Editor’s Note: This story was written by Matt Adams for Texas Highways magazine.
After driving solo seven hours from Fort Worth to Marathon in West Texas, I was ready for my head to hit the pillow. But I had traveled out there in search of stars, and it was stars I was determined to see, tired or not. Fortunately, at the Marathon Motel and RV Park, where I was staying, is a man named Bill Ramey, whose enthusiasm for astronomy is enough to give even the most road-weary traveler a jolt.
Established in 1940, the Marathon Motel and RV Park has become an increasingly popular destination for people like me over the past quarter century. That’s thanks in part to its location in the Big Bend region’s Dark Sky Reserve, a nearly nine-million-acre area where light pollution is virtually nonexistent. But the motel has also garnered a stellar reputation among stargazers for its unique Skypark, created by owner Danny Self.
The Skypark, situated in the middle of the approximately three-acre property, far from any artificial light source, has multiple observation pads for visitors with their own telescopes and astrophotography equipment. There is also a roll-top observatory housing several remote-viewing scopes and an area set up with a 20-inch and a 24-inch Newtonion reflector telescope, which are brought out for the motel’s open-invite star parties.
