Let me tell you what I've been up to:
I left Austin on Wednesday (missing my friends there!) and spent the night in San Antonio... which is where we watched Thor. After San Antonio, I headed out west. Ended up in Fort Stockton. Truly a riveting place. In fact, it is so riveting that the happening place in town is Wal-Mart. The Wal-Mart was a total blast from the past. It hasn't been updated since the early 90's. There was also swimming in the pool, but really nothing awesome happening in Fort Stockton.
Next stop on the list was Fort Davis. Fort Davis is a small town in the Davis Mountains. It kinda reminded me of Stillwater, Minnesota. A half an hour outside of Fort Davis is the MacDonald Observatory. Checked out the daytime tour which was about the sun. After that, I got to check out Fort Davis... well, not the actual fort, but I did wander around the town a bit and got in some good photography. Went back to the observatory for the Twilight program, took some great sunset shots, and went to a star party. Now, let me tell you, if you ever get the chance to go to a star party... DO IT!!! Super cool! The MacDonald Observatory is in the darkest place in the continental US. It's like it was perfect timing. The moon didn't rise until around 12:30am and the Milky Way wasn't visible, so all the stars were visible. Then, they set up a few telescopes that pointed out certain things... for instance, I got to see Saturn at 300x magnification. It was so bright! It was awesome. I've never seen so many stars!!