Texas - Day 11 - McDonald's Observatory, Fort Davis, Marfa, Van Horn

Mountain View RV Park, Van Horn
Friday, 13 November 2020

today's route

My first goal today was the McDonald's Observatory (part of UT-Austin), a place I've long been wanting to visit.  I left Alpine at 7:30 because, even though Google said this part of the drive would take less than an hour, it looked like I'd be driving through mountains and I wanted to be sure to get there on time. 

I don't know what the McDonald's Observatory does with visitors during non-pandemic times, but what they do now is allow visitors for 90 minutes, at specified times twice a day, 4 days a week for general admission.  They also offer small-group guided tours, as well as nighttime visits.  The only nearby campground was the Davis Mountains State Park, which is very small and was very full when I planned to be there, so that made a night visit impossible.  I opted for a morning slot (10:00-11:30) to have enough time to drive on to Van Horn afterwards.

On the road
The countryside I traveled through was quite varied.

mountains, as expected

a lot of flat land, as not expected

At Fort Davis, I passed the Chihuahuan Nature Center & Botanical Garden.  I didn't stop, but they say they display the range of plants native to this area, which would be interesting if I'd be in the area longer.

From Ft. Davis, the road begins a steady climb, past the state park, and on up to the observatory.

observatory buildings on top of mountains

You can just see the road in my photo.  It leads to the Visitor Center, which isn't very far below those buildings on the other side of the mountain.  I learned the road continues to the summit, though I didn't go up there, and that, at 6,791', it's the highest public road in Texas.

These are those same buildings, taken from the Visitor Center.

The larger of those at the mountain top is the Harlan J. Smith Telescope, 107", put into service in 1969.  It helped the Apollo space program and NASA's robotic missions to the planets.

The smaller is the Struve Telescope, 82", and when it was put into service in 1939 was the world's 2nd largest telescope.

Both these telescopes are still being used.

The nearer building (above) houses one of the 6 smaller telescopes near the Visitors Center and I think they're the ones used by visitors.  One of them is constructed to allow use by people in wheelchairs.

Also near the Visitors Center is a radio telescope (at right).  It's part of the Geodetic Observatory and helps scientists understand things like the shape, rotation and gravitational field of the earth.  This results in improved navigational systems and better prediction of earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic activity.

In front of the Visitors Center is a very handsome sundial, and I was pleased with myself for realizing that's what it was right away, even though from a distance it was just a rock.

In November, they say deduct 17 minutes.
Because we weren't on Daylight Savings
Time, the sundial was absolutely correct.

Many of the exhibits in the Visitors Center were intended to be interactive and, in these stupid virus days, they were off-limits.  But they were kept in semi-darkness to enhance viewing, which meant taking photos was challenging.  I had a hard time holding the camera still for long enough to get the exposure right for those low light levels, but these are the photos that seemed decipherable.

I'm rearranging the order of their exhibits to make more logical sense to me, a non-scientist.

Science for the Non-scientist:

Secrets of Starlight

Almost everything we know about the universe comes from starlight.

Light Is More than Meets the Eye

There are more kinds of light in our world than the light we normally see.

Different views of Galaxy M51 (and with names like this, no wonder people think scientists lack poetry in their souls):

This too is Galaxy M51.

Some scientists:

Joseph Fraunhofer
1787 - 1826

Annie Jump Cannon
1863 - 1941

Cecelia Payne-Gaposchkin
1900 - 1971

Gérard de Vaucouleurs

Antoinette de Vaucouleurs
1921 - 1987

Establishing an Observatory:

The Telescopes:

The Struve Telescope:

discovery using the Struve Telescope

detail from photo above

referring to photo at left

This photo's not completely clear,
but I think these are all white men - a sign of the times.

The Harlan J. Smith Telescope:

photo of the mirror
planted on the moon
in 1969 (see info at left)

The Hobby-Eberly Telescope:

And in the et cetera category, they had these:

meteorite (see below right)

see above left

the 1881 microscope

I was surprised that this poster was the only thing in the Visitors Center that mentioned the importance of dark skies.  I've heard this phrase in many other places but, surprisingly, not here.  

This link gives a summary of the importance of preserving dark skies.   https://www.thesca.org/why-dark-skies-need-be-preserved  

And this one is a list of the recognized Dark Sky Parks in the US.  And if Dripping Springs, TX, can get on this list, it should be doable by many more communities.   https://www.worldatlas.com/dark-sky-parks

Back on the road

It's odd what a different view you can get of a scene depending on the direction you're traveling (a metaphor for life).  So going back down the mountain, I saw scenery I didn't notice on the way up.

fall colors in the mountains

Fort Davis

Going through town again I saw 2 deer in the yard of a house and assumed they were statues, because I see so much of that.  Then one of them moved.  I'd been so sure.  Odd experience.

Fort Davis is a small town but heir to a lot of history.  The history, the nearness to the observatory, and the relative nearness to Big Bend National Park (several hours away, but it's all relative Out Here in the West) combine to make Ft. Davis an unexpected tourist place.  I passed the Hotel Limpia, the Butterfield Inn and the Prude Guest Ranch, among others.  

