Roaring Springs near Camp Wood

 Roaring Springs Ranch contains many springs that converge to form Camp Wood creek. The water is clear and blue and freezing cold. There is a favorite deep hole of water where locals gather for relaxing on floats during the heat of the day. We spent part of every afternoon floating at the swimming hole.  

Also, we made an evening drive over to the Frio Bat Cave to watch the bats emerge. Frio Cave is a maturity colony of female bats and their young. At this time of year, the young are still being nursed and do not leave the cave. Ten million or so mother bats take off every evening to feed on insects and return to the cave periodically during the night to nurse their young. These Mexican Free Tail bats make up one of the highest concentration of mammals anywhere in the world.  Interesting fact that we learned - There are about 500 baby bats per square foot on the ceiling in the nursery area. 

Bats headed for their happy hunting grounds

That is a lot of legs!  This spectacular looking creature is a giant millipede which happens to be very common in this part of the Edward's Plateau.