Marfa, Alpine, Fort Davis & McDonald Observatory

Today was a great road trip day! We saw the eclectic town of Marfa. Lots of “artsy fartsy” shops and galleries. We visited the historic frontier fort, Fort Davis, and we went to the McDonald Observatory Star Party where we had a perfectly clear and moonless night sky. It was a little cold, but so worth it. We are staying in the cute town of Alpine which is home to the original Reata restaurant. We’ve eaten at the Fort Worth location many times, but was the first for Alpine.

Fort Davis

This frontier fort was used in the 1800’s and still has many structures remaining with several restored for demonstration purposes. In its heyday, the fort had over 50 buildings and about 200 soldiers posted there at any point in time.

McDonald Observatory

This observatory is part of UT and is situated on top of a mountain with lots of powerful telescopes. They host a few nighttime Star Parties each month and we were lucky to snag tickets. In the outdoor amphitheater, they showed us lots of planets and constellations with a powerful laser pointer. We were actually able to see the streaking band of the Milky Way. Then, they let us look through several telescopes where we saw: Jupiter and four moons, Saturn, Orion Nebula and the Andromeda Galaxy.