That Hotel Limpia, by the way - the word limpia means clean in Spanish and not far from town are the headwaters of Limpia Creek.  I'm sure that's where the hotel's name came from, but it struck me as funny that a hotel would be named Hotel Clean - I mean, one would certainly hope . . . .

Also in town is the Overland Trail Museum, and the Overland Trail, I learned, was the road from San Antonio to El Paso and a remnant of it still exists near the museum.  And of course there's the Fort Davis National Historic Site, which was in operation from 1854 to 1891 primarily to protect the travelers on the Overland Trail and the Chihuahua Trail, and is "one of the best surviving examples of an Indian Wars' frontier military post in the southwest," per Wikipedia.

Back on the road

I noticed many of the houses in this area are what I think of as the style of Mexico/New Mexico in appearance, and probably in construction.

I passed a farm of Registered Quarter Horses, and saw a fair number of horses here and there along the road.

Because I was curious about the name of the Davis Mountains, I looked it up and learned they were named for Fort Davis, which in turn was named for the then-Secretary of War Jefferson Davis, who of course later went on to be a traitor to his country by serving as the only president of the Confederacy.  I know it's impossible after so many years (170+) to rename all these things, but think of it - we don't have an awful lot of places in the US named for Aaron Burr (and he was acquitted at trial).

I nearly hit another tumbleweed and started wondering what kind of plant it is.  There were lots of them by the side of the road, having already tumbled.  The internet says it could actually be any of several plants, all of which have the characteristic of detaching from their root systems when they become mature and dry.  So it's not just one kind of plant.  Who knew?

Marfa

Marfa has been making the news for a while now for various reasons, so I was curious to see it.  And once again my preconceptions were completely and entirely wrong.  I'd pictured a few houses and buildings huddled together at a crossroads.  Take a look.

You can see from the photo (internet, of course) that this is no tiny crossroads place.  It's an actual town.

The large building on the left (above) is the Hotel Paisano.  Opened in 1930, it's on the US Register of National Historic Places and was the headquarters for the cast and crew of Giant when it was filmed here in 1955.  It has a quirky history, as befits a town with a quirky reputation.   https://hotelpaisano.com/history  Now that I've seen the location, maybe I finally need to watch the movie, though I understand it's 3½ hours long, which is a genuine commitment.

Presidio County
Courthouse

The courthouse (this is my photo) is a good illustration of the fact that this is a real town.  It's big and it's old and it's really pretty.

I suppose it was to be expected, but the only political signs I saw around here were Biden/Harris signs.

The one thing I was right about is that Marfa is on a crossroads - I turned from TX 17 onto US 90, heading northwest to Van Horn.  Just out of town I saw a large display for Giant that was so surprising, I couldn't really comprehend it while I was passing.  Short of turning around and going back for another look, I decided to say it's one of those things you should see for yourself.

Back on the road

I passed a billboard that said "Eat Like a Texan - Dairy Queen."  Seemed an odd thing to say, out here in the smack middle of west Texas but sounding like it's back near a border, except it is near a border.  If you head south from Marfa, TX 17 changes its name to US 67 and runs 60 miles to Presidio, which is a border town with Mexico.  So yeah, 60 miles is near a border by west Texas standards.

Marfa Public Radio played The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and I was surprised to realize I knew from the 2nd note what it was going to be.  I did see this movie and have long admired it.

Farther along the road I saw a lone bicyclist heading south, out in the middle of absolutely nothing.  I suppose he was headed to Marfa for the evening, because we were already well into the afternoon by this time.

It was about in here that I started seeing something odd in the sky.  I took that photo when I was much much closer than when I got my first glimpse.  Eventually I passed a building with a sign saying Tethered Aerostat Radar System.  I now know that an aerostat is a moored balloon used as a radar platform or, more precisely, a "large fabric envelope filled with helium that can rise to an altitude of 15,000' while tethered by a single cable."  Since the mid-80s, they've been used to fight illegal drug trafficking.  So I guess I was getting tracked.  Something about that feels creepy to me.

All along this road there's lots of flat land surrounded by mountains.

I heard on the radio that the combined deaths in the Vietnam and Korean Wars are less than we've already had from COVID-19.  Why, oh why, is it so hard for people (like, say, all of South Dakota) to understand that it's real.  I heard somebody say on the radio that you can't stop a fire that's spreading from town to town when some towns don't fight it.

I passed a sign saying the litter patrol in that area was being done by the Friends of the People's Republic of Valentine, which sounded like fun.  But then I came to a sign marking the city limits of Valentine, pop. 217.  So I've looked it up and there are several odd things about this.  First is that it's been a while since the population was that big: it was 187 in 2000 and 134 in 2010.  Second is that it's the only incorporated town in Jeff Davis County but is not the county seat.  That honor went to the town of Ft. Davis, which is not incorporated.  Third is that it has 2 odd claims to fame: each year hundreds of people send their valentines to be postmarked here for mailing, and it's the location of the well-known (in Texas) Prada store that's not a store.

This is an internet photo, but it's also what I saw.  And when I went by it was complete with a tourist couple who had stopped to take a look.  I was tempted to stop and ask what they thought, but in these strange virus days . . . .

Valentine has more to it than meets the eye (which frankly isn't much at all), and you might want to take a look at this more complete description, including information about the Prada store.  https://fortdavis.com/valentine

I passed - and later was passed by - a Border Patrol car.

