Mammoth in the Bad Lands, Day 2

Tuesday June 21

The plan for the day was to explore the canyon until time for dinner and the musical performance at eight. They had an option to purchase dinner before the show, but the menu was simply barbeque brisket and fixins eaten on picnic tables outside. We'll enjoy gumbo, noodles and rice in the air-conditioned comfort of home, then take showers so we'll be all clean and cool before sitting outside to feed the insects their supper.

We took an early morning (okay, ten o'clock) hike to see how far it was to the amphitheater for the show. Answer: not far at all, and certainly not far enough to make it worth the trouble of getting in the eep, driving over, finding a parking spot, getting out....etc.  That settled, we went for a scenic drive.

Very scenic. And some walks, too. The coolest hiking trail in the park--or at least the coolest one we were up to trying--was the Rock Garden trail. It was a tortuous climb in, up and around piles and piles of hoodoos and boulders and all sorts of interesting things sticking out of the ground. Ed went a little way and then stopped and waited; I went on. Every second I was hoping the trail would climb up over the hill and present a scenic view into the next canyon over, but no luck with that. When you try to go to the top of a hill--down a valley and up a couple of switchbacks and around and up and up to the top, all you see is--

 





More hill.  In this case with a decoration.

 

 

That's the nature of hills, and I wasn't disappointed.  Finally I'd gone far enough that I decided to scramble up the rocks and get an overlook of where Ed was sitting, but just as I started up this rock,

 I was blocked by the owner of the terrain:

Up close:

There was no point disturbing him just to scramble up some rocks I had no real business scrambling up.  So I returned.

A few birds -- Lark Sparrow, left, and Bullock's Oriole, right

And a turkey, unfocused

I forgot to mention that we started off our morning at the gift shop. That was a mistake. They had tons of tee-shirts, but as Murphy would have it, the only one that I really liked was only available in size small.  My second choice was only available in black and I don't look that good in black these days. (Too old; too many wrinkles)  So I passed them by, but not before Ed had chosen presents for the grandkids and his mothers, plus some new coffee cups for us.  One of our old ones was chipped and I never liked them all that much, anyway. So there went our trip budget.

View from our window

When we returned to camp, I had a quick lunch and then took Molly on a long apology-for-planning-to-leave-you-tonight walk. We went back past the gift shop and over to the wildlife viewing blind, which was just a little trickling water feature. At a different time of year, that would be a great wildlife attraction. But now there was still plenty of pools of water left in the creek, and even a continuous flow in spots of it.

We continued on, paralleling the road on our right and the creek on our left, choosing whichever trail seemed to keep going in our chosen direction. The trail soon turned very cool and shady, up against a red rock bluff. Not a really tall one, but enough to give us some shade and some interesting rocks to look at.

Trail pics:

         Couple of hoodoos
I guess we went on for an hour. On the way back, we had to detour to the road to avoid some people playing in the creek with their dog, who was not on leash, of course. I don't blame people for doing that, but it makes it harder for me to walk Molly--what with her bad attitude and her tendency for drawing attention from mean dogs.

Walking on the road was really hot--we were glad to return to supper in the coolness of the Mammoth RV. Did I mention that instead of paying for the "captive audience" barbeque supper offered by the musical production, we chose to eat homemade gumbo in our cool Mammoth cave? It was good!

I wish I could say that about the musical. It wasn't bad, that's all I can say. There were no fireworks at the end (burn ban, remember?) but there was a water fountain show with colored lights. And some spirited dancing numbers, too. A few of the singers had pretty nice voices, and it moved along nicely.

Ed's favorite part was when they exploded an unexpected bolt of thunder, LOUD. Loud enough to echo in the canyon and loud enough to set off people's car alarms in the parking lot. He loves to have his scootles scared off.

The show started at 8:15 and probably lasted two hours, with intermission. After our ten-minute walk back to camp, it was a quarter till eleven--way after my bedtime. I was so tired I didn't eat any snack or read any books to unwind--just went to bed. And then lay awake for half of the night, brain on fire, body itching all over from bug bites, and very restless. After all the walking of the day, how was that possible?

Miserable.