Time to relax?

Started a mini vacation today. I'm maxed out for my vacation time at work. In order to fix this problem I took today and Friday off to give myself a long holiday weekend. I'm getting Labor day off too, that's the nice thing about working a government job. Thursday, today, is vacation time. Tomorrow is a floating holiday. I'm also getting close to being maxed out on my comp time.

I got called out last night at 6 pm and didn't finish up until 11:30. So I added 5 1/2 hours to my comp time. And I also get 6.1 hours of vacation time every two weeks so I won't burn but 1.9 hours of vacation time. So, where am I going with this? I'm going to have to take more time off. Which I am going in another 10 days.

I'm taking a vacation and going to the Big Bend area. I'll be there for 5 days and 4 nights, starting on the 13th. I'm really looking forward to it. I'm going to be staying in Fort Davis at the wildflower cottages (www.wildflowercottages.net). I stayed there last year and really enjoyed it. I'm really looking forward to returning to stay there again.

I'm planning on going to the McDonald Observatory. I planned my time there to coincide as closely as possible to the new moon. Last time I went there was a full moon so I didn't get to see much through the telescopes. This visit should be better.

I'm going to grab breakfast at The Grub Shack when I take a day trip along the River Road (Ranch Road 170 from Terlingua to Presidio). Going to really work out my new camera that day. I am also going to try to stop by The Field Lab to see it and meet John Wells. I'm really impressed by what he's doing. Living his dream and doing it "off the grid". You can read his blog here; http://thefieldlab.blogspot.com/ .

I'm going to visit the museum on the campus of Sul Ross University. I was told last time that it's a really nice museum. I will probably roll some sightseeing in Alpine into that time while I'm there. Not too sure if I'll go to Marfa for sightseeing. I think I will though because I didn't do that last time either. And I do plan to go watch for the Marfa Lights at least once, again to give my camera a work out.

That, in a nutshell, is my vacation plans.

I mentioned my new camera. I sold my Canon XSi and used the money from that to buy a Canon T1i. I like the new camera. Google it for specs, I'm not going into them here. But, you can see some of the pictures I took with it here: http://czardastx.smugmug.com/Nature
I took these photos last weekend at the San Gabriel Park in Georgetown, TX. I'm really anxious to see how well my camera will work in the Big Bend environment in bright daylight and during the night. The nights there are really dark. That's one of the reasons I love going out there, they have so many stars in their sky and it's so quiet and slow. You just don't get that RUSH, RUSH, RUSH that is so typical of the Austin area of TX.

Keep an eye here and on my smugmug account for stories and photos from my vacation.

http://czardastx.smugmug.com