Rifle Gap State Park...September 7 - Day 12

(Kim's Perspective)

Anticipating a quiet, slow morning, I was greatly irritated when I woke up at 7am to the sound of 5 wretched children banging on the fire ring with their marshmallow sticks.  You must be joking me.  First, what parent thinks it's a good idea to feed marshmallows to their children for breakfast?  Second, could you show a little courtesy and recognize that not everyone is enamored by the sound of incessant and obnoxious child behavior first thing in the morning?  After I let my irritation drain away (and admittedly, it took some time and effort), the scene outside our camper window almost became entertainment.  Let me explain....

Imagine 5 small children fresh out of bed, clothed in their pajamas and holding pointy sticks while circling around a blazing campfire.  Now envision the family dog, tied to the handle of the fire grate on a six foot lead without any means to escape the children or the heat of the fire.  Watch the story unfold as the dog gets tangled in a small camp chair that one child is sitting on, and inadvertently tips the chair and, consequently, the child towards the fire.  No danger here because Dad Of The Year swoops in to point out that the child is teetering on two of the chair legs and that this particular situation may prove perilous.  The child lifts himself out of the chair, and as Dad Of The Year walks over to remove the chair from the fray, the child proceeds to trip over the family dog's leash and does a face plant...next to the fire ring....while holding metal skewers.  BRAVO!!  Yes, I can see how all of this could have taken someone by surprise - you know, with the dog being cooked by the fire and small children being left alone around a small inferno to brandish their marshallow sticks like King Arthur's Knights of the Round Table.  You don't have to be a wizard to see how poorly this is going to end, yet the stupidity of some parents and the apparent ease with which they procreate never ceases to amaze me.  No, in fact, not everyone should have children.  Grrr.  

In an effort to turn our morning into something more positive, Bill and I decided to get up and go for a MC ride.  The skies were gray and clouds were looming but we wanted to squeeze a ride before the rain came. We zipped over to the BLM trailhead at the edge of the Sage loop. The fact that the trail connects right to the campground is highly convenient and extremely cool.  We gradually climbed up the dissecting paths and made our way around the side of the mountain.  Much to our delight, the skies were blue and the sun was shining bright.  We continued to climb until we reached the peak.

The campground is waaay down there at the water's edge.

We took a few more photos and...

 ...after Bill took a little jaunt to check out an intersecting trail...

...we turned around and started to head back the way we came.

Not interested in getting zapped by lightning or having the trails turn to a "greasy" mess, we scurried back as fast as we could.  We were amazingly lucky and only got sprinkled on a bit but we were mostly content with our hour and a half long ride so we headed back to the camper and Bill made a big breakfast of eggs and cheese, bacon, and fried potatoes and onions.  Nom.  The storm ended up skirting around us and the sun soon reappeared again, so I took the opportunity to wash some clothes and Bill went out for another ride for about 45 minutes.  When he came back, the Sitts joined us and we headed up the road to Rifle Falls State Park for a hike around the falls. 

The trail around the falls is short, but there are quite a few interesting things along the way.  The caves for example....

Whoa, Dude!  Double Shadow Picture!

Shele, not a fan of confined spaces, elected not to crawl in and explore the first two caves, but I took this pic of Indiana Jones in her absence. :)

By the way, it was pitch black and you couldn't see your hand in front of your face....but with the help of a "Blackhawk!" tactical flashlight (thanks, Bobbi!), darkness becomes light.  :)

There was an especially cool "open air" cave that we hung out in for a few minutes.  Mostly because we were messing around with....

....shadow pictures!!

The Sitts learning to embrace shadow pictures.  :)

As we left the caves behind and continued our trek, the skies darkened and we could see the wall of rain a few hundred yards away.  We kicked up the pace (i.e. we ran/jogged) and headed back to the parking lot.  Fortunately, it didn't take us too long to make it back and after a brief downpour, the skies once again cleared.  The Sitts wanted to have a picnic lunch but there weren’t any available picnic sites so we tried another local state park (Harvey Gap).  The picnic area at this day use park leaves something to be desired, so we just headed back to the campground and had lunch at our sites.  After we finished eating, Bill and I geared back up and headed over to another section of BLM trails we found while we were out.  The Sitts drove over to watch us ride awhile.  They snapped a couple pics of us and took a video or two while we were riding.

MC Shadow Pictures!!  Wooohoooo!

I was happy they came and sent me the photos because we were having such a good time riding around that we pretty much forgot to take pics.  If you look closely at the background, you'll see why we forgot....the whole area was a giant motocross playground with whoop-dee-doos and steep singletrack trails.  It was a lot of fun...in a scary I'm-going-to-wreck-any-moment sort of way.  Fortunately, we both kept the rubber dirt down.  We took a side trail away from the playground area that led to a cute little camping area. 

We were both quickly tiring (it takes a lot of energy to ride like that!) so we turned around and, after a few more passes on the whoop-dee-doos, headed back to the campground around 6pm.  We chilled at the campsite for the rest of the night. 

We sat and watched another storm (and a cool rainbow) in the distance.

 Soon, the sun set and lit up the clouds with beautiful shades of pink and orange.

 The sun soon left us and made way for the full moon to light our little part of the world.

Notice the full moon peeking out from behind the clouds.

Shele updated her travel notebook and I worked on the blog for a while.  We were really blessed to avoid most of the many thunderstorms that seemed to pop up around us every couple of hours and we ended up having an amazing day with great temps and mostly blue skies.  At least over our immediate vicinity anyway.  :)  The Sitts built a fire and popped popcorn for us all.  We spent the rest of the night chilling with a fire at our feet and a full moon above our heads.  A pretty good way to wrap up the day.