We're spending two nights at Brantley State Park which is near Carlsbad, NM. It is a nice park but we have enjoyed the first two state parks in New Mexico more. This park is on a reservoir lake so it is not very pretty or interesting. It has a very nice campground with nicely spaced sites, but being desert lands, not a lot of trees so the wind whips through here most of the day.
The reason we came here was to see Carlsbad Caverns. This morning we drove 40 miles to the caves and did the self guided tour for about 3 hours. The cavern is amazing and huge. It is more limited in colors than Kartchner Caves. The colors were all white, ivory and tans. The size of the whole cave and the rooms was huge.
Tonight they had a star gazing event at the park. At about 8:00 pm the space station came flying straight over the park. As it came over the horizon it gained speed until it was right overhead and moving fast. From horizon to horizon it all took less than 5 minutes. It is a bright white and the size of the biggest stars. We both enjoyed watching it.
After the space station had disappeared we viewed the moon through 1 of 2 telescopes they had set up. Amazing craters on the quarter moon tonight.
We are off to Texas tomorrow morning. We'll spend a week or more crossing the state. Our speed we be determined by what we see along the way. We're definitely not in a hurry. Our general direction is toward San Antonio, but we have been known to wander as we go.
Life is good.
If you end up in San Antonio, be sure to head down to the Riverwalk. Not only is it super awesome to walk around and a short distance from the Alamo, it has the Saltgrass Steakhouse. One of the top five meals of my life.
ReplyDeleteSeeing the space station sounds cool. Was it still a tiny dot, even through the telescope?
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ReplyDeleteTrin, The space station was like the brightest and biggest star and we watched it with just our eyes. It was moving fast enough that a telescope would make it difficult to keep up with it's movement.
ReplyDeleteMatt, We will be in San Antonio in two days. We will be doing all the usual tourist things. We'll check out the steakhouse.