I passed a sign saying Watch for Blowing Dust.

I passed a large orchard, though there weren't any signs saying what kind of.  I passed cotton and soybeans (I think).

I heard on the radio that in every state - red states and blue states - every ballot proposition to do with loosening restrictions on drugs passed.  Our country is changing right before our eyes.

And I got to Van Horn, a comparatively large town at 2,500.  I stopped at the grocery store - Porter's Grocery is the chain I found in every town from Alpine up to here.  It's part of the IGA chain and here, though small, got me most of what I wanted, which is all I ask of a grocery store.  And then on to the campground, where I have a reservation for the next 3 nights.

Today was Friday the 13th, and all day I was a little concerned about possible trouble, since I spend so much time on the roads.  But I managed to make it through being nothing but tired at the end of a long day so, very lucky.

Texas - Day 10 - in the Alpine campground

KC's Quick Mart & RV Park, Alpine
Thursday, 12 November 2020

This campground really is as quirky as the name sounds.  It's a gas station with a convenience store, and the owner has used the land behind it for a small RV park.  It's actually down a little hill from the store/station, so I noticed the exhaust fumes can filter down and get caught in the little valley when semis park out front and leave their engines running overnight (which happened). 

It's one of those places you've seen but may not have really noticed that's really an RV park but acts and looks a little like a trailer park.  I've been noticing them tucked in in very unlikely places.  There aren't any mobile homes, only RVs here, but some of them seem semi-permanent with fences built to keep their dogs in.  But the space I stayed in had recently been vacated by one of those long-termers, so they do come and go.  I'm guessing most of these folks work somewhere in this area, and at only $20/night for full hookups, I can see why they'd stay here, despite the total lack of ambiance.

It's just a short walk away from the Sul Ross campus, with a sidewalk along the busy roadway, so the dogs and I walked down there a few times. 

It's also right next to a dirt road with a cattle guard that has its own street sign saying it's Church Road.  A sheet of plywood had been laid over one end of the cattle guard, obviously to let pedestrians walk over it, so the dogs and I did one day.  And the road does lead to a church up at the top of a steep hill.  Surprisingly, it continues past the church to a house that, from the distance I saw it, looked very fancy.  That can't possibly be the only access to that house - I mean, who would build such an expensive house and be able to reach it only by a one-lane unpaved road?  What about access for a fire truck?  Or ambulance?

Anyway, the real surprise for me was that inside a field we walked past were 5 Mule Deer.  At least I think that's the kind of deer they were.  They had ears so large a rabbit would have envied them.  They were all resting in the shade of a grove of trees, and I tried hard to keep from disturbing them.  I made noise as we approached so they'd know we were there, I tried to distract the dogs and focus them on the other side of the road, and it all worked, I guess, because the deer stayed where they were.  I wondered if the cattle guard had been meant for them because I didn't see any signs of actual cattle.  But I could see it was good deer habitat.

I'd heard the day before from an employee at that gas station that was getting disinfected that Sul Ross has some dinosaur bones.  This employee said for many years he'd been a surveyor or geologist or something working out at Big Bend.  He said wind erosion continued to uncover fossils out there and their biggest find was a pterosaur bone.

I picked up a flyer for the Museum of the Big Bend, part of Sul Ross, and it talked about this discovery, confirming what the gas station employee had told me.  What they found was a wing bone that allowed them to estimate the wingspan of this critter at 36' - 39'.  The flyer said that makes it the largest known flying creature of all time.  Which is pretty amazing when you think about it.

The flyer said they believe this creature walked on "all fours" - and their drawing looks like they're counting 2 legs and 2 wings as being 4 supports.  And if its wings were as big as they say, this dinosaur would have been huge.  I'm used to thinking of large birds as having wingspans of 36", so I'm having some trouble comprehending 36'.

And all this right here in Texas's Big Bend country.

If I'd planned to stay longer and if we hadn't been in the midst of a pandemic, I'd have visited the museum.  Well, there's always the next time.

Texas - Day 9 - to Fort Stockton, Marathon and Alpine

KC's Quick Mart & RV Park, Alpine
Wednesday, 11 November 2020

I heard yesterday that the Vatican had issued a report including more details about the sexual abuse committed by former cardinal McCarrick.  I immediately thought of the movie Spotlight which details one of the most prominent efforts by the media - in this case, the Boston Globe - to bring to light not only the sexual abuses committed by priests but also the cover-up by church authorities.  That was nearly 20 years ago and many in the Catholic church are still trying to minimize or deny the problem.  I know Pope Francis has an uphill job trying to clean up this mess, but good for him for trying.  So in the spirit of this new information, last night I watched Spotlight, which is one of my favorite movies.  An illustration of the evil that can be perpetrated when good people stay silent.

I think the birds I saw yesterday at the watering hole on the park's nature trail were Pine Siskins.  I remember them from Alaska and this area is barely within their winter range, although the bird book says that range is pretty sporadic.  I didn't see them very well, because they were hiding in the nearby trees when the dogs and I were there.  But I saw them later flying away and with the flash of yellow I saw, and the otherwise streaks on their bodies and their size - well, this is my best guess.

