Tag Archives: Davis Mountains

West Texas wildfires

These Davis Mountains fires are out now but this is the way they looked at their worst last Sunday. That’s McDonald Observatory’s giant HET in the foreground. Photo by Frank Cianciolo of the observatory’s visitor center.

Home from the trail

Still a little dizzy from 6.5 hours on the road to get home from Fort Davis, but it was worth it. Time flies at 90 mph, which you can do on I-10 from about 20 miles east of Junction all the way to Balmorhea. The speed limit is 80 mph but, of course, no one drives the speed limit in Texas or anywhere else. Burns a lot of gas, though. It’s mostly flat land so not many curves to force you to slow down. We were surprised at the big windmills lining the ridges on the north side of the highway from about Ozona to Fort Stockton. Big three-bladed electricity generators, turning briskly last Monday in a stiff breeze, which continued, Lubbock-like, most of the time we were in the Davis Mountains, but finally settled down Wednesday night. So coming back the big windmills were turning more leisurely. More on the trip later.