Oklahoma - Day 26 - Alabaster Caverns campground & environs

Alabaster Caverns State Park, Freedom
Wednesday, 25 August 2020

Today I spent in the campground, which is right by the park office and the gathering point for cave tours.  After reading this notice about the tour, though, I decided to give it a miss.  I'm just not interested in going up and down 330 stair steps for much of anything, even for the chance to see rare forms of alabaster.  A description of what can be seen is below.

Geology

sign: A Cavern In Gypsum
(text enlarged below)

detail from sign

more information below

found on the same sign as the one above

Cedar Canyon

my first view of Cedar Canyon - evening,
with the sun setting behind me

different view of the same canyon in the morning
with the sun rising just to the right of this photo

for text, see detail below

detail about Cedar Canyon

this is what "prairie grassland" looks like

This redbud was planted in memory of those
who were killed in the Oklahoma City bombing.

State symbols that can be found in this state park
The only ones of these I saw were the redbuds and the Indian Blanket, but I was assured the bats were in the caverns and have no trouble believing the others are here too.

Staying in the campground
This is a small campground, with only 10 campsites.  I was the only person staying here on both nights and felt a little vulnerable.  I think one of the staff was living in the mobile home not far from the office, but I never saw anyone coming or going from there so couldn't tell for sure.

I felt even more vulnerable when I realized during the first night that there were no lights on at the campground.  In fact, the only light on anywhere in the vicinity was at the rear of the park office.  That ended up being a whole lot of blackness, which I haven't encountered at any campground in all this traveling.

There weren't even any lights on at the bathrooms and I was very glad I had a bathroom of my own.  I suppose they turn the bathroom light on when there're more campers - for liability if for no other reason.  Though maybe not.  There's a lot of talk these days about light pollution and minimizing lights at night to allow more views of the night sky.  Maybe that's what they were doing.  But it was a little unnerving.

Other than those things, we were pretty comfortable here.  There were a lot of stickers around, though not quite as many as at previous campgrounds, and I had to watch where the dogs were walking.  And we ran into swarms of gnats or something a few times when we went out walking, which was discouraging.  But in general, this was a good place and I was glad to pick up an internet signal so I could try to catch up on these posts.

One bird that I saw that I haven't seen before is a Mississippi Kite.  At least I think that must be what it was.  What I saw was a mostly gray bird with white bands on its narrow, pointed wings.  This kite is the only one in the bird book that fit that description and could be expected in this area.

The dogs and I kept bothering it, by accident of course.  We often seemed to walk where it wanted to be, and it always flew off in a huff, though I tried to apologize.  His coloring was good and I didn't notice him until he flew off.