Davis SP

 More on last nights star party.  The presentation started at 7, the narrator rambled on about history and astronomy for a while, admitting finally that he was stalling until it was dark enough. The got into a constellation presentation. He had a laser pointer to point out certain stars in his talk; showing us a few constellations and stars and how to use them as guides to find others.  It got chilly sitting on a stone bench in the low 20s. One couple dressed in camo had their camo seat pads too.  Idea for next year!   

After that they had 5 telescopes set up to see objects.  There was Jupiter with it’s 4 Galilean moons, the Double Cluster, Amdromeda galaxy, Orion Nebula and Mars. 

By then we were pretty frosty so after a visit to the center to warm up we headed home.  

This morning was a nippy 11 degrees.  The water was frozen again but we keep some jugs of tap water inside for this mornings.  

After lunch it had warmed up into the low 50s so we took a 3.5 mile hike on the Old CCC Road / trail up the mountain beside camp.  A quarter mile up we ran into 2 deer.   We had seen 5 deer last evening, they just watched us walk by and look at them.  This time was a bit different.  The big doe looked at the three of us (Skye was on leash) and came walking over towards us.  Kind of a stomp stomp movement.  I couldn’t get a good look at the smaller deer behind her.  I’ve seen deer stomp a foot before as it tried to entice me to move so it could figure out what I was.  This was different.  It came up quite close looking intently at Skye while seeming to ignore me.  Carlene was behind me.  I told her to get out her camera. Next thing we knew the doe charged the last 5 feet to Skye.  The doe was on Skye and Skye was getting back at the doe as I yelled at the doe to break it up. As soon as I yelled the doe took off,  if only 20 yards. They then stared at each other while the other deer crossed the trail in front of us.  Apparently it was this years fawn, still under mothers protection against that cousin-of-a-coyote.  Also it seems that in this case standing still and non-threatening was still threatening.  You’d think that park campground deer would be as familiar with dogs as they are of people.  Didn’t care about us.  

Nothing else exciting today.  

It’s cold outdoors. No heated place to get internet.  I’ll post photos tomorrow. 

Campsite 56

First day deer sighting, 

possibly the same deer but not the incident.  

Heading up to McDonald Observatory

Skye and her adversary doe, after the confrontation