willing to work with consultants from the Observatory and light pollution in the region peaked back in 2016.  Though its no laughing matter, it was kinda funny when the crowd went "ohhhh!" as a star shot across the sky in the direction we were all looking, "Yes, yes, a shooting star, but come on! Priorities, people!!," lamented Kevin as he gave us a final warning of the cost of inaction.  

With the conclusion of Kevin's talk, we were released over to the telescope section of the park - not the BIG telescopes we had toured early, but several smaller 'amateur' astrologists who had volunteered to come out and line up sights for us, AND the two smaller domes there by the visitor's center.  Some of the expected targets for the evening included Jupiter and Saturn, several star clusters, and The Pleiades (aka: The Seven Sisters, aka: Subaru) which you can see as the light blue cluster towards the top of the photo below:

I obviously didn't get many pictures (trust me, you did not want to turn on your iPhone in this crowd - people were getting serious about keeping their night vision!) but towards the end of the event RDB and I snuck off to the edges of the area and got a few night shots.  Just an FYI - the difference between a 10 second shutter time and a 30 second shutter time at night is huge:

10 second shutter

30 second shutter

We've been to Star Parties at the George Observatory at Brazos Bend before, so we knew what to expect, but the educational component, and Kevin's knowledge and passion in the tour of the night sky, really set this experience apart.  Would it be too much if I said: this was a FIVE STAR event?  Because it 100% was, pun totally intended!  

One last note: if you're a space geek like me, you might be interested in the longest running national radio science segment - StarDate - that is produced here at the Observatory; I've heard them on NPR so many times I can't count, and hadn't put two-and-two together till this weekend.  RDB and I picked up one of the StarDate magazines in the gift shop, and it's a quick read, has neat information, and would be a great gift to any budding astronomers in your life.

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(Hope y'all enjoyed this "sneak peak" of our #gobbleinthemountains Thanksgiving '22 camping trip. More to come as the adventures continue!)