Monday February 11, 2008

When we left the patio last night, it was almost dark. As we headed down to the campsites, a small gray fox crossed the road in front of us. We got into bed as it was starting to get chilly and read for a while before going to sleep.

We decided to take a day off from hiking today - our calves are still "mooing" and we badly need showers. We drove down to Rio Grande Village (the only shower facility in the whole park) and as we were showering, we threw in a load of laundry. We met a couple from Shipingsport (I believe I have that right), PA - he was a civilian who worked for the Army and she was a retired math teacher! We had a lovely chat with them and also an older couple from upstate NY. We were all chatting when 2 vans pulled up - filled with Elderhostel folks. They were stopping for a bathroom break. There was no one from CT, but one lady said her dad grew up in Norwich. We went back to camp and mucked out the car - it had been a while. Later in the afternoon, we visited with a woman who is going around the country for one year. She stops a various churches on her way and talks to the congregation about water for Africa - she is associated with World Church. When I went up to the restroom, I stopped at the bulletin board to check out the ranger talk for tonight - unfortunately, it was not at this site, but I noticed that the weather was for increasing cloudiness with a chance of rain and/or snow for later in the week. We decided that this would not be at all fun so we decided to head to FL a bit earlier than we had planned. We cooked dinner and then gave some of our leftover food to the lady from World Church and the rest to the camp host. We kept the snacks and water for our trip in the car. When we had sorted everything out, we asked our neighbor to join us for a chat. She is an interesting person. She is a retired gardner from the National Cathedral in DC and now lives in NH. At one time she owned a Great Pyrennes (I know that is spelled wrong) that she used to take to nursing homes as a therapy pet. We chatted until we all were starting to feel the chill and then said our goodbyes and went to bed.