We got up bright and early as always to catch the sunrise. We chose to go to the same spot as yesterday since we had such good luck there. It was pretty, but not as colorful. Still beautiful and inspiring though.
After taking the pictures we hopped back in the car and headed back to the campsite for our breakfast of dehydrated eggs and coffee. We had just finished timing the rehydration of the eggs when the boy scouts next door came trooping through our campsite. Boy were we surprised when they told us they had cooked WAY too much food and offered us home-made breakfast burritos! They were so good and a welcome treat! Thank you Scouts! One boy was amazed we were having coffee while camping...pretty funny!
After cleaning up the site we jumped into the car for a little outside the park photo-walking. We had seen some amazing formations along the highway on our way to and from the park, so we drove on over to shoot some pictures.
I just love these lonely trees atop the various mountain formations. They look so beautiful against the Texas sky!
The next two trees just looked so colorful against the rock formations I couldn't resist!
After our short jaunt outside the park, we headed back to do what we had come to do - hike a mountain. We were determined to complete Indian Lodge trail. We could start at our campsite and walk to the the trailhead at the Indian Lodge and the end of the trail was right across the street from our campsite so we would end up back at the tent if everything went as planned. This is a 1.7 mile hike, so we were pretty sure we could handle it.
Remember the picture of the beautiful tree in front of the cobalt blue Texas sky from day 1?
This is the same tree from the trail on the day we hiked it.
Some of the flora along the way...
I scared Pepaw a little here as I leaned over a boulder to catch a shot of the narrow view of the valley below...pretty cool, huh?
Once we got past that particular formation we just kept going up,
and up, and up. Notice that same formation in the center of the picture below!
Higher and higher we climed, until...
we finally reached the peak! We added our rocks to the "pile" and continued on.
This is actually a shot from the "backside" of the mtn. we would end up climbing down to get back to camp. From here you can see the entrance to the park and Skyline Drive going up the other mtn.
It only took us a short 3 hours to walk the 1.7 miles - of course part of that time was taking pictures...but it was a 463 ft. climb!
After our hike we decided to drive on into Ft. Davis for a cold drink. While there we went to the National Park - Historic Ft. Davis. We got there just in time to see them fire the cannon.
This is an amazing experience as you watch a video about the history of the fort and then walk through some of the refurbished buildings. It was amazing to look at the artifacts they've found while the archiologists have worked on bringing the fort back to as close to original as they can.
Old Glory never looked better.
One of the buildings they're working on.
After our trip we drove back to the park and up Skyline Drive to the "cell tower look-out" to take our sunset pictures. It never ceases to amaze me, the variations the clouds go through in a very short amount of time.
And the final BLAZE of glory as the sun disappeared behind the mountains and the sky LIT UP!
Time to call it a night...
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