Pine Siskin

Today is Veterans Day, and I join all those who honor their service and sacrifice on our behalf.

today's route

On the road
From the state park, we drove through Monahans and past a sign saying, "Downtown Monahans - Oasis of the West Texas Desert."  Monahans seems to have as many RV parks as it does residents (pop. 7,638).  The only reason I can figure is that they're for transient workers on oil drilling equipment.

Driving south on TX 18, I saw lots of flat land - all scrub land - a couple of horses, and another collection of working oil wells - maybe 20 or 25 of them.

I passed through the town of Royalty, which seemed almost to not be there, and then Grandfalls (pop. 360) which shares a school with Royalty.  Grandfalls (it really is all one word) bills itself as "Small Town, Big Heart."

I crossed the Pecos River.

On today's drive I saw very few birds, and the lack became unnerving after a while.  Throughout all the area I covered today I saw 3 hawks, 2 Loggerhead Shrikes and 2 Ravens, which apparently were Chihuahuan Ravens.  And that was it.

Loggerhead Shrike

Chihuahuan Raven

I don't know how I knew those shrikes were shrikes.  They just looked like them.  They remind me of Mockingbirds, though they've got less white on their tails, and their tails are shorter, and Mockingbirds don't have that black mask.  And the raven just looks like a raven, and also like a crow which doesn't help.  The Chihuahuan Raven is smaller than a regular raven and larger than a crow, but the real point is that it belongs in this area.  Which is where my guess came from.

Anyway, it was really odd to see so few birds of any kind.

For much of the way south, I was accompanied by a line of old-fashioned telephone poles - the kind with creosote and 1 crossbar that I've seen all my life.  And for all I know, these poles have been here since before I was born.  It was a stark contrast to see an east/west line of high power metal utility lines.

Fort Stockton

This town of 8,283 is a flat, small town with a US Border Patrol Station.  Also welding companies and other oil industry related businesses.  Also a large feed & supply store.  That kind of town.  But they also have a great public dog park, and the dogs and I enjoyed a nice little rest there.

Back on the road

At Fort Stockton I switched to US 385 for the rest of my southerly trip.  The farther south I got, the more mountains I saw.

I drove nearly 60 miles of this,
except the mountains kept getting closer.

what the land looks like

The only other oddity I had to keep me company as I drove was an occasional sign saying "Road May Flood."  

I learned that these signs meant a dip in the road was coming, and the dip would be deep enough to warrant a flood gauge up to 5'.  By actual count, I know there were 21 of these in this 56 miles.  For the life of me, I can't figure out where all the water would come from to warrant these flood gauges.  Aside from the Pecos back before Ft. Stockton, I didn't see any rivers or lakes.  In a really odd note, I saw one of these signs when I was climbing a fairly steep hill.  I also saw 2 "Watch for Water on the Road" signs.  I understand the folks around there'd be mighty happy if I could've found some water for them.

I passed a sign saying "Weed Wash Required."  I can't even imagine what that's about, and when I looked it up I got nothing.

For many miles, the land on either side of the road was labeled for III Ranch.  I didn't find anything in a quick search so don't know where the extensive holding came from.

I passed a sign saying "Entering Sierra Madera Astrobleme" which was meaningless to me.  Fortunately, when I looked this one up I got something from the Austin Chronicle - it's a meteor crater.  This link gives the basics and includes another link to some real information.   https://www.austinchronicle.com/sierra-madera-astrobleme

I passed what looked like a major plant labeled Occidental West Texas Overthrust.  Such a bizarre name, but it turns out to be some kind of oil and gas company.  It sure was out in the middle of nothing.

I had to stop for a javelina that moseyed across the road (really), seriously alerting Dexter who'd never seen such a thing.  But when I came to a stop, it suddenly ran to the barbed wire fence, somehow got under the wire and disappeared into the scrub.  Nice disappearing act.

We came across a strong skunk smell - by no means our first time, but this time Dext looked at me like he thought I should fix it.  It must have been a fresh, nearby smell.

According to the map, the mountains I could see to the south were the Glass Mountains, and included Bird Mountain, elev. 6,066'.  Those lie between Marathon and Alpine.

I stopped to take a look at a couple of signs about ranching in the Big Bend area.

sign, part #1

sign, part #1

sign, part #3

sign, part #4

sign, part #5

sign, part #6

sign, part #7

There are still some big ranches operating in this area (witness: the III Ranch).

Marathon & back on the road

This town isn't pronounced like a marathon race.  Instead, it's MARE-ih-thin.

I expected Marathon would bill itself as the Gateway to the Big Bend, but if it does I missed the signs. 

Marathon has about 430 residents and the historic Gage Hotel, built 1927.  It was one of the locations for the film Paris, Texas and for the Kevin Costner film Fandango.

At Marathon I joined US 90 W and traveled northwest for the 22 miles to Alpine, surrounded by mountains the whole way.

I passed another of those La Entrada al Pacifico signs.

Alpine

You can sort of see on today's route map that Marathon and Alpine are in the far north part of Brewster County.  I found a sign that said Brewster is the largest county in area in the state, which I have no trouble believing because it extends all the way south to the Rio Grande River and includes all of Big Bend National Park.

