Trifter

Devil’s Ice Box was famous (or infamous) among Missouri Spelunkers as the ultimate caving challenge.  The Parks Board has developed over the years a training series/level of exploration for the cave–and with good reason.  The entrance-way is accessible to anyone who is agile enough to climb down the steep access stairs.  At the bottom of the cleft of rock, it is easy to see the water flowing trough the bottom of the crevasse.  Intrepid (and lucky) explorers have made their way back into the cave; but it requires a canoe and scuba gear.  Although I longed for the experience, since my youthful budget didn’t run to scuba lessons, I have never made it past summer-time wading in the 60F water.

The rest of the park is scarcely less interesting.   A series of challenging walking trails as well as steep stair-climbs invite rambling through the wooded area.  The rock bridge (from which the park gets its name) once had a wooden trail leading under it.  When my oldest granddaughter (now aged 14) was a little tyke, the other grandma and I, accompanied by other family members, took her walking through it.  The little one hung fearlessly over the edge of precipices to get a better look at the world, but was a bit intimidated by the shadowy rocks under the bridge.

A couple of years ago, my daughter-in-law tells me, a portion of the cliff-face fell on the wooden trail.  The park closed that portion of the walk.  The broken bridge portion is visible from a near-by platform.

That wasn’t the only change from ten years ago.  I found that I was a great deal less agile going up and down the steep terrain than I had been when my Number One grandchild was four.  Picture taking is a great excuse for stopping to catch ones breath part way up a steep incline. 

Since my granddaughter was visiting friends and my son was catching up on homework, my daughter-in-law was the only one available to amuse Gram.  She didn’t seem disturbed by my pace.  We hung over the beautiful views and talked of her hopes and dreams.  She has a PH.D. in Biochemistry, which one would think would net a decent income.  But it seems that the world has a surplus of PH.D.’s these days.  She is currently doing post-doctoral work at the University, and teaching; but her position is dependent on a grant–and grants are few and far between in our current economy.  She has some applications in; we discussed their relative merits.

We both took pictures of the terrain and the emerging fall colors.  Then we took pictures of each other taking pictures.  “Picture wars!”, I laughed.

As we toiled our way back up from the depths of Devil’s Ice Box, her cell phone rang.  It was Granddaughter calling for her ride home, so we made our way back out to the parking lot and back toward civilization.