The
plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste leads to poverty. ~ Proverbs 21:5
We’ve completed pretty much everything there is to do in
this Park, so today was a day of exploring with no map and no specific trails
to take on.
Yesterday when we were coming home, Blaine noticed a set
of stairs going up a mountainside right by the road, so that was our first
stop. It turned out to be the entrance
to a shrine. Not much hiking there, but
still interesting. 😊
Blaine looks like a giant next to that door. : )This is outside the door on the left.These are on the rock wall by the door on the right.This is only part of what was inside.The sign above the door.I took my turn at the top and peered inside. What I’m looking at now are all the plastic bags stuffed into the crack in the rock. Why??
With no place in mind, we thought we’d be relegated to
that 2.8-mile loop trail. We wouldn’t
have been so intent on hiking, but the plan was for large, homemade burgers and
fries for dinner and chocolate cake for dessert, so it was imperative to get in
a bunch of steps!
On the way there, we decided to climb the mountain again
and have lunch there this time.
A group (not sure there’s enough to constitute a herd) of cows were hanging out here on the island of the parking lot.
That rust colored one was behaving a bit feisty when the car in front of us drove past him! He was bucking and carrying on! I don’t know if maybe he was lying down and the car scared him or what.Climbing up the mountain again. Much faster today, since we didn’t stop but a couple of times to take pictures. : )Thee was a cow beside the trail today.There were a ton of butterflies up here today! I’ve labeled three that I found in the picture when I look at it later.Lunch view!On the way back down.The cows are still there! And now a cow and her calf have joined them!
From there, we decided to cross over the spillway and
just see where we could go and what we could see from there.
Walking down that concrete road towards the spillway, we had to stop and take this picture! Gorgeous day!Once we crossed the spillway, we started looking for a way to get to the dam.That’s the man-made dam.They left this building unlocked, so naturally, Blaine had to look inside. : ) It’s the controls for the dam!That’s a hawk. It came swooping down close to us when we weren’t looking for it. But of course, it never came close again for a picture. : (We’ve crossed over the top of the dam and are heading toward that hill to see if we can (or want) to climb it.Purple cactus! Haven’t seen those since Big Bend!And near the cactus, a purple rock! Yes. It’s a real purple rock!We walked around the lake (and the hill) a bit, discussed walking all the way around the lake to the coach. At that time, Blaine would have to take his bike and ride (a lot of uphill) his bike to the Jeep, then drive home. He decided he didn’t want to tackle that. So we turned around and walked back to the dam. The hill was a no-go.There was a road we passed on our way to the dam. So we started walking down it just to see what we could see.Blaine spotted a man’s face in that mountain range. Can you see it?If not, here’s what we saw . . . beginninging at the arrow on the left . . . the edge of a stocking cap, eyebrow, eye, nose, top lip, bottom lip. Now can you see it? : )There’s a lot of erosion here!The big rock (not candy) mountain! Looks like a Park dump spot. . . .We’ve left the road and wandered a bit. And during the time, Blaine touched something he shouldn’t have, and we were pulling sharp stuff out of his fingers. All was well. : )As we were headed back to the road, I spied this baby barrel cactus. The road took a steep drop off.Look at all that erosion!We were admiring all the green down there in the valley and noticed a trail!All the green on the ground seems to be attributed to this flowering stuff. Weed or flower or grass or . . . . ??There’s been some really serious erosion here in the past.I’d guess this is why the road was closed back at the parking lot. There’s no road left. Wonder when that happened?We jumped on the trail, confident that it’ll take us to the Jeep.This tree’s bleeding! Wonder when it was cut?It turned out to be a very nice end to our walk today!Wow! That’s a great view Jen!And this is the other side!It’s difficult to tell from the picture, but that tiny nest was somehow woven into a few branches, and the entire nest was about the size of a baseball. Maybe a little smaller!The cows are still there, waiting to greet us! : )Blaine’s burger! There’s cheese on there somewhere too. Man! Were they good! I think I could eat burgers just about every day! But Blaine won’t let me. : (
Altogether today, we managed to get in more than our
required steps. Especially Blaine, since
he went back out after dinner for a long, brisk walk. I’d had enough for one day and stayed home
this time.
