A Morning Walk and Campsite Visitors

This morning I decided to take Matey to the top of Skyline Drive for our walk. It wasn’t yet forty degrees out, but that sun was so intense I just needed a lightweight jacket. We started at the CCC lookout where the guided walk had started. But we went down along the other side of the ridge, on the top part of the Old CCC Trail.

As we started down the trail we passed below an observation tower built by the CCC.

We walked about three-quarters of a mile to the connecting trail I had started on the other day. We went up that trail.

I was going to walk along the top portion of the Skyline trail, but we’d already walked over a mile so I turned back along the park road. That brought us to the observation tower.

Of course we had to go up. I took this 360 degree video standing in the center of the top of the observation tower. There is a lot of open land here, and we were the only ones up here enjoying it.

We walked back to the truck.

As we got close I noticed the little wall built around this Emory oak. Since the wall was probably built by the CCC, it and the parking lot don’t seem to be hurting the tree.

Back at the campsite we had acorn woodpeckers visit again. They are vividly black, white and red, but unfortunately our faucet was in the shade.

They come and get water from our hose. The hose is dripping about 10 drops a minute. Normally I would tighten it to stop the drip, but I don’t want to deprive the birds.

Yesterday afternoon we had three Javelinas visit.

There is plenty of grass around on these hills, so I wondered what brought them so close.

Perhaps it was Matey’s water. Bud reminded me that Javelinas attack dogs. Just then Matey lunged and barked. Happily the three retreated a couple of hundred feet. That was the end of our Javelina watching. I didn’t bring Matey’s water out today but our neighbors just told me they had one licking the grill on their fire pit. Matey will not be out unattended!