Mammoth's Four Day Adventure, Part 2

                                                               The wind came down from mountains cold
                                                               And like a tide it roared and rolled;
                                                               The branches groaned, the forest moaned,
                                                               And leaves were laid upon the mould.
                                                                                                        --J. R. R. Tolkien

Friday morning arrived with geese! Honking made a delicious racket to wake up to. Plus ducks and other quacky things. Sadly, I didn't spring out of bed and run outside to enjoy them. My sleep had been, to say the least, less than adequate. When I crawled into bed I was at the perfect pre-sleep stage. The bed was soft, the covers cushy. Mammoth was intermittently rocking in the howls of gusty wind but I didn't expect that to keep me awake.

But Zack, our snitty little dog, wasn't having it. It wasn't safe to leave him loose to roam around the RV floor at night. Even if we blocked the step so he couldn't fall down it, after a stressful day of travel he just might decide to take a dump in a far corner. He's a Shit-zu, and has never been completely housebroken.

So the plan was that he sleep in his cage. I think I mentioned on the last trip some issues regarding that plan. If so, I apologize for the repeat--here we were again.

He panted and whined and started to yip.  Note that we've never had these problems at home, even after he was confined to the cage after back surgery.  But who could blame him now? He was in a strange place with strange lights coming in and gale-force winds rocking the floor. While he could hear me speaking to him, he couldn't smell me.

Just like last time, I gave up and went to the sofa. Mischief managed.

But enough with the nightly terrors--on to the day!  Oh, the day!  Weather-wise, not what we'd hoped for. The wind moderated a little but was still murder when you faced into it.   Without the wind chill, I'd have been wearing only a light shirt over my teeshirt. With the wind, a heavy fiberfill jacket over two shirts and a hoodie was more acceptable.

The sun was well hidden behind the clouds. Plan A would have been to walk around the park and fish a little, but that was scuttered after I checked the weather and found out that it wasn't likely to turn sunny until afternoon. On to Plan B.

Longhorn Caverns State Park and the cave tour. We got there just after a tour started, but that was okay because the ticket lady informed us that we could get six dollars off with coupons from the park. Since we were only five minutes away with time to kill, we tootled back and got them. And also had a great time chatting with the lady at the park entrance. She informed us that the winds were going to die out at six o'clock...but we didn't think to ask which six o'clock.













Great cave; great tour guide. There were only two other people, plus their little boys, on the tour with us. We could have asked a lot more questions and gotten a lot more information if we'd been in the mood. But we were in a quiet mood and content to be passive spectators. I've been in a lot of caves in my life....

Aside: a lot? Mammoth; Wind; that one in Yellowstone; Innerspace; probably a few growing up and certainly a few I don't remember.  Still I never met a cave I didn't like.

This one has an awesome history. Most interesting to me was the CCC  buildings and the Mexican Free-Tailed Bat. Apparently there was a large population of them living in the cave in the 30's and they produced a buttload of guano.  But when the state government decided to turn it into a  tourist attraction that would rival Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico and bring all those tourist dollars home, they sent in the CCC and the bats left. All that lives there now are a few Eastern Pipistrelle bats, which are loners. And a toad, which we saw.















And this weird rock:

 

Highlight of the trip was our tour guide demonstrating the glow from phosphorus atoms in the stone, after she excited them with the flashlight beam--






When we got back it was nearing time to start supper. The wind was still gusting, but not so much that we couldn't build a cautious fire in our little grill with Mammoth RV for a wind break. Sufficient for steak and grilled vegetables.

And to see a Golden-Fronted Woodpecker--
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This is not my photo, of course, but one pirated from https://www.audubon.org