Sunday August 22nd 1:00 PM

Again, despairing of a lack of sign ups and a cancellation for this slot, I went down to the picnic area thinking that I would have an afternoon off, but with the song path, no result can be expected and I was delighted to have a group of college students appear asking if I was "The guy doing the show".

I was.

And quite the show. They asked how long the hike was and stated they might be under some time constraints so I told them I would try and hike a bit faster. As we proceeded though, it appeared that the time constraints might not have been as crucial as I originally thought because as I hiked at a good pace, I noticed that they were mostly lagging behind and even started going off trail to get closer to the river. These 4 were real explorers and wanted to hit all the nooks and crannies near the cliff walls so we did quite a bit of off trail exploring that usually doesn't happen on the hike.

First, we hit the big hole near the dripping wall which had become much more interesting even since the last time I went down there to record with a distinct and quite present low bubbling sound near one corner where water is flowing down a crevice between two slabs into a small cavern underneath.

We did a bit of talking on this tour and I discovered that one of the hikers was a music business student and another a student at Northland College in Wisconsin where she insisted there were lots of kids that would be "totally into this hike". It sounds like a cool place. I am going to definitely be in touch. I think I might need more volunteers for the second weekend in September when I do Song Path down in Whitewater!

Again we hit the river early after cicada alley and then headed straight for the rock crusher and powerhouse loop where we engaged in a kind of freeform improv within each of the walls of the two buildings. Though we spent a lot of time chatting about various things, I think we managed to hear many things in the park that I just would have missed if they hadn't been so curious. I had fun.