On Monday, November 16 we again left I-10 to take a scenic
drive in the Davis Mountains. Our first stop was in Ft. Davis an old town with
some interesting old buildings including the Davis County Court House. The town
grew up around Ft. Davis built in the mid 1800’s to control the Indians. It was
named after Jefferson Davis, later to become president of the Confederacy
during the Civil War. This is now a National Historic site, so I had to stop to
get my passport stamped and look around. I guess forts do not interest us that
much, but it has been very nicely restored and really gives you a good idea of
how things were for the people who lived at that time.
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| Suzanne at Ft. Davis |
From there we drove to McDonald Observatory. It was quite a
climb to the visitor center. We decided not to take the guided tour, but just
drove ourselves up to look at one of the telescopes, the Hobby – Ebberly Telescope (HET).
It is built of hexagonal mirrors which can be individually moved to collect the
maximum amount of light. It is mainly used to collect light for spectroscopy
information and much has been learned about space objects using this technique.
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| HET at McDonald Observatory |
From there we looped around the rest of the scenic drive, through the wooded countryside and ended
up back on I-10 headed for El Paso. Fall seems to have come late to this part
of the country. The trees were just turning color and they were all yellow. We
did not see any red leaves, but the yellow trees were just beautiful.
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