On to Texas

Wednesday, Jan 15, 2020

We spent a week in the Phoenix area and enjoyed ourselves very much. The weather was nice and warm (high 60’s, low 70’s) during the day, but went down into the 30’s  at night. Our little furnace and good sleeping bag keeping us nice and warm.  

Monday, January 6, we drove a little ways east to Boyce Thompson Arboretum State Park. It is a wonderful place with plants from deserts all over the world. We walked all over the park and enjoyed ourselves thoroughly.

Tuesday, we took a 1 1/2 hour cruise on the Steamship Dolly on Canyon lake about 12 miles east of our campground. It is a manmade lake and has steep rugged shoreline and gorgeous scenery. On this trip we were lucky to see lots of big horned sheep, a bald eagle and water fowl including eared grebes. 

After our cruise, we drove an additional 2 miles to Tortilla Flats, a western tourist town that is lots of fun with a restaurant with dollar bills all over the walls, a band playing and an ice cream shop - very good people watching! 

One day was spent doing errands - laundry and grocery shopping. For those of you from the northwest, we even found a Winco grocery store and stocked up. 

 Our last day in Phoenix, we drove into town and went to the Heard Museum, an excellent museum that celebrates native American art and culture. It is superb. The pottery, silver work, basketry, clothing and kachina dolls were beautiful. We saw a special exhibit about the American Indian boarding school  experience - very sad. We also  saw special exhibits by David Hockney of IPad art he made of Yosemite (unbelievable), and modern art by Maria Hupfield. It is certainly a wonderful museum. 

We also went to the Arizona Capitol Museum which is in the old Arizona capitol 

and is no longer used for government business and the Japanese Friendship Gardens. 

It was a very nice day.

Saturday, we left Phoenix and headed east through some very barren land. We ended up at Pancho Villa State Park near Columbus, New Mexico and 3 miles from the Mexican border. Here in March of 1916, forces led by Pancho Villa attacked Columbus. This was the last time the Continental U.S. has been invaded by foreign forces. About 1 month later, General Pershing led a large group of @1,000  troops into Mexico in pursuit of Pancho Villa. They were not successful and about a year later returned to Columbus. This was the first military venture that used motor vehicles and Curtis Jenny aircraft for military purposes. The state park has a very nice museum that explains the whole attack and retaliation. 

That afternoon, we drove the 3 miles south to Palomas, Chihuahua, Mexico, parked the truck and walked across the border into Mexico. Palomas is most well known for The Pink Store, a very nice craft/souvenir store with a very good restaurant. We had a very nice lunch with margaritas, and purchased a couple of items before walking back to New Mexico. 

Monday was another travel day. We headed east through New Mexico and into Texas at El Paso. We ended the day at Davis Mountain State Park near Fort Davis, Texas. It is a beautiful park situated in a valley in the Davis Mountains some of the highest country in Texas. 

The next morning, we took the 75 mile Davis Mountain Scenic Loop. It is very beautiful country - a very isolated area. 

We went to the University of Texas McDonald Observatory. In the afternoon, we went through their exhibit hall and saw an introductory movie about the observatory and its history. Then we went to a solar viewing (on a screen) and learned all about the sun. Then we had a tour of two of the observatory’s large research telescopes; the Harlan J. Smith and the Hobby-Eberly telescopes. 

It was all very interesting. That evening, we came back for a star party. We learned about a lot of the constellations and then we got to look through six different telescopes at different things in the sky including Uranus, a double star cluster, the Pleiades, the Andromeda Nebula and more. It was a really interesting day. We learned a lot!

Today, Wednesday, we took a bird walk at the state park and then a hike. In the afternoon, we went to nearby Fort Davis National Historic Site. 

The fort was  a key post in the defense system of West Texas from 1854 - 1891. It protected emigrants, mail, etc on the San Antonio to El Paso Road. Much of the fort was restored, and we walked all around it and went in the buildings whenever we could. It was very interesting.

Tomorrow, it is on to Big Bend National Park!