Seminole Canyon State Park

We've had a busy day.  Not a ton of miles, but a busy day. 

Last night we camped at the Seminole Canyon State Park where we had a 360 degree view all around us. 
This is the sunset we were treated to at the end of the day.

In the morning we took the guided tour hike to the Fate Bell Shelter in the bottom of the canyon.

The steps were all natural rock but thankfully they had guard rails during the worst of them.  It wasn't bad going down but going up was another story.

I'm more out of shape than I realized.  Time to get back into shape!

The main feature at the bottom of the canyon is the rock art done created thousands of years ago.

Unfortunately, the weather and vandalism has taken its toll and they are not as vibrant as they once were. 

But it was still thrilling to be standing where people were many years before.

I applied a sunset behind it to enhance its beauty

What I enjoyed even more was the sculpture that graces the gateway to the trail. 

It's of a shaman and I love the simple, primitive lines.  If I were still a dollmaker, I'd feel compelled to try to create something like this in mixed media.

The visitors center is beautiful in it's own right and hosts a lovely exhibition area of the history.

I took this photo as were walking down the canyon floor and the clouds had clustered together as if they were converging on the center.

Most of the beauty was just nature in her own glory.  I fell in love with this little shrub coming out of the side of the cliff.

Of course, I had to play with it and add other textures and filters to it, but I don't want to bog down the blog with too much here, so I'll keep going.

The other highlight for me during this walk was spying this little ribbon snake slithering quickly over the rocks in search of shelter from we humans.

I managed to get this one of him on the run and then our guide bravely lifted the rock and poked him to start him hissing and flickering his tongue in and out. 

You can get an idea of his size with his finger near the snake. 

He tried so hard to look threatening, but it's hard when you're so tiny and well, just so stinking cute!

Left Brain spotted these little flowers for me as we were walking back to the center.  It amazes me how flowers will work so hard to grow in such adverse conditions.

I will end this blog with my favorite photo.  It's of the Fate Bell Shelter that we hiked to, but I added See-More into the photo just for fun and then changed it to a sunset.  There's no possible way for a vehicle to get anywhere near there, but I was trying to imagine the magic of camping there for the night.  Now THAT would be boondocking!

Long Live the Queen of the Canyons