Day 3: Marfa, Alpine and Fort Davis

Our morning started with coffee from a convenience store as we got on the road early to head north from Presidio. No big breakfast today; we have plans for a delicious lunch! The road north went through some mountains, which were really pretty. Thank goodness for satellite radio out here!

Our first stop was in Marfa. Well, actually, it was in Valentine, which is northwest from Marfa. This was the town that Sean's dad was working in when he met Sean's mom. I also wanted to have my picture taken in front of the roadside art "Prada Marfa" fake storefront. So, we drove for 30 minutes to get there and back to Marfa. But I got my pictures! 

We drove back through Marfa, which is now home to many foo-foo people from Austin who have opened expensive restaurants and art galleries in the tiny town. There really wasn't much of interest for us here, so we kept on driving to Alpine. We liked this town a LOT better! It is home to Sul Ross State University, and the Big Bend Brewing Co. We had plans for lunch here at the original Reata restaurant. We are fans of their Fort Worth location, so we had to try the Alpine location. The restaurant is in an old house in downtown, and it is pretty small compared to Fort Worth.

There's a beautiful mural of James Dean and the Reata Ranch from the movie "Giant" in the courtyard. The movie was actually filmed outside of Marfa, but the set is long gone.

Of course, the food didn't disappoint! We love their tenderloin tamales, so we had those as an appetizer.

Sean had a chile relleno, and I had chicken enchiladas. Yum yum!

After lunch, we drove on to Fort Davis. Along the way, we stopped to take a picture at Camp Mitre Peak, which is the big Girl Scout camp where Sean's sister and her daughter both camped. The mountain that is the camp's namesake is beautiful!

We cruised into Fort Davis, and headed straight for the Fort Davis National Historic Site. This is the best preserved Texas frontier fort, and I had always wanted to see it. The fort is really nice! All of the officers' quarters, and many of the other buildings, have been reconstructed and restored. The exhibits in the post hospital were very interesting. 

The officers' quarters are in a perfect line that faces magnetic north.

We walked around and looked at the displays. Of course, I was impressed with the horse equipment! 

In the stable area, there were two horses and a goat. The one with all of the white wasn't very friendly, but the sorrel eventually let people pet him.

After visiting the fort, we headed for our accommodations for the night: The Mulhern House, which I rented through AirBnB. 

It was built in 1906 by a Houston lumber dealer so his family could have a summer get away to the cooler climate in west Texas. It is absolutely gorgeous! The house is furnished with antiques, and has a huge kitchen, dining room, and three guest suites. 

Fortunately, we had it all to ourselves! We happily sat in the rocking chairs on the front porch and relaxed before our big event that evening...

Day 4: Fog, and Carlsbad Caverns

After our late night, we took our time getting on the road this morning. We ate breakfast at the Fort Davis Drug Store, then we headed north. We drove past the observatory through the Davis Mountains. The weather had turned cold overnight, and it was in the 40s. It rained off and on, and the mountains were very pretty with the low clouds coming over them.

We hit I-10 for a few miles, then turned north from Van Horn. We drove through more mountains, and past several large ranches. Then, we started getting into some really heavy fog. And I mean REALLY heavy fog!

It quickly became obvious that we were not going to be able to visit Guadalupe Mountains National Park today! We couldn't even see the signs for the park entrance! Fortunately, we had a good alternate plan: Carlsbad Caverns National Park.

Cold, foggy weather has no effect on a cave that's 750 feet below the surface, and stays at 57 degrees year round. We happily paid our $10 each, and took the fast elevator down to the cave. Since it was a weekday, there were very few people in the cave with us. (I've heard it can get very crowded in the summer time.) We could hear the water dripping, and it was very quiet inside.

The cave has really nice paved walkways, and it is lit very subtly to highlight the formations. The walkway is 1.3 miles and we spent about 1.5 hours walking through it. This was one of my favorite formations. It's called the Rock of Ages!

When we came out of the cave, the fog had started to lift and we could see well for the drive to Carlsbad, New Mexico where we are staying for the night. We ate a good BBQ dinner at a local place, and we are now relaxing in our room. Tomorrow, we will backtrack to see Guadalupe National Park, then start heading east to get home.

Day 3.5: McDonald Observatory!

McDonald Observatory is operated by the University of Texas at Austin, and it is one of the best observatories in the world. Fort Davis takes great pride in having extremely dark skies in the area.

This evening was the highlight of our trip! We were able to buy tickets to a "special viewing night" on the 82" Otto Struve telescope! This was the original telescope that was installed when the observatory was built in 1933, and it is still one of the best in the world for direct optical viewing. Its biggest discovery was the moon that orbits Pluto.

We got out to the observatory early, and enjoyed a light picnic dinner on the tailgate of the truck as we watched the sunset. I was worried because it was so cloudy. First, the clouds turned orange, and then they turned pink.

