Well,
as it turned out, we saw no ghosts.
Didn’t even hear any creaking in the walls or walking upside down on the
ceiling. They told us if we stay a
second night they might have to move us to a different room though. Sounded suspicious to me. Like maybe the ghost was due to arrive?
The
hotel had coffee in the lobby but no breakfast.
We had to go across the street to their competitor for that. The Fort Davis Drug Store and Hotel. Yep.
Can’t make this stuff up. Great
place. Old-timey drug store fountain and
everything. Reminded me of the old
McCrory’s in downtown Galveston. My Nani
K. used to love taking us there when we were kids. The food was good (even came back for lunch, but it’s kind of the only game in town unless
you want Bistro or Mexican). The
only drawback was the turkey bacon that tasted more like turkey jerkey.
Fort
Davis was our next stop. At first glance
it was just one of those Jamestown style ruins.
You know, the kind with about a foot of old bricks still arranged in
rectangles here and there. But once we
got in and walked around, we saw way more than just that. The Park Rangers were really helpful (and one of them was a volunteer fire fighter
in Fort Davis. I asked about when the
obvious controlled burn happened. 72
hours before. Smelled like it). As it turned out, Fort Davis is the best
preserved frontier fort in Texas. It is
best known as one of the places where the Buffalo Soldiers were stationed. They
have done a lot of archaeological work on site and found thousands of artifacts
from the time the fort was in operation.
In fact, we were told not to even touch any artifacts we might see as we
walked around the grounds. Now they are
in the process of restoring some of the old buildings and staging them with the
artifacts from the site. My favorite
memory of Fort Davis? Oh, that would be
when Chris suddenly stopped and said, “Look.
An Indian head.” Intrigued as to
how such a major archaeological find as the skull of an Indian could have been
missed, especially in the well-trafficked walkway we were on, I stopped and
turned immediately to investigate.
“Never mind,” she continued. “It
was just a leaf.” So a human head just
turned into a leaf? I told her I was
quite relieved that it wasn’t an entire head.
After about a three count she punched me in the shoulder and said, “An
arrowhead. I meant an arrowhead.” I knew that.
Oh, I almost forgot. This is
where we picked up our next passenger. Javi
joined our little pack when we rescued him from the dreaded BSC (Bin of Stuffed Critters). He is a javelina, hence his quite appropriate
name, Javi. The name was chosen, by the
way, by Chris. She wanted to keep it
simple.
From
Fort Davis we drove up the nearby mountain to about 6,000+ feet to Old
McDonald’s Farm, er, Observatory. We had
reservations to view the sun in the afternoon and the stars later that
night. A little guy from Ohio was our
lecturer for the afternoon event. I have
to say he was extremely knowledgeable.
Blew me away, in fact.
His
lecture (No other word describes what it
was) on sun was tough. Umbra and
penumbra and solar prominence and differential something or other. Whew. It
was pretty interesting to see the actual real-time telescope views of the sun,
though. No action going on up there that
day (in the way of sunspots or flares or
the like). Just the sun being the
sun. Oh, and we really enjoyed seeing
the two massively big telescopes. That’s
where I learned my word for the day: Cuday. Apparently Cuday is French for elbow. I
thought cudays were something girls
had that you didn’t want to get on you when you were a little boy. They called part of the telescope that looks
like an elbow the Cuday. Not sure why they didn’t call it “Elbow.”
Too easy, I guess.
The
star party at night was certainly worth staying up for. By staying up I mean it started at 7:30 and
outlasted their snack bar and gift shop.
I think we drove away around 9:15, and there were still people in line
to look through telescopes. First we
went outside (in the cold) to a big amphitheater. There were probably several hundred people
there. The even sold out. There were stars everywhere in the sky. Way more than we can see even in the West End
of Galveston. They even have laws about
lights in the neighboring towns.
Constellation school was first on the agenda. The guy in charge was entertaining, and told
many of the stories from Greek mythology associated with the
constellations. He had an extremely
powerful flashlight that he used to point to stars as he talked (Oh, and one time he pointed out a satellite
travelling overhead. Exciting stuff). When school was out we divided up to look
through six different telescopes aimed at different stars and star
clusters. Our two favorites, though were
the ones pointed at the moon. The detail
you could see was uncanny. It made the
long waits in line well worth the effort.
But did I mention it was cold?
There
was one thing I did miss in both sessions at the observatory. No one mentioned God. Well, except for the lady behind us in line
who told her little boy that God must have created the spider he saw for a
purpose. Imagine, such an awesome
display of God’s power, and it was just lost in the science of it all. Sad.
Isaiah
40:26 says, “Lift up your eyes on high
and see who has created these stars, the One who leads forth their host by
number, He calls them all by name; Because of the greatness of His might and
the strength of His power, Not one of them is missing.”
Father,
you are truly amazing to have created such magnificence. Way to go.
Amen.
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