Alpine, with a population of right at 6,000, is also the home of Sul Ross State University.  I've heard of this school most of my life but didn't know that it was named for Lawrence Sullivan "Sul" Ross, who was a governor of Texas, a Confederate general, and a president of Texas A&M.  (Being a UT graduate, I can say it figures.)  His family founded the town of Waco.  Naturally there's a statue of him in the middle of the A&M campus.  

This summer a petition was started proposing the statue's relocation, in light of George Floyd's death and increasing awareness among some that prominent symbols celebrating the Confederacy, which existed to promote slavery (aka: a state's right to have laws protecting slavery), don't belong in our increasingly diverse American society.  Equally naturally there's a strong feeling among many students that they don't see what the problem is and it's tradition.  Currently, only 4% of the A&M student body is Black, certainly less than the 12% of Texans that are Black.  (I'm happy to report that similar statues are being removed from prominent positions on the UT campus, though UT's student body is only 5% Black so, not exactly an improvement.)  It's hard to understand another point of view when you're only presented with the one you're already familiar with.

I drove through town on my way to a campground called the Lost Alaskan RV Park, where I could buy propane.  The lost Alaskan no longer owns it, and every space was taken for the next 2 days.  This seemed impossible, today being a Wednesday for crying out loud, but when I got there I could see it for myself.

Going through town, though, took me past the Big Bend Biker Hotel, with its Old Gringo Coffee Shop and Bar.

I'm not sure why but Alpine seemed like a real town to me, with a real life to it.  Maybe it was the extras that having a college brings.

When I stopped for gas, I barely was allowed to pay cash - I was the last customer they allowed in the store because they closed for disinfecting.  It was clearly going to be a major process because they brought in a disinfecting company with its equipment and locked the doors.  Not something I'd run across before.

Election Digression

I accidentally deleted this post, and it was such an emotional post that the deletion almost makes it worse.  It was and is important to me, though, so I'm going to try to recreate it to the extent I can.

Friday, 20 November 2020

I said I knew I was a week and a half behind in my posts and that I absolutely would get caught up as quickly as I could.  But I said I had something to say about the post-election situation and, since this is my blog, I wanted to say it.

I said my heart is breaking.

I said I completely understand being bitterly disappointed in the outcome of an election, that I've felt that way many times and expect to feel that way again.

I said I completely understand, and agree, that a losing candidate has the right to be certain all the votes were correctly counted.

But we've done that.  Recounts have been held.  Court cases have been brought and decided by judges appointed by both political parties.  That should mean the election is now over.  

Our democracy rests on the principle that we citizens choose who we want to be in charge of our government by voting and that, however misguided the majority might seem at times (e.g. McCarthyism, Japanese-American internments), what the majority says goes.  No matter how badly I or anyone else might want an election to show a different result, we're stuck with the one we've got until the next election.

To me, this election showed that a majority of Americans wants Republicans to be in a position of power.  Republicans picked up seats in the House and still hold a majority in the Senate.  But what a majority also wants is to have someone other than Donald Trump as president.

It's pretty clear that many people split their tickets when they voted, however deeply unpalatable this idea is to the president and incomprehensible to his most ardent supporters.

There's no other mathematical explanation for the results than that, despite all the contortions I've been hearing about in the news.  It's absurd to think that this Dominion-whatever-the-company-is software changed votes from Trump to Biden only in specific states and not in others where it's used - e.g. Florida and Utah.  It's absurd to think that the software would be programmed to give a Democratic win in the presidency and not in all the other races farther down the ballot.

It's equally absurd to think that it's even possible to achieve fraud on a level that would encompass the entire country.  There were more than 150,000,000 votes cast.  If our elections were done by the federal government, or even by the governments of each of the states, that might be remotely possible.  But instead, each state sets guidance and limits within the state, and those are then carried out by each individual county.  Our elections in the United States are conducted by thousands of counties, overseen by dozens of states, each with their own idiosyncratic ways of doing the same thing - electing a slate of leaders.  A fraud that can influence that sort of system is almost certainly impossible, which is why it's never been done before.  Any fraud we've had in our elections - and, let's face it, there's been plenty over the years - has been done on a local level.

And although the president and his allies have been saying over and over that there's fraud and there's evil software and various other claims, so far the only evidence they've presented has shown human error on a small scale.  And the reason is that it not only doesn't exist - it can't exist in our system of voting.

Up to this point, I've figured we're looking at the deep disappointment and disbelief that can come from a disappointed candidate and those who support him.  But once again, that's all been resolved by various courts of law.  We should be done with this election.

So what's bothering me so much is Rudy Giuliani, on behalf of the president, telling a Pennsylvania judge he should ignore all the ballots cast in that state and instead appoint - APPOINT - electors who will vote for Trump.  

And even beyond that is the president himself who's been leaning all over state elected officials trying to get them to change the results, and leaning all over state legislators to convince them to throw out the results of the election and APPOINT electors of their own choosing.  They're both saying we should forget that we live in a democracy and instead have the current leader simply set up a system that will allow him to stay in office.

But to me even worse than these events, ghastly as they are, is that almost all Republican officials are staying silent while this happens.  At what point do they find backbone against this attempt to subvert our system of government?  Ever?  I feel confident they'd find plenty of backbone if it were a Democrat who was doing all of this, so why on earth not a member of their own party?  Do they really believe the Republican party is more important than democracy in the United States of America?

