Get Out and Play

Once again, it's time for P.J.'s monthly photo blog challenge, and once again, I've been remiss in not writing more here since this is literally the first post in over a month. I missed all of October, but then again, I could argue that I was following the theme of the month, which is Get Out and Play. Yeah, that's my story and I'm sticking with it. Needless to say, I went out and played this month, taking my first out of state road trip since before the pandemic hit. I hiked, I camped, I took lots of photos, so it was difficult to whittle down all the photos I took into just five shots, but I tried my best. Here are my five shots for this month.

1. A unique icon

Those of you who have been following along on this wandering that I do, know I love to geocache. One of the things that has kept me interested in the game are challenge caches - a cache that gives you a challenge to fulfill. 

My first stop in Arizona was the Tucson area for two reasons: 1. Saguaro National Park, a place I'd never visited before and 2. The only webcam in the entire state of Arizona. Now, I know what you're probably thinking. "There's only one webcam in the entire state?" Well, there's only one webcam that's also a geocache in the entire state and it's located on the campus of the University of Arizona. So I ended up walking around campus that first day, looking for the webcam. Now usually, you'd just go to the coordinates and find the cache, but this one was a little bit trickier than that. You were told what building you needed to find, but the coordinates weren't at that particular building, but rather near a campus directory. Eventually I made my way over to where the webcam was and took a screenshot on my phone of me looking like I'm having a conversation with a fire hydrant on the university's campus.

On a side note, before smart phones, these were event tougher, because you literally had to phone a friend and have them get a screenshot on their computer. I did that here as a back up in case I wasn't able to get my own shot, but for this blog entry, I'm using my own photo. And this also gave me my 9th different icon, or type of geocache, in the state of Arizona, second only to California.

2 & 3. Saguaros

As noted above, the national park was one of my "must see" stops on my road trip to Arizona. I'm a national park enthusiast and this particular park has been on my bucket list forever. When we used to travel to Arizona to visit my uncle who lived in Scottsdale we never got as far as Tucson, but we could see saguaro cactus pretty much everywhere on the drive over to my uncle's house. They are fascinating and so the park which was a national monument at the time went on my bucket list. 

I never got to take the kids to see the park when they were growing up mainly because there's no car camping in the park, only backcountry camping. And so it sat there on my list until this past month when I decided that it was time.

I had plans to hike to a virtual geocache in the park, but the road leading up to that particular trailhead was closed while I was there, so I spent part of the morning walking a short nature trail in the park and the rest of the morning hiking on a trail in Tucson Mountain Park which is located to the east of the western portion of Saguaro National Park. The National Park is broken into two different sections, one located to the east of Tucson and one located to the west. The black and white photo, which I've entitled "The Clouds Laugh" was taken in Tucson Mountain Park while I was hiking and finding a couple of geocaches.

4 & 5. Chiricahua National Monument

My second stop on this trip was in Chiricahua National Monument in southeastern Arizona. The backstory for this park comes from a student I had probably 18 years ago. When I was teaching, my school room was always plastered with posters from various parks that I had visited or wanted to visit in the future. One day in class, this student came up to me and asked if I'd ever been to Chiricahua National Monument before. When I answered in the negative, he proceeded to tell me how beautiful the park was and what a neat place it was and he spent the better part of several class periods extolling the virtues of this park. When a 13 year old kid is that excited about something in nature, you pay attention and so this park went on my bucket list as well.

My plan was to camp here for two nights and enjoy a full day of hiking and sightseeing in the park, before heading back to Phoenix where I'd spent one more night before coming home. As I was setting up my tent at my campsite, I was interrupted by a couple of coatimundis wandering through the campground. I'd seen photos of them, but have never seen them in the wild, so this was really a thrill for me. 

These two were very skittish and took off as soon as I walked a little bit closer, so I didn't get a photos of them, but my luck definitely changed the next day as I had an entire troop of around 15 coatis wander through the river bed behind my campsite.

The troop, composed of females and youngsters wandered in the river bed and fortunately, I had my camera ready, just in case. They'd send the younger coatis up the juniper trees to pick berries and while feeding themselves up in the tree, they'd also drop berries down to the others waiting below.

Once they left, I packed up my gear and headed up to the top of the park where I'd take my hike in the Heart of the Rocks loop. My goal was to see some of the geological features of the park up close and to also get the Heart of the Rocks virtual cache there. The last photo posted here is the Pinnacle Balanced Rock and is pretty typical of the types of formations you can see in this park. 

Most of the formations are created by freeze and thaw cycles, so eventually, this particular formation will fail, but others will eventually also be created through this cycle as well. I did a second hike into an area called the grottos where the rock pillars are very close to the trail and several of the pillars have collapsed against each other. There is one point in the grotto where you can sit directly underneath a very large (garage sized) boulder being held in place by two neighboring pillars. Yeah, I sat there for a little bit.

