Camping Out

This is our last day of camp; tomorrow we have the student presentations and closing ceremony, and are done by noon. It has been fast and furious this year. We spent what seemed like days on the road, 7 vans of teachers and students traveling around central Texas in a half-mile long caravan.
My favorite remains Bracken Bat Cave. Our guide this year was outstanding - very knowledgeable, friendly, and able to answer all our questions. We spent about an hour listening and asking questions. Then after hiking back to the cave opening, we waited. We could see the vortex of bats circling near the mouth of the cave, and faintly hear their chirping, and the rustle of millions of wings. All 70 people were relatively quiet as we sat on the rocks at the top edge of the collapsed sinkhole.
And then the vortex slowly expanded into the bowl as the bats began to move out of the cave. Not a person in the crowd spoke for the next 20 minutes as we sat, awestruck at the sight. I can't describe what its like to watch the bats come out and fly away - in the 20 minutes before it got too dark to see them, we saw maybe 500,000 emerge. It takes 5 hours for the 20 million bats who live in the cave to all leave for the night.
We camped by the Blanco River at Wimberley for 4 nights, but fortunately it wasn't as hot as last year. There was also a lot more water in the river. I actually camped in a tent under some pecan trees. It was pretty nice, with a cool breeze at night.


















Some of us went to Jacob's Well, the headwaters of Cypress Creek. It's a hole straight into (or out of) the Trinity Aquifer, and flowing at a pretty good rate this year. During the drought it completely quit, for the first time ever. The kids enjoyed swimming in the ice cold water.

It's time to leave for the BBQ at Rio Vista Park.
be safe
rem