29 October 2015, Thursday

Everything went fine. The young man turned his music down, and I told him at that
volume he could play it as long as he pleased. He admitted he was
pretty tired and wouldn’t be staying up late anyway. We slept well.

This morning we are back to baking our own breakfast cake which we eat with sour
cherry preserves and yogurt. After breakfast we hike some of the
trails here at Devils Den. The cave and crevice formations were
created by Lee Creek which caused enough erosion that giant blocks of
sandstone slipped and fell leaving the openings which provide
refuge for the local bat population. All caves are closed to humans
now in an effort to protect the bats from white nose syndrome. Devil’s Den, itself, has iron bars across the entry.

We have an early dinner and then attend the evening bat presentation. We
are told that mama bats find their young by scent. O and I are each given
little vials to sniff – this is our “baby.” Then we are given
numerous other vials to sniff and match with our baby’s scent. I
flunk. O passes with flying colors. It turns out he had “twins”
and successfully identified both babies. Of course, his scent was
cinnamon and mine was some nondescript perfumey carpet cleaner.

Back in camp, O cooks up some hot drinks. Today we saw a yellow bellied
sapsucker, an albino squirrel, numerous flickers, chickadees,
titmice, Wilfred the chipmunk and a brown creeper. On the whole it
has been a perfect fall day.