And so my heart is breaking to watch this unfold.  It's been causing me great unhappiness as it's continued.

But on the other hand, I am a big believer in my country.  I remember the real distress around the country when Kennedy was assassinated and have come to appreciate as an adult the way Johnson took over so quickly to help stabilize us all.  I remember the terror I felt when Nixon resigned, because it was unprecedented and I was afraid our system wasn't resilient enough to handle it.  And I was then and continue to be grateful to Pres. Ford for the sheer decency and honor that made up his nature.  He wasn't able to do much in his term, thanks to the chaos that Nixon had unleashed, but he kept us going on a stable path, which is what we needed.

The parallels to the chaos we find ourselves in today are becoming obvious.  And once again we have in Joe Biden a person who is decent and honorable.  I know many who use Fox News and similar sources to learn the news don't believe that, because they've been told differently for many months now.  But it's still a fact, and I think many of them will come to see it.  Even if he's able to do little more in the next four years besides return stability and honor to our country, he'll be appreciated and respected.

You can tell I feel very strongly about all this, and I just wanted to say so, even though it meant rewriting it.

Texas - Day 8 - Big Spring, Midland, Odessa, Monahans Sandhills

Monahans Sandhills State Park, Monahans
Tuesday, 10 November 2020

Today was about hitting some of these towns/cities I've heard about all my life but don't think I've ever been to.  In planning this route, I checked websites like Trip Advisor for each of them, to see if there was anything I particularly wanted to see.  The closest thing I found was George W. Bush's Boyhood Home in Midland, and although I've come to value him much more as a past president than I did when he was in office - he's a truly decent and honorable man, after all - I would have wanted to see the house because of his parents, not because of him.  So I decided to skip it.  Instead, I got directions to the county courthouse buildings in all of them (they're all county seats).

today's route

I headed almost due south from Lubbock to Big Spring, passing a farm of palm trees.  The land was completely flat and I could see cropfields and a wind farm that stretched to the horizon.

In the vicinity of Tahoka, I was seeing hills and cows.  Then it was back to mostly flat cropland: cotton and corn.

That green crop I've been seeing isn't all winter wheat.  I got close enough to see that it may be some kind of vegetable, but it's definitely not a grass which, after all, wheat basically is.  I don't know, do soybeans grow in the winter in Texas?

At Lamesa, I saw so much cotton on the ground, left over from the harvest, that it looked like snow.  It seems odd to me - yes, I know cotton is light, but so is wheat, and I haven't been seeing that blanketing the ground.  It looks like whatever method/machinery they're using to harvest cotton these days isn't as efficient as it should be.  They're leaving a lot of product on the ground.

What surprised me about those rectangular cotton bales I saw in Floydada the other day was that they weren't round, which is the only kind of cotton bale I'd seen before.  But along US 87, which is what I was on all morning, I saw plenty of both out in the fields.   https://certipik.com/2016/cotton-square-or-round-bales  This article seems a little condescending to me, but it's got useful information about the choice between the 2 types of bale.

I started seeing signs advertising water for sale.  

I also started seeing oil wells - lots of them.  In the space of about ⅛ mile, I saw a half dozen oil wells, lined up along the road and all pumping away.  I saw 2 wells about 6' apart pumping in unison.  That must be a serious oil field.

Big Spring

Big Spring's population is 25,233, and it's the location for the Big Spring State Hospital, which provides psychiatric services to West Texas residents.  The town is down in a valley, surrounded by hills.  

I saw a sign directing me to a sandhill crane area, which I think is a sanctuary for Sandhill Cranes.  Well, there's plenty of dry ground around here.

Howard County Courthouse

As I turned a corner near the courthouse, I saw an old building that might have been vacant.  But it's clear from the elaborate façade that it was once an important building.  I wish there were enough money available somewhere to bring some of these neglected places back to life.

We really needed a break and I grabbed the first parking place I could find downtown which, luckily, was right by a park.  And on the other side of the park, I saw another building that was likely not in use.  But it wasn't until I saw the name carved over the doorway that I realized its previous importance.

This was my first sight of the building.

detail of doorway

detail of roofline

The Petroleum Building.  Built in 1929, which helps explain the architectural details.  I could tell by all the support services I saw in town (not to mention all those oil wells I passed) that oil is still a major part of the economy of this area.  But it's a shame one of the oil companies couldn't spring for the price of refurbishing this building.

Midland

It's about 35 miles down the road from Big Spring and much larger, but in many ways they feel like sister cities.  Coming into town I passed a major plant named Imperative Chemical Partners ("it's imperative to choose a trusted partner" ... "when it comes to chemicals").

Midland County Courthouse

Midland got its name from being halfway between Fort Worth and El Paso on the Texas & Pacific Railway.  (Our history surrounds us if we bother to look.)

Midland, pop. 111,147, has a bunch of tall fancy office buildings and the Bush Boyhood Home.  I saw a private jet landing at the Midland Airport, which told me there's still a lot of money in this town.

