Going Down in Seminole Canyon State Park

We've been traveling through a lot of flat west Texas landscape lately. We have a Texas-sized sky out our big motor home windshield with nothing to block the view. We have to point out that we like Texas highways with their wide shoulders and frequent passing lanes even on less-traveled roads.

We will also point out another thing we like about Texas--HEB grocery stores. We are fans of their bakery bread, and now we have another reason to stop. We're not sure of their schedule, but we have purchased the seafood boil shrimp and sausage at several of the tents that we see set up outside of HEB stores. The shrimp is deveined, perfectly cooked, and nicely seasoned--and costs only $10 per pound. We stocked up on groceries since we were heading out into the desert, and we had that shrimp for our traveling day dinner.

Our drive took us over the Amastad Lake bridge. If we had known how pretty the blue water was against the white shores, we probably would have made a stop here as well.

But we were hurrying to get to our next state park campground because we have an afternoon date. We snagged the last open site at Seminole Canyon State Park when we made our reservation 18 days ago. We also found out that this afternoon's ranger-led tour is the only one available during our two-day stay. So we set up the motor home, and hustled back to the visitor center for the 3:00 canyon tour. Thousands of years ago, this area was inhabited by native Americans who had enough time on their hands to do some cave painting.  The statue at the visitor center is of one of their favorite things to paint, a shaman. Part human/part animal, a shaman is a religious figure that has connections with the "otherworld."

So we followed our ranger guide down the steps that led us deep into Seminole Canyon.

Visitors must be escorted in order to protect the art that is sprinkled throughout this cave. Some of the art includes signatures from the railroad employees that were working on a new line coming near the canyon. 

ELINDFIELD is the name of one of the railroad engineers that had very neat writing and time on his hands back in June 1884. This is the newest of the cave art that we will see.

Our next stop was higher on the canyon walls, because the canyon was not as deep a couple thousand years ago. We took pictures of what we could see today . . .

but we'll also include pictures drawn 100 years ago. Forrest Kirkland saw the need to preserve these pictures before they further deteriorated with time and weather. A professional artist with technical training, he and his wife spent their vacations in canyons like this. They drew and painted with great detail what they saw here in the early 1900s.

We could get close enough to take a good picture of this more detailed pictograph . . .

but some of the lines and detail is faded when compared to Mr. Kirkland's drawing of the same thing.

Some of the larger pictographs are almost 30 feet tall, and are high up on the canyon wall. Our tour guide used his laser pointer to help us spot them from this distance.

The highlight of the tour is walking into the Fate-Bell shelter. This cave-like overhang has been a home and shelter to groups of people for thousands of years.

The people that lived here 4,000 years ago had a great view, with cool shade and protection from the elements.

That shelter provided a perfect place to do a little artwork that we could see up close today.

Better preserved because of the protection of the roof of the cave, the colors are brighter on these pictographs that may date back to 4,000 years ago.

But it was good to see the clearer drawings provided by Mr. Kirkland.

People have enjoyed the protection of this cave for thousands of years. Our tour guide pointed out this specimen of coprilite. That's a polite way of saying "petrified human poop." By studying pieces of coprilite, scientist have learned more about the diet of the people that lived here thousands of years ago.

The last stop on the tour was this most colorful pictograph.

It's easier to see the shaman and the otherworldly figures from the drawing. 

To give a better idea of the size of these pictographs, we use it  as a background at this most popular photo spot.

While we like the opportunity to see these very old pictographs, we  enjoy more wandering God's wonders. This is a beautiful view down the canyon from under the roof of this God-made shelter.

The sun was setting by the time Denisa made the walk down to the bird blind near our camping spot here at Seminole Canyon state park. The birds were coming in for the night, checking the bird feeders.

This little red-headed finch seemed to be watching the sunset as it lit up his face.

It was another warm day here in Texas, so we're glad for the weather to cool when the sun goes down.

The sunset was lighting up the side of the motorhome, where the scrubby desert plants are mirrored in the paint. It was a good day for going down in Seminole Canyon State Park.