Night skies, Cowboy poetry, Davis Mountains, and the pursuit of the mystery lights of Marfa

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Davis Mountain

We camped at the state park and opted for a full hookup site. It was a pull through and had cable TV!!! We could watch my favorite channel…..The Weather Channel. I felt we were a couple weeks early and would have enjoyed the greening up that had yet to take place. The weather can swing radically from balmy to freezing. One day we were out hiking and able to do some of the hike in short sleeves. That night a cold front came through and we had a wind chill of 19 and snow flurries. Our water hose froze during the night and we had to switch to our onboard water.

Cowboy Poetry

South of the Davis Mountains is the city of Alpine. This is the home of the annual Texas Cowboy Poetry Gathering at Sul Ross University. This began in 1987 and is the oldest of it’s kind in Texas. This gathering included classical, traditional , and contemporary poetry as well as Cowboy music and story telling. We attended some of the free sessions Saturday afternoon and then returned for the evening performance that cost $10. It was another new experience. I couldn’t help but notice the wide variety of cowboy boots and hats among the audience. For more information you can check out www.cowboy-poetry.org.

McDonald Observatory

This is located in the heart of the Davis Mountains on the 6,791 foot peak of Mount Locke. It was built in 1932, and has had additional telescopes added since then. This site was selected because of the clear air, distance from artificial lights, and numerous cloudless nights. We could see it off in the distance on some of our hikes. We took a tour of the facility one afternoon and enjoyed the sights, movies and informative talk. They certainly chose the area well for night-time star visibility. I have always found the Texas night sky to be filled with bright abundant stars, but in the Davis Mountains there were even more stars visible!! More info on the McDonald Observatory can be found at www.McdonaldObservatory.org.

Marfa Mystery Lights

One evening we went to the viewing center 8 miles east of Marfa. The lights were first reported by early settlers in 1883. We arrived at deep dusk and settled into our car to await full darkness. There were some lights in the distance, but they seemed “wrong” to me to be the mystery lights. We listened to music and watched people and vehicles come and go. The stars came out, but no new lights. We went to the viewing platform and saw some different lights. Some groups seemed to get excited by these lights, but they still didn’t seem right. We waited some more and used the viewing scope. Finally we decided to leave and decided that those must have been the Marfa Mystery Lights. I felt disappointed, but in further reading later, I don’t think we actually did see the lights. There are various theories what the mystery lights are, but nothing is definitive. We gave it our best effort to see the lights. Maybe there is a video clip online somewhere. I’ll have to check it out later.

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Photos

Snowy morning
Maybe we're not just a couple weeks early?

Time to head further south
The beautiful view was obscured by the blowing snow.