Since we missed our star party due to the weather on Tuesday, I managed to get some emails out to the McDonald Observatory requesting at least a guided tour for our group to make up for missing the star party. Thankfully, they managed to work us in on Thursday afternoon!
We split into two groups for the guided tour, so the older two kids went with the grandparents and the younger two went with Doug, Tanya, Chris and me. While we waited for our tour, we explored the little museum area of the visitor center and, naturally, the gift shop.
The guided tour took us up to the different telescopes on the property, although we weren't able to enter any buildings due to COVID restrictions.
To be honest, the guided tour was somewhat interesting but not nearly as great as we had expected. So many people have told us, you HAVE to go to the McDonald Observatory. Apparently, all the protocols because of the pandemic have changed the entire experience. The tour guide was pretty technical about the telescopes, which I'm sure some people appreciate, but when you have young kids--well, they were pushed to their limits of patience. It seems we'll have to revisit the observatory someday over more normal circumstances.
When we got back to camp, my mom's cousin Betty Ann and her husband Tom from Alpine joined us for a visit and dinner. It was fun catching up with them and sitting in the cold around our makeshift "fire."
This was the last day for Drew and Jamie, because they needed to head home the next day to get Barnabas the beagle out of the kennel. We were sad to see them go!
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