Texas - Part 5

Drive to Austin

The agenda on the day after the solar eclipse was a drive from San Antonio to Austin. Leaving San Antonio we passed what our guide said was the world's largest pair of cowboy boots created by an artist I'd never heard of. I took a picture from inside the bus instead of going outside in the rain for a better shot.

On the way to Austin the tour planned an extended stop in the town of Fredericksburg originally founded by German immigrants in 1846. Months before this Texas tour I used Google Maps to explore Fredericksburg's location and noticed the town of Luckenbach nearby. Hey, I thought, this must be the town mentioned in Waylon Jennings' well known country song! So, out of curiosity, I zoomed in to the satellite view and noticed there was hardly anything in Luckenbach. Aside from momentary amusement provided by the Luckenbach discovery, I thought no more about it. So it was quite a surprise when our tour guide said we were stopping at Luckenbach on the way to Fredericksburg.

Luckenbach, named after an early German settler, turned out to be a fun mixture of authenticity and tourist trap.

The post office building was filled with antiques.

Behind the post office was an older building and a small music hall with a stage for performers. Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and others have performed here.

There was also a gift shop where we tried on cowboy hats for fun.

After Luckenbach we traveled on to Fredericksburg, about 13 miles away. We were given several free hours to roam around on foot and find a place for lunch. Having some German food in this German-founded town seemed like a good idea, so we set off to find a German restaurant. The first restaurant possibility was guaranteed to be crowded, so we tried a second candidate many blocks further down the main street. The midday temperature had risen to about 90 degrees and we started sweating during the trek. Along the way we passed a building which originally served as the Gillespie County Courthouse from 1882 until 1939. It is now the Pioneer Memorial Library.

A unique wood carving, called the Eagle Tree, stood on library grounds. It was carved from a diseased tree by chainsaw sculptor James Brazeal in 2006. Notice the partially clear sky in the background - one day after the eclipse.

Buildings along the main street had a small town late 1800's look.

Tiring in the heat after several blocks, we eventually came to a German bakery/restaurant where we hoped to find a reasonable chance of finding a seat. Unfortunately, the bakery was small with relatively few tables, all filled. A long waiting line stretched along the sidewalk outside. So on we slogged for another block where we decided to settle on a restaurant without an obvious German name. This restaurant had plenty of empty tables and wonderfully welcomed air conditioning. To our delight we found they served German jagerschnitzel. The jagerschnitzel was excellent and the restaurant was quiet enough for normal conversation! It's getting harder to find a quiet restaurant these days when so many have roaring background levels with blasting music.

After lunch we walked back along the main street stopping in several shops along the way. I liked these two artworks made of clock parts in one of the shops.

A crystal shop had an enormous chandelier near the entrance.

Beautiful crystal sets were on sale, but I found the high prices shocking!

I guess somebody buys these things, but not anyone I know! The shop also displayed this very cool Greek warrior statue.

Fredericksburg was an interesting place. It would be nice to spend more time here on a cooler more leisurely day. This is the birthplace of famous WWII Admiral Chester Nimitz. There was a WWII National Museum of the Pacific War which we didn't have time to visit. But soon it was time to return to our bus. It felt good to sit in air conditioning again. Soon we were on our way to Austin.

Arriving in Austin in late afternoon, we hoped to walk from our hotel to a nearby restaurant for a light dinner. That plan was canceled when thunderstorms and heavy rain began. So we settled for a rather disappointing dinner in the extremely noisy hotel restaurant. Tomorrow would be our last tour day.

Texas - Part 4

Eclipse Day

The primary goal of our Texas trip was to view the total solar eclipse on April 8th. By 6 am on eclipse day we had picked up our boxed breakfast, boarded our bus, and started driving toward the selected viewing site within the totality path. The site was west of San Antonio near the town of Bandera. Tour organizers had wisely chosen to leave quite early to avoid expected heavy eclipse traffic out of San Antonio. Sadly, the sky was almost completely cloudy during the drive, but there were hopes of temporary cloud breaks.

Our site was a rural aging RV site with a large covered building which I will call a music hall. It opened onto a large unobstructed field.

The following panorama shows the area on the other side of the music hall opposite the field side.

Next is a view of the music hall from the courtyard pictured above.

Inside the music hall were lots of tables and a stage for performers at one end.

Since we arrived early we had nothing to do but stroll around the grounds for a while. On our walk we saw some nice yellow flowers growing very close to the ground and a spiky caterpillar on a dry branch.

Tour members began to spread out over the viewing field. Notice the discouraging cloudy sky.