Just outside town I saw a highway sign saying "La Entrada al Pacifico."  I can translate that, but it did me no good so I looked it up.  It's the common name given to "Trade Corridor 56" which was designated by the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act.  And if you knew there was such a thing, you're more on top of things than I am.  It is apparently an international agreement for a route from Texas, via Midland-Odessa, to the Pacific port of Topolobampo (great name) in Sinaloa, Mexico.  It sounds like the original intent was to focus on trucks, but Mexico has some serious geographic road blocks - e.g. Grand Canyon sized canyons - along the route, so they're thinking of expanding rail service as part of the deal.  Who knew?

Odessa

Odessa, pop. 49,940, is just 20 miles down the road from Midland.  My impression is that it's a little brother to Midland, but still, it's the county seat of Ector County.

Ector County Courthouse

Interesting how different the architecture of these 3 courthouses is.  None of these photos is mine, by the way.  I saw them all but was having trouble enough navigating the city streets to stop for photos.

Odessa is also the site of a meteor crater that's been designated a National Natural Landmark.  There are actually several craters in the same area, and the largest is 550' in diameter.  Scientists estimate they date back to 63,500 years ago.

Odessa has several large murals, and I'm sorry that none of them is online because they're attractive and characteristic of the area - e.g. one called "Whistle Stop Town" and another of oil wells.

Speaking of oil wells, I saw a forest of them, with most of them pumping away.  And I saw a sign saying something about the Permian Basin.  Okay, I've heard of the Permian Basin all my life but never been really clear on what exactly it is, so I looked it up.  It's an enormous sedimentary basin, which also contains a large productive oil and natural gas field.  It begins south of Lubbock and runs almost all the way to the Rio Grande and west into southeastern New Mexico.  It's about 250 miles wide and 300 miles long so, yeah, enormous.

I noticed that being in a place where they're drilling oil wells about every 3 feet doesn't get residents lower gas prices.  They were higher here than back on the way from Lubbock.

Back on the road

The land west of Odessa is fairly flat scrubland, and the speed limit jumped up to 80 mph.  Which of course I didn't get to.  It's just too hard to hold the RV on the road at high speeds, especially with crosswinds.

Monahans Sandhills State Park

As I drove into the park, a Roadrunner crossed the road.  Do they ever run anywhere besides on roads or is that just where they're easiest to see?

The road leading to the park office was narrow with sand dunes like these all along the way.

I asked at the office what on earth all this sand was doing here so far from an ocean.  They explained "in layman's terms" (a phrase she repeated so often it got insulting) that a zillion years ago (sort of) the mountains in northern New Mexico began eroding from the wind that was blowing across them.  The erosion took the form of fine dust that blew hundreds of miles away and got caught in the Permian Basin.  And here we are.  And after all, she reminded me, this area was one part of the great inland sea, back in prehistoric times, so sand made sense then.

Windmills and Railroads

windmill example

railroad example (see explanation at right) -
this was being used as the park office

historical marker re:
park office building

closeup from above -
the park sensibly minimizes
damage to the dunes by 
providing these discs for use
in sliding down the dunes

the trails of people climbing, then
sliding down the dunes

Somebody was parked in my camping spot when I got there, so while I was waiting to claim it I drove back to a nature trail I'd seen to walk the dogs.  Along the trail were informational signs, like the following.

There were also small signs identifying some of the plants indigenous to the area.

Havard Oak

detail from left

detail from right

Honey Mesquite

Plains Yucca

detail from left

Sand Sagebrush

detail from left

These next 2 informed about plants that had shriveled into nothing recognizable - clearly they need to be seen at some other time of the year.  But I thought the signs were interesting.

And lastly, evidence of wildlife.

This is a birdbath/watering hole the park set up,
and it was heavily populated with little birds
when we walked up and scared them. 
If there were audio for this, you'd be deafened
by them criticizing us for interrupting them.
As dry as it was there, all kinds of animals
would be wanting that water.

I don't know what kind of bird made these
tracks, but there was clearly a convention
here - not to mention the dog tracks.

This is a small campground, with almost all the sites backed up to the sand dunes.  Texas does a pretty good job of allowing a lot of space between campsites in most of its campgrounds, aided in recent times by their policy of not renting out all the sites to comply with the governor's social distancing mandates.  Fine by me.  And it was one of the darkest campgrounds I've been in, which allowed the stars to be more visible (what I could see over the heaping sand dunes).

Texas - Day 7 - errands in Lubbock

Lubbock KOA, Lubbock
Monday, 9 November 2020

Today I had a list of errands to run, which turned out to take longer than I expected, as usual.

Lily had a 9 AM appointment at a vet clinic to have her claws clipped and her flea medicine administered. I aimed to get there early, so as to be able to find a parking place in the clinic’s small parking lot (I looked online), but even before 8:30 it was nearly full. Apparently their appointments started much earlier than my 9 AM one. But I squeezed in because I have so much overhang past my rear tires: I can fit the RV into a normal parking place as long as there’s space behind it to stick the rear end.

From there we drove down the street to a grocery store where the city said it had recycling drop-off boxes. Well, yeah, there were boxes, but what they’d accept was severely limited. Only plastic #1 & #2 bottles and aluminum and newspaper and “office paper” and tin. No glass, no mixed paper, no plastics that weren’t bottles. So I got rid of my milk jugs and a few other things but was left with most of my recycle collection.

