One hundred and fifty eight days later we pull into Honey Flat Campground in Caprock Canyon State Park to find our campsite across from Lucy and Fred’s full of Bison taking advantage of our shady site. They were wallowing in the abundant dust, contentedly chewing their cud, and double bison daring us to try and occupy “their” site. The heralding cries of “we meet again” were welcome sounds in spite of our predicament. We sat outside and took stock of our situation. With the recalcitrant bison still in site 30 it was decided that with the remaining afternoon we should go and checkout the visitor center and then go rock collecting in the K2R2 along Texas County Road 29 just outside the park’s eastern boundary.
We drove down to where Briscoe County Road 29 crosses the Little Red River scouting along the way for good exposures of the Permian (280,000,000 years ago!) gypsum (Calcium Sulfate Dihydrate CaSO4·2H2O) where we could stop on the way out to collect some good specimens of the pearly white evaporate rock. Here the marine evaporite is found in fibrous, satin and in some rare cases clear selenite form. It contrasts with astonishing beauty with the Permian red beds that give the Red River its name (Think hot, dry, and windy for the next few million years!). We stopped several times for Ethel and Lucy to fill their gunny sacks with the super soft gypsum (Mohs 1.5-2 on the Mohs scale which is less that your fingernails). We put their treasures in the locking cargo holds in the front and rear bumpers of the K2R2 like contraband on the Millennium Falcon and slowly drove to the safety of the paved surface of FM 1065. Back to the park we went!
The ranger had come by and moved most of the bison out of our site and we were able to set up the K2R2 for the stay. Hopping into Fred and Lucy’s 4Runner we embarked for a sunset drive north into the park’s interior. We stopped to show them the trailhead for our hike the next day and again at a beautiful overlook. Arriving back at camp we had our delicious dinner Ethel brought from Cooper’s Old Time Pit Barbeque in Llano, TX. The Popo, who were checking out a 911 call, asked Cynthia if she had heard two women fighting. She told them all we had heard was some coyotes calling earlier. Was it that or the Habanero margaritas?
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Who’d argue with a bison?? I’ll need to go there some day. I think every time anybody goes there they encounter the herd