You can see some of the little yellow flowers in the previous picture. I eventually set up my Seestar automated telescope next to some folding chairs I brought from the music hall.

About two hours before the Moon first began covering the Sun there were a few decent breaks in the clouds. So there was a lingering hope to see at least a small portion of the eclipse. I unwisely waited to set up my Seestar until about 30 minutes before partial eclipse phases began. I was afraid Seestar's battery wouldn't last through the entire eclipse. As a result of my delay, I missed the opportunity to align on the Sun while the Sun was still temporarily visible. When I eventually unpacked the Seestar and attempted to align on the Sun, there were too many clouds. The Sun would peek out for 5 seconds then disappear for several minutes before peeking out for a few seconds again. There wasn't enough time for the Seestar to lock on to the Sun. I struggled for quite a while before giving up. To help with alignment I put my jacket on the ground behind the Seestar to better see any shadow the fleeting Sun might cast. Unfortunately, this didn't help. You can see some binoculars on one chair and the tablet that controls the Seestar on another chair.

As totality neared clouds increased to the point where the Sun was completely invisible, so even if I had somehow managed to get the Seestar going, I wouldn't have been able to image totality. If I had aligned early enough instead of waiting, I might have captured some images of the partial phases, however. This really bugs me. A few people were curious about the Seestar. If I had been able to get it working, I would have been able to show real time images on my tablet that would have been as good or better than the few other guys who brought imaging equipment. It would have been fun demonstrating the Seestar to other astrophotography geeks like myself. But none of that happened.

We saw a few very brief glimpses of partial phases with the naked eye through thick clouds, and it did get dark and quiet during actual totality, but that was all we could observe. Here are some scenes in darkness during totality.

After totality there was nothing to see but thick clouds. Nearly everyone migrated into the covered music hall where a country music band began playing. As often happens with live music, the sound level was too high. I can tolerate country music better than hip hop or the kind of music blasted at some recent weddings I've attended. When I stood far from the speakers, or just outside the music hall, the sound level wasn't too bad. I could say it was almost enjoyable at times depending on the song. C hated it, however.

Soon tour guides were encouraging line dancing. Some of our tour group participated, but dancing is not for me. Lots of others were like me. Someone suggested we could leave early and return to San Antonio instead of staying at the music hall for several more hours and having the catered dinner provided there. To their credit, tour organizers offered to send two buses back to San Antonio for those who wished to go. We quickly signed up for the early trip back.

Tour organizers planned extended time at the music hall to avoid anticipated traffic jams back to San Antonio after the eclipse. Turns out they were right. We spent about three hours on a bus stuck in enormous traffic backups on small rural roads because hoards of people had driven to see the eclipse nearby. But we did eventually make it back to San Antonio where we had some gloriously free hours to get dinner somewhere on the Riverwalk.

By luck we came upon an empty table right on the river.

This was our view down the river.

It was a lovely spot, but what you can't understand from the pictures alone is the sound level and disappointing food. A jazz band playing at a nearby restaurant featured a shrieking, blaring, amplified trumpet whose sound echoed down the canal. It was, frankly, awful. A strolling guitar player came to our table and started strumming, but we couldn't hear the guitar right next to us because the amplified trumpet was so loud! I searched the menu looking for something without burning spices. I chose stuffed flounder with an orzo side which the waiter assured me had no hot spices. The fish was not bad, but two bites of the orzo had my mouth on fire. I really don't enjoy any kind of hot spice. It was pretty hard to avoid hot spicy food in Texas with all the TexMex stuff on menus.

While cooling my mouth fire I noticed an interesting play of evening light on a distant high building across the way.

After dinner we made a last attempt to stroll past attractions on busier parts of the Riverwalk. It wasn't long before we gave up battling the crowds. C was particularly worried about getting bumped off the narrow path into the river by careless walkers. So we returned to our hotel and ended our day.

It was a major disappointment to miss seeing the solar eclipse! There's no one to blame. It was just simple bad luck. Tour organizers had chosen the best possible site based on cloud cover statistics. We were in the best USA statistical location, but there was always a chance for clouds. Satellite images of cloud cover during the eclipse showed several partially clear areas south and north of our location, but, unfortunately, we were stuck under a region of continuous cloud.

Next morning we would drive to Austin.

Texas - Part 3

San Antonio - Day 2

Our second day in San Antonio started an hour or two later than usual, giving us some welcome extra rest time. After enjoying another excellent hotel breakfast buffet we headed to the San Antonio Botanical Gardens. Near the entrance we encountered this colorful rabbit sculpture.

Soon, equipped with a site map, we set out to explore the grounds. This panorama looks out over part of the grounds towards the rose garden.

