Sher Online

Starting out: bonus pics Lizelle took of Carol, Marilyn, and me at the end the Window Trail yesterday. We’ve just been to the Window and are heading back. The last two pics show us navigating a set of stairs. Not as easy as it might seem! You have to be very careful where to place your feet: misstep, lose your balance, not too much chance to recover, so oops! (In the two stairs pics, note that we’re each one step further down. In the last, I’m putting my poles together to better navigate that thin step at the bottom, that leads on to a slope. Egads.)

Now to day 5 activities.

Walking to breakfast, I noticed clouds moving quickly over the mountain and caught a picture. The weather has cooled down a bit, so I’m guessing this is what caused the mist-cloud.

First scheduled activity up this morning was the horseback ride. We got to the Big Bend Stables in Terlingua and heard some stories from one of the cowboys. After getting the legal paperwork out of the way, it was time to get mounted up. This was a well-practiced operation. There were three mounting blocks (round) that one person at a time stood on to get on their horse. Everyone got a quick lesson on guiding their horse, then it was the next person’s turn.

All worked out well, except that when I got in the saddle, I realized I wasn’t going to be comfortable enough for a two-hour ride. My hips just didn’t want to spread that wide! Reluctantly, I decided to forego the ride and just hang out in the van. No worries. Caught up on some email, a podcast, and took a nap. Then everyone was back. I saw some limping after getting off the horses, but most walked that off. 🙂

Then it was back to the lodge for lunch and some free time before dinner. I just hung out, took a shower, did some reading and a little packing since we’re leaving here tomorrow morning.

The visitor center had a cool statue of a Peregrine Falcon, so that’s the first pic. I took it on the way to dinner. We left right after dinner for the Panther Junction visitor center where a ranger gave a Dark Sky program talk. It was cold, windy, and partly cloudy. Still a full moon. Between that and the clouds, we didn’t see many stars or other night sky features, but the talk was interesting. When the group went to look through the telescopes, we booked it back to the lodge. We’re going to the McDonald Observatory tomorrow night, so we’ll get those views and more.

Once we got back, I ventured out to see if I could get some pictures of the moon with my mini-tripod. You can judge the results! (This is basically the view from my room here at the lodge.) The moon was much clearer than that, but it seems that’s the best the iPhone can do.–or that I can figure out how to make it do. It was a pretty striking view, I have to say.

Tomorrow we load up for the trip back to Marfa…after a morning hike. But we get to sleep in a bit. Bag load-up isn’t until 8:45!