Leslie and David's Wanderings: 7 Jan 2020 Starting the Park Year.

Sitting at the communal table for breakfast at the Rosen House B&B, we met a lady who was staying at the Rosen House to get away from her daily life to finish the book she was writing on how to motivate burned out teachers. We had a wonderful time talking with her and hearing of her years as a teacher and principal in Fort Worth schools. Following checkout, we made our way down to the storage unit and dropped off the stuff we had packed up the previous week. We had decided to take a round about way back to Spring via Waco. In 2015, the Waco Mammoth City Park was made a National Monument and we thought the trip back would provide us a great opportunity to bag this NM and meet up with our friends John and Cheryl for dinner. In 1972, a three foot long fossilized bone was found sticking out of the side of a creek bed by the property owner. He took it to Baylor University to find out what kind of fossil it was. It was determined to be a femur bone of a Columbian Mammoth, which was approximately 65,000 years old. Columbian Mammoths ranged across North America south of what is now the Columbian river in Washington State. North of that line was the territory of the Woolly Mammoth. Over the next several decades, Baylor University excavated the fossilized bones of 22 Mammoths. In 1989, a private investor bought the property from the private owner and donated it to the City of Waco to be made into a city park. The city raised funds to build a protective shelter over the bone field. When grating the land to prepare for the building, they found another set of younger mammoth bones. So plans were altered. Over the next several decades, excavations uncovered two more sets of Mammoth bones, camel bones and a set of mystery bones. So far less than one acre of the 107 acre park has been excavated. The visitor center did not have a park movie, it barely had a little store. The management duties for the NM are shared between the NPS, City of Waco and Baylor University. The guide that took us on our tour was a city employee. The walk from the visitor center to the exhibit building was pretty short but it was through a grove of Juniper Trees and you could see the pollen in clumps on the branches. Were both deathly allergic to Juniper pollen and we definitely felt it in the hours after we left the NM. This was our 61^stpassport stamp and our first for this year!

After the NM, we headed for the Waco downtown area and stopped at the Waco Suspension Bridge over the Brazos River. The bridge was built between 1867 and 1870 to enable cattle drives going up the Chisholm Trail to more easily cross the Brazos River. For several decades it was the only bridge across the Brazos. The cattle sculptures that have been put in the park surrounding the bridge were excellent as well.

We then drove down to the Dr Pepper museum but could not find a shady parking spot to be able to leave Etta in the truck. We decided it would get too hot for Etta to be left in the truck, so we found a nearby beer garden, Freight Yard near Baylor University, and enjoyed a couple of local brews while we waited to meet John and Cheryl for dinner.

We then went to the restaurant. John was waiting for us. Unfortunately Cheryl had an emergency at work with one of her clients and was not able to join us for dinner. But we had a great visit with John before heading back to Spring. The drive from Waco on two lane roads in deer country was a little nerve wracking, but fortunately we did not see any kamikaze deer.