And there you have my five photos of when I got out and played last month. Please stop by P.J.'s site and see how others got out and played last month. Please feel free to comment here. I will respond back and I don't bite. As always, thanks for dropping by.

It's Your World

It's Your World, or more precisely, my world, which is the theme for P.J.'s monthly photo blog. I looked at the photos I took this month, and it really wasn't many, but there were enough photos that show a good portion of my world, and so without further ado, here's my world and welcome to it.

1. Geocaching

I seriously doubt that I could go an entire blog entry talking about things in my life without writing or at least, commenting on geocaching. I spent last weekend in Paso Robles, mostly geocaching, but also attending an outdoor wedding. Needless to say, I had some free time on my hands and so what better way to fill up the time than going out and finding hidden treasures using just a GPS receiver? I mean, it's better than watching football all day.

This particular shot was taken at an earth cache entitled McKittrick Oil Seep. For those of you uninitiated, an earth cache is a geocache where you learn some geology. You answer some questions about the area and hopefully see some cool geology in the process. This one was one of the better ones I've done, as it involved an oil seep similar to the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, although not nearly on the scale of the tar pits. The photo shows an oil seep at the side of the road (yes, that's oil, just coming up out of the ground). There were several other seeps on this side as well as several more on the other side of the road. There was also a seep coming up in the middle of the road just to the right of the shot. I had to watch where I was walking since I didn't want to step in any of the oil and get tar on my shoes. One of the questions I had to answer was if I could see any animals trapped in the tar. I didn't see any, but I actually have seen a mourning dove trapped in the muck at the La Brea Tar Pits, which I offered up as part of my answer for that question. 

In the past, I've done earth caches in all different kinds of area, some in caves, many out in the desert, and some at the beach. They are just another aspect of geocaching that I enjoy.

2. Hiking

My goal has been to get at least 5 miles of walking in per day as part of my daily health regimen and hiking in the hills behind my house or elsewhere happens quite frequently in the mix. At the beginning of this month, I wrote about my backpacking trip in the Sierra in August. Most hikes are not that extreme, but most will be strenuous. I want to stay in shape and live a long fruitful life.

I'm planning another geocaching/camping roadtrip next week where I'll be hiking in Saguaro National Park and Chiricahua National Monument, both of which are in Arizona. I had a student about 15 years ago ask me about Chiricahua National Monument and when I told him I'd never been there, he spent the better part of an hour extolling the beauty of that particular spot. When a 13 year old kid is that excited about something outdoors like that, you pay attention and the park has been on my radar ever since. Next week, I'm visiting, actually camping there and will also be doing some hiking.

3. Meep Meep!

Several years ago, we had a roadrunner living in the neighborhood. Apparently, it was living in the backyard of the house across the street from us. Ironically, the first day that I saw it back then, the very next day, I saw a coyote wandering down the street. Coincidence? I think not, but I digress.

Anyway, the roadrunner disappeared after a couple of months. Perhaps it had run out of lizards to eat there and so it had moved on to greener pastures. I like to think that it was just living the life in our little foothill community, enjoying what the neighborhood had to offer. Interestingly, because of the number of times I spied this particular roadrunner, I was able to hear it squawk a couple of times. No, it doesn't beep like a car as Warner Brothers would like you to believe, but I'm thoroughly convinced that the makers of the movie Jurassic Park, patterned the calls of the velociraptors in the movie after roadrunners.

Earlier this month, I was heading out on a hike and I opened our backdoor and what did I see, but this roadrunner sitting on our fence. Fortunately, I didn't spook it and I was able to quickly get my phone out of my pocket and get a couple of shots of it before it hopped the fence and then proceeded to cross the street over to our neighbor's yard. Whether this is the same roadrunner or a different one, I'm not sure but I hope to see it again. 

4. Butterflies

Over the years, there's a certain theme to my photos as I'm an avid wildlife photographer. The neighborhood birds and insects always interest me and I can usually be assured that I'll see some lizards scurrying out of the way as I walk the neighborhood. Then, in the spring and summer months, it's snake season and I'm getting a reputation as the snake whisperer.

But as always, if I can get a shot of a butterfly, I'm all over it. This American Painted Lady was flitting all around my backyard yesterday and once again, I didn't have my Canon handy, so I had to make do with the phone. Surprisingly, I was able to get quite close to this one and get some pretty good close up shots of it. This one wasn't in the best of shape, as you can see by its battered right wing, but it was holding its own quite well. I am curious since the painted lady migration that we get here in Southern California should have already happened. Did this one get knocked off course? Or is this one just a free spirit doing its own thing? This little bit of additional color in the back yard was welcome regardless of where it's supposed to be.

