Friday, January 11, 2008 - Davis Mountains State Park, Fort Davis TX
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Spending the morning in Marfa
What a disappointing experience my visit to Marfa, Texas and The Chinati Foundation turned out to be. This is not my kind of place. My reactions are a contradictory mix. The town is being transformed into an art object and commercial art destination. It's architecturally quite an attractive town and what is being done is well done but it seems to me to be too controlled, too contrived, too cold. I hail from Columbia County, New York which is in the midst of an art renaissance of its own and is also seeing its county seat, Hudson, transforming into an art destination, but in a less structured way that I find quite appealing, warm and friendly. Marfa is too tightly structured for me. It's my impression the town has been taken over by Judds and Judd interests. Most of the buildings on the street before the county courthouse have been painted and the windows blanked out on those that are not yet developed in a unified theme that seems to indicate a common ownership and thrust of development.
For some reason the Museum is purposely hard to find - there are no street signs to guide one there and once found the entrance seems to invite one not to enter. Why? The museum is open for tours only and there is no guidance to signing up.
I was offended enough by all this that I left town in a short while.
An afternoon and evening at McDonald Observatory
From Marfa I went north to Fort Davis in search of a campsite at Davis Mountains State Park. Driving up I realized I became aware I was approaching the McDonald Observatory, home of Sandy Wood's StarDate radio shorts I've heard all these many years. Road signs and observatory domes above the horizon were a big help here. An internet search turned up their website and got me thinking I might sign up for their Twilight and Star Party programs tonight. Later in the afternoon, I went up to the observatory.
This was such an enjoyable experience I decided to grab the opportunity and signed up for the observatory's usually sold out 36" Telescope Special Viewing Night tomorrow night.
Night camp
Davis Mountains State Park Campground, Fort Davis TX
- This is a nice, well maintained campground with level gravel sites with electric & water, and some with full hookups
- There is good biking on the park roads and hiking trails in the hills
- Good Verizon cell phone service - Access is via Extended Network, roaming
- No Verizon EVDO service - access is via the Extended Network and service is slow
- Find other references to Fort Davis
- List the nights I've camped here
- Check the weather
- Reserve a site
- Get a Google Street View and a map
The Heliograph in the Apache Wars
"The mountains and the sun...were made his allies, the eyes of his command, and the carriers of swift messages. By a system of heliograph signals, communications were sent with almost incredible swiftness; in one instance a message traveled seven hundred miles in four hours. The messages, flashed by mirrors from peak to peak of the mountains, disheartened the Indians as they crept stealthily or rode swiftly through the valleys, assuring them that all their arts and craft had not availed to conceal their trails, that troops were pursuing them and others awaiting them. The telescopes of the Signal Corps, who garrisoned the rudely built but impregnable works on the mountains, permitted no movement by day, no cloud of dust even in the valleys below to escape attention. Little wonder that the Indians thought that the powers of the unseen world were confederated against them."