To The Lighthouse Part II

Friday May 20, 2011
Hackberry Campground Site 20
Palo Duro Canyon State Park
Canyon, Texas

If you’ve just joined us,
you might want to read the post below this first.
It’s Part I of this Saga.

Well here we are. 
AT The Lighthouse.
Can you see me climbing up?
I’m the dirt speck looking thing
near the base on the right.

I don’t look much bigger even up on the top.

The Lighthouse is so HUGE
you can’t get a picture of it when you are on top.
You have to be further away.

Well you can get a picture but you have to do
the top

and then the bottom

We sat at the top and had
a snack before starting down
 
back on the same trail
which going out looked
totally different.
We saw things we’d missed
coming in.
Including this fellow to
whom we gave WIDE birth.
This shot was taken once he’d
decided UNcoil…..

Did you see the rattle??  We sure heard it.

The sun came out about 11am when we were leaving
the Lighthouse and it made our pictures
on the way back look less like what
we were actually seeing.

We also came upon this fellow who
most likely was not the creator
of the hole he is just to the left of.

 

As we hike, we pick up the trash left
by careless and thoughtless people.
We always wonder,
if you can carry a water bottle in full,
how is it you can’t carry it out empty.

When we got back we dumped out
the collection we had crushed to be able
to carry it all out.

This was the most spectacular hike
we have been on here in Palo Duro
and I would recommend it highly
to those who can do about 5 hours
as early in the morning as possible.

There was only one problem today.
As the sun came out around 11:00 am and
we started back, I began
to have a recurrence of eye problems
I’ve been having for the past several days.
My vision began to deteriorate,
my eyes to water and ultimately to burn.
I  had to take my contacts out a couple
of days ago and wear my glasses.
But this afternoon was the worst
and by the time I got back to Winnona
I really had to close my eyes and
put cold compresses on them
to get relief from the burning.
That did help.
I had been wondering whether it was the
dust or perhaps the
extremely bright sunlight here in the
panhandle of Texas.
I’ve never been allergic to anything.
And after my experience today
I do think it
must be the sunlight.
Has anyone else every had
an experience like this?

None the less, this problem did not
dampen our joy in this hike!!