Vacation Part 3- Caprock Canyon Day 2 - Eagle Point Trail

Caprock Canyon State Park, Oct 2, Tuesday, Day two 2018 vaca,

Tuesday morning, our first full day at Caprock Canyon, when I stepped outside I was surprised and amused to see these tell-tale signs of a nocturnal visitor--little paw prints on one of our lounge chairs and plastic bin/side table--

Maybe he could smell the scent from the grapes and cheese we enjoyed on our 'patio' Monday evening. He must have a good nose because we cleaned up every crumb and also had a citronella candle burning to keep the mosquitoes at bay.

We decided to hike the 2 mile Eagle Point Trail. Since it was rated moderately difficult, John, my kind (and fit) husband, drove our car and parked it near the trail-head at the other end to spare me the 4 mile round trip. Then he hiked back on the trail to our campsite.

We set out around 10:00 a.m.. We had a slow start as of course we had to stop and take photos of the monarch butterflies and flowers along the side of the road before reaching the beginning of the trail.

The trail was not difficult at all. The only difficulty being to not spend all day photographing the beautiful and interesting things there were to see

A close up of the little purple flowers shown in the foreground of the above photo.

These white layers are calcium carbonate deposits, also called caliche.
According to Wikipedia calcium carbonate is the main component of pearls. You probably can’t tell from the photos, but that would explain why the pieces we picked up sparkled and shimmered in the light.

Caliche is a major part of what creates the huge spectacular scenery of the canyon.

Close up of caliche crystals that were forming while they were buried under the dirt.

Here a large deposit of caliche has been carved out with water to create this pool.
Caliche resists erosion so it must have taken some time.
The water is so clear you can see all the way to the bottom.

A brochure said this was broken open from tourists standing on it. That's a shame but it is nice to be able to see inside.

We didn't see bison on this hike but we did see wildlife.

We saw a couple of lizards. This one is, I believe, an Eastern Collared Lizard. It was about 9-12 inches including the tail.

About halfway we stopped for a rest. While we were eating our snacks I noticed an insect that kept flying back to the same tiny hole in the ground (we were in the only part of the trail without a gorgeous view so the only thing to look at was the ground!)  Each time it came back, it paused to peer in briefly and then it climbed down into the hole and disappeared. A few seconds later it came out again and quickly flew away. I wondered what it was doing and if it was taking anything into or out of the hole. After watching it several times I pointed it out to John. He took these, very zoomed in, photos to see. When it came out again it always flew away too quickly to get a photo. So he took this video as well. On looking at the video it appears to be carrying a clump of dirt in its “hands.” I'm guess it was digging the hole and didn't want to have a mound of dirt next to the hole to draw attention to it. Since it always came back very quickly, it seems like it must have just been dropping the dirt randomly rather than taking it to a particular place.

Here it is pausing to check before climbing in

Here is a very brief video of the little insect coming out of the hole holding what looks like a clump of dirt (the only way i could make the video play was to make a youtube video of it and include it here. Unfortunately being youtube it will then show you some other random video it thinks you might want to see next. It won't play it unless you click on it. If you want to see the insect video again you have to hit the refresh button.)

We reached the "natural bridge"at the end of the trail about two hours after starting--that included many stops to observe, take pictures, and occasionally rest.

John climbed down to the "bridge." The trail goes over the top of this. It was quite a climb to where he is here so i just got far enough to take this photo. We neither one felt like crawling through to the other side.