TX Camping Day 2: To the Bat Cave!

The next morning, Mike woke up early to go fishing in the river. He didn't catch anything so he was back before breakfast. Vi went up to the bath house for a quick shower then got started on some breakfast tacos. We are lucky....when she travels with us, she always volunteers to be the chef.

We were expecting Mike's college friend, Mary Kay, to arrive some time today. We were pretty worried about whether she would make it or not. We had planned to call her with directions after we arrived but didn't realize we wouldn't have cell phone coverage. So the day before we had called her from the owner's cell phone and given her his phone number in case she got lost. Based on our conversation with him yesterday, who the hell knows what he'd say to her.

After breakfast, we headed down to the river to hang out in the water and wait for Mary Kay. We didn't want to stray too far from the campsite.

Sure enough, Mary Kay came walking up about mid-afternoon. Somehow she had found the way. She had been trying to call us but did get our message to call the owner, which she did. When he found out she was lost, he asked her if she was blonde. Typical! But he kindly gave her directions. Mike was very excited to see her as it had been almost 15 years since he'd seen her previously and I was excited to meet her.

We cooked and ate an early fajita dinner because we were going to see the bats before sundown at the Frio Cave near Concan. Every year, between March and September, about 10 to 12 million Mexican free-tailed bats migrate to the Frio Cave from Brazil. Most of the bats are female and migrate to the cave in order to give birth and raise their babies. Every night at sunset, the bats leave the cave to feed on insects. It's an unbelievably beautiful event. They return to the cave before sunrise the next morning.

The cave is located on a private ranch. There is a paved walkway up a hill to the cave and viewing area.

The view from the top over the hills is beautiful.

Right on time, the bats began flying out of the cave. They came in droves.

During the flight, you could feel wet drops falling on you. Apparently this is bat pee, not a pleasant thought.

Periodically, various predators such as hawks would circle through the bats although we didn't see any actual take downs.

We stayed at the cave for about an hour and a half and the bats were still coming out. It was starting to get pretty dark, however, and they were no longer easy to see. We headed back to the campsite and hung out around the fire the rest of the evening, mosquito free thanks to the bats.