We met our group (just 10 of us!) and our hosts Mark and Jim at the Visitors Center. Mark drove us up Mount Locke to the telescope dome. It's the one on the right in this photo.

Inside, the building houses a control room and the onservatory's library. We did have to go up two flights of stairs to get to the actual telescope dome. It was built long before the ADA!

And then we walked into the dome, and there was the telescope!

As we had pulled up to the building, a few sprinkles of rain had fallen, so we had to wait for 30 minutes before the dome could be opened. (Getting rain on the sensitive equipment is not good.) But finally, Jim turned off the lights, opened the dome, and we started looking at stars and stuff! Due to clouds coming in, we were only able to see 4 objects, but they were all amazing! We saw two different star clusters, a planetary nebula, and a group of galaxies. To view them, we got to actually look through an eyepiece on the telescope itself, which is very old school compared with the computerized systems that most modern telescopes use. But that made it even more special. It was definitely a night we will both remember!

At the end of the evening, Mark drove us back down to our cars. Then, we made the 16 mile drive back down the mountains in almost pitch darkness. We got back to the house about 10:30.

Day 2: Big Bend and the River Road

Today we visited Big Bend National Park. It's in the far southwestern corner of Texas, and it is VERY remote. There's no cell service, and compared with most national parks, not even many people visit it. But it is stunningly beautiful.

We didn't have a whole lot of time, so we mainly did a big loop scenic drive through about half of the park. We entered at the eastern Panther Junction entrance.

We stopped at the visitor center, then drove up to the Basin up in the Chisos Mountains. We took a look around there and saw the Window.

Then, we drove back out along the Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive to see the Mule Ears, which is one of Big Bend's landmarks.



From there, we drove down to see Santa Elena Canyon. We stopped and ate a picnic lunch at an
overlook. The canyon is just amazing! The Mexican side of the Rio Grande is also a national park, but it's a lot more remote than the US side.

Then we drove up Old Maverick Road, which is a 4 wheel drive unpaved road. Sean had fun driving his truck on it!

We stopped at Luna's Jacal, which was the home of a man who was a farmer in Big Bend back before it was a National Park.

From there, we drove out the western gate, and stopped in Terlingua. It's home of the Viva Terlingua chili Cookoff, which was this past weekend. The Trading Post sells all sorts of things like Tshirts, Mexican pottery, and other touristy stuff. The old Terlingua Cemetery was still decorated for Dia De Los Muertos.

Of course, we I had to have Sean take my picture with Clay Henry, the beer drinking goat that's the
mayor of the tiny town of Lajitas!

Our last activity for the day was driving the River Road from Lajitas to Presidio. It is one of the most scenic drives in the entire USA. The road was twisty and windy, but it followed the Rio Grande through some amazing mountain county. And in the golden sunlight of early evening, it was even more spectacular!


We stopped at a TXDOT picnic area with its iconic tepees along the river for some photos.

 

Tonight's lodging is the Three Palms Inn in Presidio. It's an old school motel, but it's clean and it's inexpensive. It’s also next door to a good Mexican restaurant! Tomorrow will be more driving to Marfa, Fort Davis and Alpine...and our date with the Otto Struve 82" telescope at McDonald Observatory!

Day 1: Driving and dunes!

We headed out this morning about 9:30 AM. Button bid us bon voyage, but Zeke hid under the bed and gave us dirty looks. He hates it when we leave!

Today was mostly driving. We both know the road well until we get to Abilene since we drove it so many times going back and forth to ASU. But once we got past Abilene, it was a mostly new experience for us.

From Abilene until Stanton, we saw lots of wind turbines and cotton fields.

As we got closer to Midland, the scenery switched to oilfields, industrial complexes, and the skyline of downtown Midland. The Permian Basin has lots of RV parks where the oilfield workers live!

After we left Odessa, we had our fun thing to do today: Monahans Sandhills State Park.

It's not a large state park, but it is definitely unique.

The park rents discs for surfing and sliding on the dunes, and we watched a family do just that. We tried to recreate our photos from the desert safari in Dubai!

The dunes here are pretty. They have some vegetation in them, and I loved the blue sky and cirrus clouds. The sand is also very fine and soft. It's not like the sand at the beach, or in the UAE.

We then drove down to Fort Stockton, where we are staying for the night. The hotel is free, thanks to my booking most of our Middle East hotels through hotels.com! Score!

A West Texas adventure!

Back in 2016, before Sean got his orders to deploy to Kuwait, we had started planning a trip to the Big Bend area of western Texas. Sean spent a few weeks in Big Bend when he was in high school, and he's been wanting to take me out there for years. Unfortunately, the Army forced us to cancel our plans. We knew we'd eventually end up going back...just not exactly when.

Well, now is about that time. Sean has sufficiently recovered from his surgery to skip a few days of PT, and since I'm currently between jobs, there's no time like to present for us to hit the road! It also helps that we now have a 4x4 truck so we can have a little more fun!

