We got up rather early--at night we were able to open our bedroom window shades and so when morning came at 6am, it shone right in, giving us a natural and pleasant wake-up call. There was no especial rush about the morning, although the weather was gradually getting warmer each day, so I wanted to walk a few of the nearby trails before it got really hot. We got on the road at about 9am, I guess.
Our first stop was the fossil trail, a little boardwalk around a dry wash. At intervals on the way were signs with preserved fossil specimens from the area and informative explanations. More interesting to me was the cross section diagram of the strata in which each fossil was found--most were at least one layer or two below where we were walking.
But most interesting were the two paleontologists (maybe students) digging under a small nylon shelter in the middle of the wash. They were uncovering the fossil bones of a medium sized animal and--my apologies--I didn't catch the name of what type of animal. As we watched, they talked about the excavation. It appeared they'd been working about one week and had found a few small fossil bones and were now working on the clavicle and could see a backbone coming into view next to it. They said the discovery had been made and reported by a park visitor, who'd noticed the strange shapes surfacing through the mud wash. I guess from what I could see, they were digging about eight inches down. They were digging with what appeared to be an icepick--a small, pointed tool which they were hitting with a little hammer. I guess that way they were able to break away the mud and not risk tearing up the fossil.
So cool.
After that we went on to a couple of short walks called the "Door Trail"
and the "Window Trail". The parking lot for those was so crowded and
the number of people milling around so large, I didn't really want to
stop. But a parking spot opened up down at the end and we walked around a
little bit.
After that we came back and walked the "Cliff
Trail", which was basically just a boardwalk with a lot of stair steps
making a circle through cedars along a cliff. Really quite lovely, and I
saw a spotted towhee singing his little heart out. But there was
nothing much to recommend it. Unless, of course, you have kids who need
to blow off energy. We didn't, so we returned.
Somehow it was time for lunch by then. Or almost time, after doing the dishes. We took a longish lunch break and then headed "to town." Ed wanted to fill up the Jeep with gas, so I checked the nearest gas stations and noticed a place called "Wall Drug." in the town of Wall. Just 20 minutes north of the park. I'd heard of that somewhere and sometime and have no memory where or how. But nonetheless, Wall was the larger of the nearby towns so that's where we went.
And yes, my vague memory was spot on. Wall Drug is this huge tourist trap with food. It consists of five or so interconnected buildings with a big cafe in the back. We didn't go to the cafe or even look at the menu, which was a shame. But we just weren't hungry at that point. There was a nice ice cream store, which we stared at through the windows, and a candy/fresh fudge shop, in which I spent five dollars on a quarter pound of dark chocolate caramel fudge. When we returned to the Mammoth, I put it in the fridge and forgot about it. Oh, well. It will be there when I want it.
They also had a magnificent book store. I could have spent hours in there! Every book you imagined or dreamed of on western subjects--prairies, badlands, animals, flora, native Americans, fiction, nonfiction=--all of a western theme. They even had a Lakota Sioux/English dictionary.
But some of us were ready to return, so back we went. After getting the gas, of course.
For our evening walk Molly and I went off-trail, going past the lodge and visitor center to a big wash beside the road where they have pipes diverting the runoff from the badlands under the road. We saw a pair of Rock Wrens!!!! So very, very skinny and long-beaked, with moderately long tails. There's nothing else they could be. How cool is that?
There are some views from my afternoon walk with Molly -- taken from the rocks overlooking camp.
Back at camp we also saw a pair of Mountain Bluebirds feeding a young one. This one is saying, gimme gimme gimme--
Cliff Swallow peeking out of its mud nest 
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