Friday, January 13, 2017
Today, we got up and I had some work to do. Tony went to the office and paid for our stay, and looked around at the park and the Rally Hall again. We were a little concerned it would not be big enough, but we think we can make it work.
Mid morning I was done with work, so we headed over to the Alpine Chamber of Commerce and visited with them a bit about getting info packets of info for our Rally.
Then, we headed to Magoo's Place to eat lunch. Tony had read it was a good place, and they are only open for breakfast and lunch. They were pretty busy! We got the only open table in this small 20x30 place. I asked what was good to eat, and the waitress said "all of it!" But she recommended the Green Chicken enchiladas, so that is what I had. Tony had a burger. The meal came pretty fast, and it was great! Tony said the burger was as good as Shannon's in Cisco, and the fries were like Mary's in Strawn. My enchiladas were as good as any I've had!
After lunch, we drove over to the Museum of the Big Bend, at Sul Ross University. We hope to include this in our rally activities, so we were inquiring about the possibilities while we were there.
A general store display had all sorts of items! (Above and below)
Unique stove
unique architecture of the building
After that, we headed back to the park. We stopped in to the office to see about talking about the rally, but they were not around at the moment, so hopefully we will catch up with them later.
above and below, views of our site
We did some relaxing, and I think we both dozed off for a bit. Around 5pm, we had to get something to eat and start our trek up into the Davis mountains, because we had reservations for the McDonald's Observatory Star Party tonight!
Tony went and got us some McDonald's (how fitting, right?), mainly because it would be quick. We ate dinner, then headed to the McDonald Observatory, which is about a 30-40 minute drive. Unfortunately, clouds had rolled in during the afternoon, so our party was kind-of dampened. We were given the option for a refund, or to postpone to another day, or to go ahead and stay, which would let us attend a couple of presentations, and also see the telescopes, though we would not see anything through them.
We opted to stay. The first presentation gave us an idea of what we would have seen had there not been clouds. They showed us the star systems and galaxies, as we could have seen them through the telescope. Obviously not the same as seeing them in real life, but nice to get an idea of it.
The second presentation talked about the possibility of other inhabitable planets in the known universe. It was interesting, but not as amazing since most of the imagery was simulated. Plus, most of the discussion was based on speculation, because of course it would take many many light years to get to any of the possible planets out there.
I had taken some Dramamine (for motion sickness) because I was not sure of the winding drive up there and what all we would be doing once at the Observatory. I can get motion-sick in a planetarium environment, so I didn't want to take any chances. However, this makes me really sleepy, and I was "drifty" during the presentations, so sorry if there are no good "facts" in the blog! ;)
After the presentations, we walked outside to view the telescopes. I got a little lost in the dark! It is VERY DARK UP THERE, and the Observatory uses red lights outside the building, making it very hard to see because they do not illuminate things very well, or let your eyes adjust to the darkness. Tony had to help guide me a bit. But once the event was over, folk's car headlights lit up the parking lot and I was able to see better again.
We drove down the mountain and back to Alpine, and had no troubles. We drove with our brights on most of the way, though! We got back and hit the hay. It was a long and fun day, and we accomplished a lot.
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