Since we were in bed and sleeping by 8:30 pm last night we were up at 5 am and ready to go. It was 39 degrees so no shorts and sandals this morning.
The MH warmed up quickly once the furnace was turned on. We got dressed and went into the restaurant for a quick breakfast. Then it was back on the road. We are now in hill country in the middle of the state with very long and lonely roads.
Despite the fact that there was nothing but a ribbon road ahead, lots of oil wells, windmills and buttes the 295 mile drive didn’t seem so long with the the 80 mph speed limit.
We made a couple of stops – one for gas and another to take a break. We were traveling at around 70 mph and the few other cars and trucks on the road were passing us like we were standing still.
Jewel was very unhappy that we were traveling again. She likes it much better at the CG’s.
To Make sure we secured a CG I called early and did get a site at a place that was promoted on its website as quite pretty with grassy sites and beautiful views of the mountains. 
The web pictures above looked great – of course I did not notice that they were taken in 2008.
The owner was a little cranky on the phone but did assure me he would hold a site for us.
When we arrived we were quite surprised by what we saw. Certainly not the pretty pristine CG we were expecting . The owner had himself locked in his office and when we knocked on the door he yelled “What do you want!!! OK then, maybe this wasn’t such a great idea. Once we told him who we were he let us in. He was still gruff but a teeny weeny bit more welcoming!!!!!!
Despite our having second thoughts about staying since the area and CG looked like it had seen better days and was NOTHING like the web pictures we paid and went to our site.
The park looked and felt a little sketchy at first but despite the lack of view and grass we took our chances. I know we are a little crazy but maybe this time we went over the top! LOL
We set up, had lunch and decided to got to the McDonald Observatory to check it out. They were offering a Twilight program and then a Star Party. The observatory is about 15 miles from the CG on a vey winding but scenic road.
We had a lot of time to wait for the programs so took a ride up the mountain to the Hobby-Eberly Telescope spectrograph to check it out.
Back at the Visitor center we began the first program of the evening - Twilight. The astronomer presenting the program was excellent albeit way above our heads at times. He kept saying do you remember what I said – when in fact we had never heard him say anything before his lecture. I think he sometimes forgot he was not teaching in one of his classes.
Despite that it was an excellent presentation on our solar system,and how the orbit of the planets and the sun will either provide us with a look at other planets and constellations or block our view.
There was some doubt that we would be able to have the Star Party because of the cloud cover. But, as if on cue at 7:30 pm the clouds lifted, the skies cleared and we were blessed with a most beautiful starry night.
There were several high powered telescopes set up and we were able to view the Orion Nebula that proved to be quite spectacular. The dust cloud around it had a blue /green hue to it..
Next was the planet Jupiter with four of its 60 moons visible. You could see the gas clouds around it and the view was very clear and awesome.
We were then again awed by the Double Cluster in the constellation Perseus highest in the northern sky in late autumn and early winter.
After viewing the night skies we attended a presentation that was first presented in 1977 called The Powers of 10 . The Powers of Ten takes you on a journey in magnitudes. Starting at a picnic by the lakeside in Chicago,it transports you to the outer edges of the universe. Every ten seconds we see the starting point from ten times farther away until our own galaxy is only a speck of light among many others stars. Then we return to Earth at mind boggling speed, moving inward- into the hand of a sleeping picnicker- again with ten times more magnification every ten seconds. Then you find yourself inside a proton of a carbon atom within a DNA molecule in a white blood cell. It brought us from a man at a picnic to the outer limits of space and back to the finite DNA of that same individual in 8 minutes. It was a great film and can be viewed on You Tube for anyone that is interested.
Overall, it was a great day and night. Back at the CG we watched the end of the Olympics and turned in for the night.
No comments:
Post a Comment