The Great Texas Road Trip Thank-You Tour: 56. The Davis Mountains, No. 2

View from our campsite at Davis Mountains State Park

I woke up before the sun, a bit chilled, but mainly exasperated with the limited sleeping positions available on a folding cot.  I stirred for half an hour or so, and finally decided I'd rather deal with cold than body aches.  So I did the hard act of getting out of bed.  That is the single most difficult moment of the day when removed from the comforts of home.  Not only is the air cold, but everything you must slide that body of yours into is cold also.  But, it's either face the biting air or lie there in that mummified position for what seems like forever.  So, I did it.  The odd thing is getting up always remains difficult even though history teaches the camper that life is indeed much better once you get out of bed and start the morning fire.

I started the propane stove first to heat water.  Then I looked around for firewood as we only had a couple of small split juniper pieces from the bundle we brought with us.  I couldn't find much, but it was fun scampering around the gray predawn landscape looking for every little dry twig.  I finally gathered enough to fuel a small flame, and then I set off for more wood.  I had to return quickly though, over and over again, for none of my findings were fatter than my thumb.  About the time the sun pinked the low ridge west of the campsite, the fire was large enough that I was able to throw on the two small split juniper logs left over from the previous night.  That provided enough time to move the kettle from propane burner to the fire and fry up some bacon on the stove.

By the time Marci crawled out from the tent, the sun was up, the hills were golden, and the air was much, much warmer.  The bacon was also done.  We sat at the table slightly shivering, eating our bacon, yogurt and fruit, and downing it down with hot chocolate, while staring at the low golden hills.  

And then we packed up camp.  The day was warming fast, and by the time we had camp cleared, sweaters were off and shade was more pleasant than sunlight.

Davis Mountains State Park is in a small side canyon over the first, low foothill ridge of the range.  Though still beautiful, it is the least dramatic part of the Davis Mountains.  It is as if Mount Rainier National Park somehow did not include Mount Rainier.  I'm not sure what explains it other than the state simply could not purchase any other acreage in the mostly privately owned range.  Such oddities never occur west of Interstate 25, where public lands comprise most of the states. It baffles me that all those western adventurers, who spend every weekend up in the mountains or out in the desert camping, hunting, fishing or riding ATV's are always griping about all the public BLM and national forest lands.  You can't recreate on other people's private property.  Take away all the public land and you take away your own lifestyle.  It's like Hugh Hefner lobbying for celibacy and stronger censorship of the content of his magazines.  It's as perplexing as people on public assistance watching Fox News and griping about how many people are on welfare.  If you're a thinking man, sometimes you just have to pull out your brain and toss it out the car window to proceed through contemporary America.  We should all be enlightened because everything we encounter these days is a koan.  There just is no way to proceed logically through our times.  It takes some other twisted form of post-modern thinking to navigate through twenty-first century America.  

So too with the Davis Mountains.   Davis Mountains State Park is no more part of the Davis Mountains than Sacramento is a beach city.  It gets you close to the experience, but not close enough.  Still, it's nice that the park is there.  It provides a place to set up your tent the night prior to experiencing the range for real.

McDonald Observatory, on the other hand, is the best place for the public to observe the Davis Mountains.  It provides a real mountain view no matter whether your home perspective is from Kansas or Colorado.  It holds up to even the most snooty of western expectations, like mine.  Unlike so many things in Texas, it is not a tall tale invented in the imagination of a people canned under the pressure of constant heat and humidity, sizzling in a landscape flat as a skillet.  No wonder they see the alps when the they see a knoll west of Austin.  Anything to escape a Houston reality is worth dreaming up--the more far-fetched the better.

Yet the Davis mountains are real.  I had been high in the Colorado Rockies the week before, about as high as one can get on a highway in the continental United States, and still the view from McDonald Observatory was breath-taking.  Standing there, looking over big blotches of shade crawl over pine and oak speckled ridges obliterated any thought of Facebook, TV, or the latest political atrocity.  All one did is look and see what life could be like if we didn't work so damn hard at disconnecting ourselves from all that matters.

One of the many views from McDonald Observatory

And then we did what you always do on vacation.  We got in the car and left paradise behind.  Such an odd,odd thing to do.  What motivates such human folly?  A cat would roll in the gravely sand in the sun and say, "This is fine; I'll just stay here and be".