Warm and Windy

Morning has broken here in the Texas panhandle. The sunrise was beautiful.

But let's back up to yesterday morning, shall we? When I looked out our bedroom window, this guy was perched within feet. We don't have cardinals in Oregon, and so it's been quite a treat to see these old friends. My family lived in North Carolina when I was a little girl. Our next move took us to Virginia, and then on to Hawaii, and that was the last time I saw cardinals until this trip.

Of course, I was itching to get out with my newly-charged battery and take some pictures of the prairie dogs. I dressed and went out right after breakfast, but those lazy critters were still in bed, apparently. There was not a single one visible in the prairie dog town. Okay...I was feeling defeated, but I went back to the RV to make a dessert I've had my eye on. This is a Blueberry-Pecan Streusel Pie for Two.

When it comes to turning a dessert recipe into a dessert "for two," pies are the easiest. You start with a little 6-inch pie plate, available on Amazon. Then...you take any recipe you like and cut it in half. The baking times tend to be about the same, but I always check them early. This one turned out to be really good. We had it last night with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. I used a Pillsbury refrigerated pie crust, rather than a frozen one. You can find the link to the recipe right here.

Okay, and when that was out of the oven and cooling, I tried again for the prairie dogs. You might want to fasten your seat belt because I'm just about to blast you out of your chair with a cuteness overload.

It only took a matter of minutes to click off 145 photographs. I love digital photography. You probably wish I'd post all 145, don't you? I Oh, c'mon. You're just saying that to be nice.

After I'd thoroughly worn myself out on prairie dog love, we decided to take a scenic drive through the park. It was a beautiful day here...almost too hot, but we're so hungry for warm weather, we didn't complain. Not once. There was a strong wind blowing as well, and that helped to keep us cooled off.

Our hiking map showed us a shortcut to get to a natural bridge, and those are the kinds of things that get us all worked up for a bit of excitement. We're old, and so this much excitement is kind of living on the edge for us.

If you look at the map above, you'll notice a number "3," almost right in the middle. That's where the natural bridge is located. We could have driven to the parking area farther down on the map and walked that hiking trail from there, but that would have been a hike of nearly four miles. Instead, we drove around to the other side (red arrows) and parked our car on the other side. Then, our hike was only about a mile in and out (blue line). We walked a little further because we walked past the natural bridge and out to where we had better views of the wash. 

Our drive started out with some beautiful views of the scenery along the way.

Eventually we came to the far end of the Eagle Point Trail.

We noticed this collapsed "caprock" right at the beginning of the trail. It looks like a huge geode.

Also, there is a lot of prickly pear cactus growing in this park. The pink color seems to be from a lack of water, but I liked the little fuzzies growing next to its needles.

This being the "Eagle Point" trail, we figure this formation to be Eagle Point.

We didn't have to walk far before coming to the bench at the top of the image below. Mike recognized this instantly as the location of the natural bridge. We had to climb down a steep embankment to get to it, but there it was.

I had Mike sit there to give you some scale of the opening.

The trail crosses over just above. With all those boulders inside, it seemed a bad idea to try to go through it.

And who in the class can tell me the difference between a "natural bridge" and an "arch"? I see some hands up...a "natural bridge" is formed by water, while an "arch" is formed by wind. You probably already knew that, didn't you? I make it a policy never to miss an opportunity to show off what I've learned while visiting state and natural parks.

We climbed back up to the trail and looked down at the wash that forms it. This water comes from the Little Red River. There is no water in the wash just now, but we can imagine flash floods through this area when it rains.

We walked a short trail to the other side of the natural bridge. Along the way we could see that horses had traveled this way.

From the other side, we could see the opening. It's a little hard to see in this image, but it's just to the right and a little above center in the image below.

Well, don't you know our shadow selves were feeling pretty spunky about now.

From there we walked on a little way. We thought we could get a better view of the wash. It was lovely. Here's a panorama of the area.

The trail was littered with this sparkly white gypsum.

We walked back to the car and then drove to the end of the road. There, we took a short loop...maybe half a mile...where we could see this large formation looming over a wash formed by the South Prong River.

Walking on a little farther, we were right next to it. It was interesting to note the striation pattern on the red rock.

On the drive back to our campsite, we stopped to take in this view.

In the image below, I've zoomed in close so that you can see the distant "hoodoos." These are similar to the ones you'd see in Bryce Canyon National Park, but not as tall.

Also, we passed by this windmill located near Wild Horse Campground. Windmills catch my attention in the same way barns, steeples, doors, and windows do. I simply must photograph them. I had to crawl through a fence to get to this one, but I was undaunted.

Also there, we saw these paddocks. There was a primitive campground here, but one needed permission to camp, and the gate was locked (thus, the climbing through a fence). We wondered about these paddocks. This being the "Wild Horse" campground...do you suppose this is a place where wild horses are rounded up? There were no explanatory signs.

And that was kind of the end of our day. The sunrises here are prettier than the sunsets, but there was a nice one yesterday.

Day is done.

We'll do some more exploration of the park today, but at this point, I'm not sure where we'll end up.