Unfortunately, this weekend is the annual Chili Cookoff in Terlingua, so all of the lodging in or near Big Bend is totally full. So, we are doing a "drive thru" of Big Bend this time. We will have to go back and stay longer to see most of the park.

So, here's our plan:
Day 1: Grapevine to Monahans State Park, and then to Fort Stockton
Day 2: Fort Stockton to Marathon, then to Big Bend National Park, Terlingua, and along the River Road to Presidio.
Day 3: Presidio to Valentine, then to Marfa, and Fort Davis. Evening special viewing night on the 82" telescope at McDonald Observatory! (This is a Bucket List item for me!)
Day 4: Fort Davis to Guadalupe Mountains National Park, to Carlsbad, New Mexico
Day 5: Carlsbad Cavern, then head east and stop for the night somewhere along the way.

Watch for more posts this week. I promise to take lots of pictures!

Flights home, and an Epilogue

The trip back home was fairly uneventful. We left the Sheraton Amman in the afternoon and flew out of Jordan through the Queen Alia International Airport. Security there was actually a little tighter than in the US. All of our suitcases were X-rayed before we checked them in, and (oddly) a Jordanian security employee combed through every item in our carry-on bags, and asked us what each item was. This was a little unnerving since even the TSA doesn't do that. I was worried for a minute when he pulled Sean's Army dog tags out of his bag. The employee asked Sean a few questions about them, and why he was in Jordan. Sean explained we were here on vacation with me, and he wasn't here on Army business. After a few minutes, we were free to go. We checked in the bags (fortunately everything was just under the max weight limit!), and we had 2 hours to relax in the airport. We hit the Duty Free store for Jordanian dates and sweets for family and coworkers, and then we found a  café for snacks and drinks. As always, the Jordanian wine and the mezze platter was delicious! This is one culinary thing that the Jordanians do very well!

The flight to Dubai was uneventful, except for me dripping sauce from my meal on my shirt. We had debated about going back into Dubai (via the Metro) for dinner, but since we arrived a little after 10 PM, we decided against it. The security for connections in Dubai was mayhem, almost to the level of that entering Israel. They want to get a lot of people through very quickly, so everything moves really fast! Thankfully, we got through with all of our carry-on items. Again, we found a quiet restaurant for snacks and drinks during the 4 hour layover. Sean was happy to see that they had a big beer, since this was the last beer he would get to drink until he returns home!

Finally, it was 2 AM, and time to say goodbye and for me to board the flight to DFW. I hated this part. PDA is technically illegal in Dubai, so we just had a quick kiss and then I was headed down the escalator to board my plane. Even though he will be home in just over 2 months, it was all I could do to not cry. I'm sure Sean felt the same way!

The flight back was VERY full. I was lucky to have an empty seat between me and the Australian guy in the aisle seat. Fortunately, I was able to sleep pretty well, but this time, it was a 16 hour flight (due to the rotation of the earth) and it got light and dark twice during the trip. We flew over Russia and the north pole, but since it was dark at that point in time, I wasn't able to see anything outside. Finally, dawn broke as we flew over Manitoba, Canada, and it looked really cold outside! I turned my iPhone back on and used the wifi for the last couple of hours of the trip. Sean said he made it back to Camp Arifjan, Kuwait safely, and he had already taken a nap and was finishing his laundry.

We landed at DFW on time at 9:30 AM, and I followed the crowd to the Customs area to claim my bags. My parents were picking me up, and I was very much looking forward to seeing them! For those of you planning to travel internationally, download the Mobile Passport app! I did my Customs declaration on the app, and I was able to walk right through the special area for Mobile Passport with just a quick scan of the QR code receipt! Awesome! After a long wait, my bags finally showed up, and I was walking out into the International Arrivals area. (Oddly enough, it's the same area where I had happily greeted Sean twice during the Welcome Home a Hero ceremonies that DFW held during OIF/OEF.) And there were Mom and Dad! Hooray! I treated them to brunch at Uncle Julio's (YES, Mexican food!) and they dropped me back at the house. Of course, Zeke and Button were very excited to see me, and they spent a lot of time smelling everything in my luggage.

As many people, including myself, have said, this was definitely the "trip of a lifetime." I got to cross three items off the Bucket List: horse races at Meydan, seeing Petra, and the Holy Land. My husband and I had a wonderful time together, and he got to show me what the Middle East is really like. We met wonderful people, ate some awesome food, and shared a lot of laughs! I learned a lot about life in other countries, and I am even more grateful to be an American and to live in Texas! We both say that we are glad to have seen Dubai and Jordan, but Israel has touched our hearts. We both hope to be able to go back there at some point in our lifetimes, and to be able to see more of that amazing country! Readers, if you ever get the chance to go to Israel, DO IT!