West Texas blog.

NO BLOGGING until Friday or Saturday. There are things to see and do in the meantime.

Jay writes, following a recent sojourn in West Texas: “I returned this afternoon from several days in camp in the Davis Mountains. The McDonald Observatory was one of the high points of the trip. The Davis Mountains are attractive in themselves, green and timbered in evergreens in their highest reaches. It's especially striking after driving through the surrounding scruffiness of the Chihuahuan desert.

“We were there Friday morning. It was cold and raining and the strong winds blew shreds of cloud around the peaks. Other people complained, but, while it wasn't pleasant, exactly, to walk through, I thought it added an early 19th century air of Romantic wildness to the scene. It's the sort of scenery that was appreciated when scenery first became something more than an obstacle to transportation.

“We returned to the observatory Saturday for a star party -- a presentation on the local night sky in an amphitheatre after which you can line up to look through several relatively small telescopes trained on assorted nebulae and star clusters until the cold forces you indoors. It had quit raining, but the moon was waxing, something more than half full. This wasn't helpful, but there were still things to see in the unaffected portions of the sky.”