Notice the thickly clouded sky in the previous picture. Sadly, one day before the solar eclipse, cloudy forecasts were coming true.

I'm usually not keen on visiting botanical gardens, but I'm also frequently surprised by how interesting they turn out to be. That was the case today as we walked along pathways lined with regional plants.

The thorny, skeletal plant in the next picture looked particularly scary!

Some pretty flowers were sparsely distributed along the way.

We came upon a collection of ant lion traps. Someone gently disturbed the side slope of one, and we could see a quick temporary response at the bottom. If ants could dream, ant lions would star in ant nightmares!

Of course there had to be cactus displays with strange growths and flowers.

These odd looking cactus growths seem alien.

Our final botanical stop was in the peaceful Japanese Garden.

Next, we boarded our bus and drove to the Witte Museum which featured a variety of exhibits mostly about Texas geology, wildlife, fossils, culture, indigenous people, and history. There were dioramas illustrating Texas wildlife like the javelinas and wildcat shown below.

I was particularly impressed with two enormous fossils from the Cretaceous era. First, was the frightening large head of Deinosuchus riograndensis, an alligator relative whose body was 11-12 meters long weighing up to five tons. The bite force pressure was calculated to be 23,000 pounds per square inch. It's hard to tell from the next picture how shockingly big the head is because there's no human sized object nearby for reference, but it was roughly a meter long if not more. Standing next to the skull give me chills!

The next impressive fossil might be even more horrifying - a complete skeleton of Quetzalcoatlus Northropi said to be possibly the largest known flying animal. This time you can judge the size by comparing to the man standing nearby. Imagine standing before one of these living creatures in fear for your life!

I was particularly interested in the meteorite exhibit. First below is a cross section cut through the Odessa Meteorite discovered in 1922 in Ector County, Texas. The iron-nickel interior shows the characteristic Widmanstatten pattern formed by extremely slow cooling from a molten state. So this meteorite probably came from the core of a violently shattered large asteroid.

A similar internal pattern was present in a fragment of the Canyon Diablo meteor also on display. The Canyon Diablo meteor formed the famous Meteor Crater in Arizona.

When a large energetic meteor strikes the ground it can melt earth as well as itself. The molten stuff flies out of the crater and eventually solidifies in a debris field around the crater. Tektites are bits of this solidified debris. Some tektites are quite beautiful like these green glassy examples called Moldavites formed by a huge impact crater 15 million years ago in southern Germany.

Another nice tektite on display was yellowish Libyan Desert Glass. The display information said sand would have to be raised to a temperature of about 1600 centigrade to form this glass, so a meteor impact long ago is the probable cause. Some of this glass turned up in Tutankhamun's chest plate.

An amazing collection of elaborately decorated dresses and trains were displayed on the second floor. The dresses were part of San Antonio's Fiesta celebration over the years. Next is how the exhibit is described.

Here is a small sample of the many spectacular dresses on display.

Next are examples of dresses and trains worn by two past Fiesta Queens.

While waiting for our bus after leaving the museum a butterfly posed nicely on some flowers.

The next stop was a boat tour of the San Antonio Riverwalk. We were fortunate to have an excellent pilot/guide for the tour.

Here are three views we saw while cruising along the river.

Certain sections with restaurants and shops were quite crowded and noisy. It could be difficult walking along the narrow path at times with all the jostling people looking at their phones.

The Riverwalk is not just one straight channel. It has some side channels and loops branching off the main waterway. Our guide took us on a variety of loops and branches. We saw this odd sculpture at one of the intersections.

Boats similar to ours also serve as water taxis to transport people up and down the Riverwalk. There were designated stations along the way where folks could board and exit the water taxis. Sometimes bridges arched over the canal so people could get from one side to the other.

We passed some unexpected things along the way including a theater section with a stage on one side of the canal and amphitheater seating on the opposite side. As we cruised by a group of young dancers were performing tap dance routines for the audience. We sailed by between the audience and the stage, temporarily having first row seats. We also passed this cowboy and cattle sculpture.

Most surprising was the resting snake on the riverbank.

After the river cruise we walked wearily back to our hotel and passed this interesting new/old building combination along the way.

The professional astronomer accompanying our tour gave an informative and entertaining illustrated talk after our evening dinner at the hotel. He did his best to give an optimistic assessment of the weather for the next day's solar eclipse, but prospects were poor. The best we could hope for, I thought, was an occasional break in the clouds. Here is the posted agenda for the next day.

The 5:45 start time next morning was an incentive for early bedtime after the astronomer presentation ended.