For lunch we ate at Angel Village. Remember the great view I mentioned yesterday? Well, here it is sans fog:
After lunch I headed to Horse Haven where I was scheduled to work all afternoon. The staff there is super nice, as are the animals. I worked with Ron and one volunteer named Barbara who is here from Virginia. We started the afternoon just moving some wood from the new facility their building out of the contractors way to be used later. Then, we went mucking. Horse poop is not something I'm acclimated to, but it really wasn't that bad. Met a few very nice horses in the process, which was cool. Ron is a wealth of knowledge about a lot of things. After spending about half the shift shoveling poop, Ron took Barbara and I across the canyon in a super-powered golf cart thing. This tour was soooo worth the poop.
First we saw part of the Kanab Creek making it's way through the canyon. It's normally very clear, but we had a lot of rain here yesterday that brought sediments into it.
After that, we headed up to Hidden Lake which is actually really very
hidden. As you walk into the cavern, you can feel the air get colder.
The water in the lake inside is also very cold and never warms up.
Apparently, there's part of an old plastic boat at the bottom the lake
and Ron was going to go in the lake in the summer to remove the boat,
but he would need a full on wetsuit because of the col temperatures.
Once you're inside the cavern, you can see the very back of it. Divers
have dove down the back wall, I believe, found an opening, and were
unable to find out where it actually ends though. The different colors
of rock sediment are from when it was all sand dunes and different
colored sand would blow in from different directions.
It was so amazing and the echos are super intense. I couldn't get a photo of the actual lake because I only had my phone on me which doesn't have a flash. Wish I would have though!
After Hidden Lake, we went up to where there are still partial Anasazi Indian grain storage areas. The idea was these were built up with a roof on top. A large portion of them were ruined due to cattle, but there are still a few around. You can find little pieces of pottery, along with some real, preserved corn cobs! At first I thought there was no way these could have lasted for such a long amount of time, but one of the staff members was an archeologist and said that it's possible the sand could have preserved them.
We also went up to an ancient Anasazi dwelling. It was very small and so hard to believe one could live in such a small area. There was space for a small door and a small window.
I'd say I saw some pretty amazing things today, but my day wasn't over yet. From 5-7 every Wednesday, Best Friends hosts a "Welcome Waggin" where staff, volunteers, and interns can go to socialize and stuff. Also, one of the founders of Best Friends comes and talks for about an hour and takes questions. This Wednesday Anne (I think that was her name) came to talk. She was one of the original caretakers in Cat World. Her talk was super, super inspiring. I can't really describe it. Everyone was sitting outside the Welcome Center on the patio and you hear humming birds and wind chimes and it's just such a peaceful place. It was really amazing and I think I'll be attending every Wednesday.
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