Here To There

Only a few hundred miles of Texas to go! The penultimate stop statewise being the McDonald Observatory - which, it turns out 'is equipped with a wide range of state-of-the-art instrumentation for imaging and spectroscopy' - fancy eh? I arrived too late for the guided tour though you can wander around and look at the big white things. That evenings 'star party' (a chance to look through some of their smaller telescopes) was hampered by lots of clouds so it was indoor lecture and demonstration time. This was still worth buying the ticket for and lasted just long enough for the clouds to clear as we left...

One can not traverse the width of Texas without strolling through a portion of it. So the last stop was the Guadalupe Mountains National Park. Steepish mountain roads led to the park headquarters where many trails were on offer. I chose to take the McKittrick Canyon trail, an 8 mile round trip raising 3000ft (mostly the last half mile) - refreshing indeed to be out in some true wilderness.

So, goodbye Texas, hello New Mexico! A pretty rainbow welcomed me into yet another state - ahhh good omens thought I.... Ho ho ho. First up I was once more caught out by the time change which actually occured back in Texas, then I was once again too late to catch last tour of the day this time around the Carlsbad Caverns and finally the van broke down. Bah! My guess is that a wheel bearing had seized and I sit on the roadside awaiting a tow. Three hours and $75 later I'm in Roswell - home of the alien shinanagans and all that jazz.
It was indeed a wheel bearing and the quote to sort it all out comes to $260 +/- eeeek! This represents quite a slice of the budget and could well modify my California plans. So I'm inserting this shameless link to my donations page here and prehaps I'll see San Francisco yet. :)