January 12 fourth day at the cave

click the pics

If you want to start at the beginning of this saga, don't start here! Scroll down until you get to January 9, the first day at Colossal Cave.

Another cold night, so it looks like that's all I'm going to get but I can't tell because I don't have any Internet to check the weather.

I'm looking forward to getting to the rodeo tomorrow. A rodeo is always a great place to get some pictures, in less it's a professional rodeo and then they won't let you take pictures unless it's with a cell phone. The professional rodeo riders don't want professional quality photographs taken of them that can be sold. So I only go to nonprofessional rodeos like the one at the fairgrounds which is high school kids just like my youngest son rode in when he was in high school.

Since I haven't left the Colossal Cave since I got here, it will be great to get to a Walmart again, and stop at Popeye's to pick up some red beans and rice for dinner.

I thought I was going to be bored after a few days of being at the Cave, but actually it didn't take long for me to get used to not driving around more than I need to. Between the gates being locked at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, and the terrible condition of the roads, I decided pretty quickly that I was just going to stay here until I decided to leave.

And amazingly enough I didn't get bored like I thought I would, in fact it occurred to me that a lot of the driving I do is because I'm bored and I drive just to be someplace different. But how in the world do you avoid being bored in a canyon where you're the only person boondocking in the whole darn place, and neither your phone or the Internet works? I have no television, nor do I want one. The temperature has been below freezing at night and 40s and 50s in the daytime, but somehow I managed to enjoy myself, how is that possible?

 Largely because I'm in a beautiful place and everywhere I walked there was incredible scenery, a lot of it, and walking paths are all over this mountain park. I think it had a lot to do with the Saguaro National Park being just down the road from the Colossal Cave. And since there's no camping at the Saguaro National Park, the Colossal Cave Mountain Park gave me the opportunity to boondock in the exact same scenery I've seen at Saguaro National Park, with plenty of time to enjoy the scenery at different times of the day which you can't do at Saguaro National Park.

So all in all I wasn't bored, I had a great time, and tomorrow I'll be heading to the Pima County Fairgrounds to watch a rodeo... Life is good.

Theboondork

At least the natural beauty made up for the crummy roads.

Saguaro National Park has nothing on Colossal Cave park, with some of the biggest Saguaros I've ever seen.

Colossal Cave gift shop and restaurant.

Saguaro cactus. This thing must've been at least 50 feet tall.

Saguaros are survivors, I've seen them withstand almost everything that would kill an ordinary plant but somehow they manage to hang on. But I don't know how this one is still around... See the picture below.

I don't know how this Saguaro survived whatever happened to it, but looking at the picture above it looks perfectly healthy like nothing ever happened.