Tomorrow we leave for Big Bend National Park, at the southern tip of Texas, along the Rio Grand river, the border with Mexico. But on the way (from San Antonio) we stopped at Alpine, Texas, a little country town (population just under 6,000 and elevation just over 3,300). Our odometer on the RV shows we've driven 3,030 miles. And we've been on the road for 31 days. We're a quarter into our trip!
The drive out of San Antonio to Alpine was interesting. There are so many interstates criss-crossing town! We were on I-10 and I guess they wanted twice as many lanes as they had space for, so the road spits occasionally with some lanes going up and some remaining down on the ground. Fortunately the traffic wasn't very heavy when we left and we didn't have any problems.
As the road goes west, Texas gets drier and higher. The vegetation along side the road is noticeably changed. We also came across a large area of windmills.
It was interesting to think our our country's insatiable thirst for energy, and the history of various forms of energy, side by side. We saw old water windmills, oil wells, and the new electric windmills.
Today we visited the McDonald Observatory, run by the University of Texas. It has a number of telescopes, the largest being 82 in, 107 in, and 300 in. These are among the largest optical telescopes in the world and we got a great tour, which included live images of sun activity.
The last picture shows the mirror of the most recent telescope. Rather than a single mirror, it is made of of multiple (91) hexagonal mirrors. Unlike traditional telescopes they are open and you can see the mirrors in the last picture.
We also visited Fort Davis, a US Army fort that protected settlers from Indians. This is of some historic interest because the soldiers were mostly African-American, the "Buffalo Soldiers." Matthew got a Junior Ranger badge!
The fort was built in 1854 and named after the Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis (who later became the President of the Confederacy). It's interesting that the name was not changed after the war.
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