It couldn't get much better than this!

Tuesday 15 February 2011
We bought a hat for BJ at the Pecos, Texas Wal-Mart. Then we headed off to Jeff Davis County. Before the Civil War Jefferson Davis served as the Secretary of War. In 1856 a fort was built in the west of the Pecos River part of Texas and named after him, Fort Davis. Apparently the surrounding mountains came to be known as the Davis Mountains, and eventually Jeff Davis County was formed. Not bad for a guy who would later become the Confederate President.

BJ and I got to see Fort Davis. It ended up protecting the Butterfield Overland Mail route in this part of Texas. The route was used by stagecoaches headed for California. The fort also helped subdue the Apaches like Victorio. This fort was where the first "Buffalo Soldiers" units were formed and later they were moved to other places to continue their fight against renegade Apache Indians. They have rebuilt many of the quarters of both officers and enlisted, and turned them into a museum. I really liked the commander's house which was really nicely outfitted with period furniture.

A little up the road we explored the McDonald Observatory. This has the third largest telescope at 107 inch mirror and was used to bounce a laser off the moon after the first moon landing to help prove they had actually planted a reflector when they landed. They also discovered that the moon was over 20 feet farther from the earth than they expected and this somehow helped prove Einstein's general theory of relativity.

Then we drove south the Big Bend National Park. This is Sonoran desert. It looks a lot like Las Vegas or Tucson with bare peaks and lower down mesquite, occatillo, and lots of rocks. We entered the park from a town called Study Butte. I was a beautiful drive to the former town of Castolon. It is now a Visitor Center. As we walked in one ranger was sitting on the porch bench watching the sun set. When I asked him how he was doing he replied, "It couldn't get much better than this." The other ranger was irked that a building crew cut the telephone line by accident so there is no communication with the outside world. Like the man said, it couldn't get much better than this. At our nearby "Cottonwood" campground they have a sign warning us not to feed the javalinas. It was about 86 degrees before the sun went down, but it is cooling off fast here in the moonlight. I think we are only a few hundred yards from the Rio Grande so I'll go hunting for it.

Wildlife we've seen includes roadrunners, a woodpecker, a flycatcher, and longhorn cattle.