Fredericksburg, Fort Davis and El Paso, Texas

 Fredericksburg, Texas was one of those places we had visited before and said we need to come back and spend more time. We started our visit at the Wild Seed Farm and checked out all of the beautiful fields of wild flowers. Josie bought a small plant for the RV and she hopes it will do as well as her Christmas Cactus. We spent the next day at the Museum of the Pacific War. We spent hours here and did not see everything. World War II Fleet Admiral Chester W Nimitz was born in Fredericksburg and he was prominently featured in the museum. Later that evening we drove over to The Old Tunnel State park to see the 3 million bats leave for a night of hunting. On our drive home in the dark we counted 59 deer along the side of the road. I was able to play a round of golf at the Lady Bird Golf course, named after Lady Bird Johnson. We always like trying the local cuisine. Since Fredericksburg was founded by German Immigrants there are many German Restaurants. We had a nice meal at the Fredericksburg Brewery of sausages and schnitzel. One of the highest rated places to eat in Fredericksburg on Trip Advisor was Jennie's Smoked Burgers and Tornado Fries. The burgers are made from smoked brisket that is ground into hamburger and then grilled. The tornado fries were more like very thinly sliced potato chips cooked on a wooden skewer and covered with a spicy seasoning. We drove over to Luckenbach, Texas on Saturday afternoon to see where Willie, Waylon and the Boys used to play. The band that was scheduled to play did not show up so we did not stay very long. On our last evening in town we attended a production of "Bare Foot In The Park" at the local little theater. It was very professionally done.  

We had planned to spend two weeks in Fredericksburg but some RV friends told us about the McDonald Observatory in Fort Davis, Texas so we cut our visit short and drove west to Fort Davis. We took the tour of the Observatory and were able to see two of the largest telescopes in the world. One of the Astronomers gave us a 45 minute lecture on how these telescopes work and what they are looking for. While visiting one of the scopes we had a Roadrunner fighting his image in the glass door to the observatory. It was very entertaining but you had to feel sorry for him as he pecked away at the glass. The next evening we attended a "Star Party" where we were able to look through many of the smaller telescopes they have on the grounds. We looked at the moon with a 555 magnification telescope and it was amazing to see the mountains and craters so close up. We also looked at many star clusters that were over 5000 light years away. We could not take any pictures of the event due to a strict rule about no white light. 

On our final day in the area we drove the 70 mile scenic drive through the Davis Mountains.  We started and finished at the Davis County Courthouse. We first saw an antelope doe who was wearing a radio collar and pink ear tag. We then were very lucky to find a band of  Bighorn Sheep alongside the road. The desert mountain scenery was beautiful, with the cacti and wild flowers in bloom. We stopped for a picnic lunch at one of the turnouts. 

I was able to get out birding one morning and got some great pictures at Davis Mountains State Park. While there, a Javelina decided to come in for a cool drink. 

We have driven through El Paso many times in our travels but never stopped, so we decided to stop this time and see a few sites. On our way from Fort Davis we stopped at the Prada Marfa store. Now this is not really a Prada store but a sort of art display literally in the middle of nowhere. We passed it last year on our way to Big Bend National Park and I looked it up on line to see what it was all about. Our first night in town we went to an El Paso Chihuahuas Triple A baseball game. It is one of the best minor league stadiums we have been to. On another day we visited Rosa's Cantina, the bar made famous by Marty Robbins song "El Paso". It is not really known for sure if he had ever visited the Cantina but it makes for a good story. We then went to the El Paso Brewing Company for a brew and finished the evening off with a very underwhelming meal at the top rated Mexican restaurant in El Paso. How it got that rating we are not sure but the food was very bland and the guacamole was so salty we took it home and added more tomatoes to make it better. On our final night in town we drove to Fabins, Texas and had dinner at the Cattleman's Restaurant at Indian Bluffs Ranch. Our friend Darleen told us she had the best steak she had ever eaten here and she was right. Both Josie and I had the filet and they were perfect. 

Tomorrow we drive west towards San Diego, California.