Marfa Lights Viewing Station

Alpine, Texas

The Marfa Lights viewing station has improved your night time visit there by quite a lot. My first visit there was by parking at the side of the road and standing in the ditch to watch for the lights. That was over thirty years ago. Now you have this nice facility with restrooms, telescopes and sitting areas.

Here is the sign that tells you how this nice facility came about.


This bench sign has some information on the geology of the area.


This view is toward the south west. In it you can see a couple of the seating positions for night time viewing. Actually they work well for daytime viewing also. One of them made a good lunch table for me.

For the view to the southeast a walk over to the corner braces on the fence was taken. Climb up the braces and snap a picture, then step down into a sticker bush that left a present in my shoe.




At the first bench was this sign to talk about the Marfa Lights.

The original sign is still out by the highway for more information.

And something that my brain did not remember knowing about is the airfield that was out there.


When the Team returned to the Castle we looked the area up on Google Earth and sure enough there are the remains of a large airfield out there. The viewing station is apparently right at what used to be the entrance to the air station. This was a very interesting stop to me.

Today was spent looking around at some locations from my past trips here. Sometimes old memories can be good. About an hour was spent at the bottom of Madera Canyon at the roadside rest area. Relaxing and doing my shoulder exercises was great. See the dumb bells on the table.

If you ever come out this way, it is a highly recommended peaceful place. It is on hwy 118 a few miles north of McDonald Observatory.

The storms and cooler temperatures are due in tonight. They are right on schedule. When the Team came back through Fort Davis it was raining and 63 degrees. And now it is time to rest from trying to have tooooo much fun. TheOFM.