This grocery store was a United Supermarket, which is a chain I've had good luck finding things in.  Their website says they started in 1916, are based in Lubbock, and have 95 stores in Texas and New Mexico.  They don't mention Oklahoma, but that store I stopped at in Woodward after Alabaster Caverns was a United, and I think I've found them other places as well.  Apparently United is part of Albertsons.

Because I’m back in Texas, I could find wine in the grocery store, and this one had a fair selection. But I stopped at a liquor store across the street, just in case. It was a local store – Pinkie’s Liquor – and they had absolutely nothing I wanted. Too bad.

From there I drove nearly 5 miles to a locally-owned pet supply store. I was nearly out of doggy poop bags and was surprised to find they only had 3 packages of 1 kind for sale. So I bought one. They also had 8 or 9 cages of cats for sale, and I was stunned to see they were asking $69.99 for a kitten. They weren’t pure-bred or anything special, just cute but ordinary kittens. Maybe my memory’s just faulty, but I don’t remember ever paying anything like that to adopt my critters. (It’s probably my memory.)

I passed a lululemon pop up store, which surprised me. That brand seems more cosmopolitan than Lubbock strikes me.

From the pet store I stopped at a Spec’s Liquor, where they had a massive wine selection and none of it was what I was looking for – and could find easily even in grocery stores around the country. What’s up with Lubbock? But they did have my scotch, so I bought 2 bottles, since that’s not available everywhere either.

I was going to go across the street to PetSmart but decided to stick with the poop bags I’d already bought and hope for a better selection next time I needed them.

And from there I went back to the campground.

My conclusion: Lubbock’s an odd blend of big city and rube town. But the people I met were nice.

Texas - Days 5 & 6 - in the campground

Lubbock KOA, Lubbock
Saturday, 7 and Sunday, 8 November 2020

We stayed here last summer and I remember thinking then that our campsite was the best one in the park for our purposes.  So we stayed in that site again.  It backs right up to the dog park, so even when there are a lot of dogs in the campground, I can slip my dogs out of the RV and into the dog park without too much hassle.  Plus it has a fairly comprehensive view of the whole campground, which allowed me to have some warning if other people were walking their dogs, and I could delay walking mine, or take them a different direction.  And it's under a tree so there's some shade.

Speaking of being able to see other dogs, I watched a young woman walk her standard poodle and then put a diaper on it before putting it back in their RV.  I swear.  The diaper was clearly made specifically for a dog and didn't look disposable, which seems incomprehensible to me.  Just because the mothers from the Greatest Generation washed their kids' (i.e. our) diapers doesn't make it a good idea.  They had no choice.  I would definitely not want to wash diapers my dogs used.  I'll pick up poop from the ground, but that's as far as I'll go.

I tried something new.  I made a meatloaf in the slow cooker.  And, to my surprise, it turned out really good.  It tasted and looked just like a regular meatloaf.  And, for the first time, I bought some instant mashed potatoes.  I remember the kind we had in the '80s that didn't have much flavor, so I'd avoided them up till now.  But I wanted mashed potatoes to go with the meatloaf, so I tried Idahoan® Homestyle.  And they too turned out really good.  And I bought a packet of McCormick's Brown Gravy, because I like it and because I think mashed potatoes require gravy.  It was all wonderful and was a complete comfort food meal. 

I had it with a half-bottle of champagne that I'd bought in that odd little wine store in Colorado and been saving for something special.  I wanted to celebrate the beginning of the end of the election.  There are still plenty of ballots that need to be counted, but the states have figured there aren't enough still outstanding to make a difference in the result.  No matter which side you're on, I'm sure you're as tired of this as I am and are ready to see what the next chapter is like. 

During the night one night, Dext got sick.  I didn't hear that part.  What woke me up was the sound of his claws as he paced back and forth, and his occasional whimpers.  I figured he needed to go outside and walked across the floor toward the door.  That's when I noticed my flip-flops were sticking to the floor.  That was a pretty ghastly period.  I had to clean the floor just to get us to the door.  Then I had to put some clothes on - this was all at 2:00 AM - and take the dogs to the dog park, and thank goodness we didn't have far to go.  Sure enough, Dext pooped 3 times in the space of about 10 minutes.  I guess it was one of the things he'd nosed out on a walk and chowed down on before I could stop him.  He never seems to connect the behavior with the results.  

After all that, I just stayed up.  I'm not getting all that much sleep lately - I'm lucky if I get as much as 7 hours in a night.  It seems there's always something.  You know, "it just goes to show you, it's always something - if it's not one thing, it's another."  Roseanne Roseannadanna, aka Gilda Radner, may she rest in peace.

In these couple of days I got a bit more caught up on my blog posts and spent most of one day planning the next ports of call.  I didn't have even any plans, let alone reservations, after Lubbock. 

I soon discovered there really aren't many campgrounds in west Texas.  Lubbock is the farthest west KOA, and almost half the state campgrounds don't have facilities for RVs.  It turned out that Balmorhea State Park is closed altogether, until further notice.  I don't know why and I'm disappointed.  It has the largest spring-fed swimming pool in the state and I've heard it praised for years.  And the other state parks - Monahans Sandhills, Davis Mountains and Hueco Tanks - are all quite small so availability is limited.  I rearranged my ideas several times to try and accommodate these parks, and finally got a plan pieced together.  But it really took time.