5. And more animals

As noted above, I enjoy taking photos of animals. If I can get the shot, I'll try to do the animal justice. Since it's getting cooler here as we've inched into fall, the snakes aren't out and about anymore, but the tarantulas have started to come out. I spotted this one a couple of days ago on one of my walks. It was just out for a mid morning walk, just like the rest of us. I grabbed a couple of shots and then thought about what I wanted to do next, so I put my foot in front of it hoping that it might crawl over my foot (yeah, I can already hear many of my friends saying out loud, "Are you nuts?").

Well, the spider didn't want to have anything to do with me, so it just stopped and we were pretty much in a stand off, but then I decided to get this shot, since it gave some scale to how large the spider was. In fact, this is actually on the small size for this type of spider, so I'm thinking this is a youngster.

And there you have it. This was my take on the them, "It's Your World" this month. Please stop by P.J.'s blog to see how other people interpreted this photo challenge and please drop a comment below.

Standin' on the Corner...

Well I'm a standing on the corner in Winslow, Arizona, and such a fine sight to see. It's a girl, my lord, in a flatbed Ford, slowin' down to take a look at me.

And this marks the last entry chronicling the road trip my youngest and I took to Wisconsin and back. After touring through Petrified Forest National Park, we headed to Winslow, Arizona to spend the night. Of course we geocached around town that evening including finding a virtual geocache at this spot. Memorialized in song by the Eagles, Winslow has embraced the pop culture references with a statue standing on the corner and a painting in the background making it look like there's a girl in a flatbed Ford slowing down. The building that the statue is facing plays Eagles music most of the day, although I'm not sure how late into the night the music plays. But then again, unless you really hate the Eagles, does it really matter?

Either way, it's a fun spot when you find yourself in Winslow on Route 66. The following morning, we got up, drove into Flagstaff where we had breakfast, then headed home after a very fun road trip.

Adventures

The theme for P.J.'s photo blog for this month is Adventures, and it couldn't have come at a better time, since I went on quite an adventure this past month, though not exactly as planned. But then again, that's kind of the point of an adventure in that you never know how it's really going turn out until after it's done. So here's my five photos from last month, four of which are part of my backpacking adventure and one is of something different.

1. Two striped garter snake

For those of you who have been following along, I've gotten the reputation as the snake whisperer. For whatever reason, I seem to attract snakes to me. I prefer to think that it's because I'm more observant when out walking in the wild, but that's another story that would take too long to tell here. Either way, people say it could be quite the adventure hiking with me. 

My friend Greg and I were on several training hikes up in the Lake Arrowhead and Big Bear Lake area of our local mountains. In Lake Arrowhead, we spotted a Southern Pacific rattlesnake attempting to cross the road. Fortunately, after our car straddled it on the highway, it had the sense to go back to the side of the road and I was able to get a nice video of it as it slithered into the bushes.

This garter snake, a type I've never encountered before, was stretched across the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) when I spotted it. I was pretty content just to lay across the trail while I took some video and photos of it. I estimate it to be about 4 feet long or so, on the large side for garter snakes, but I guess it was enjoying a bountiful time eating some of the rodents out in the wild. We walked around it, I decided to take another photo from the other side, but never got the photo because I accidentally kicked a rock in the direction of the snake and it took off.

2 - 5. The big adventure

We'd hoped that the training hikes at altitude would have prepared us better for the trek ahead, but we miscalculated a little bit. This is the beginning of our hike which was supposed to be a 23 mile loop through the Cottonwood Lakes region, over New Army Pass and into Sequoia National Park. Following that, we were then going to head south on the PCT and then catch the Cottonwood Pass trail back down to our base camp near Horseshoe Meadows. We spent the first night at Horseshoe Meadows, which is slightly over 10,000 feet in elevation and then began the hike the next day.

As you can see, it looks like I'm pretty excited to head out on the trail and I'm not going to lie, I was. The adrenaline had kicked in and my pace was way too fast for the first 100 yards or so. Fortunately, my shortness of breath told me I needed to slow down, which I did and we progressed at a much more reasonable pace for the rest of the trip.

However, what you're not seeing in the first photograph is my migraine headache. Most of my migraines are caused by stress and usually when the stress is released, is when I suffer the headaches. I can't begin to tell you how many times I've had a migraine on the first day of Christmas break, the first day of Spring break and the first day of Summer vacation when I was teaching. This hike was no exception. I was stressed. As I noted in my last blog entry, this was the first time I'd been backpacking since I was 19, the week that Elvis Presley died. You can do the math, but needless to say, it had been a long time since I'd been backpacking and I was overpacked. I had way too much food and the other big thing that was weighing me down was my tent. Couple that extra weight I'm carrying with a migraine that my prescription meds are just barely blunting and it wasn't the most pleasant trip I've ever been on.

Still, we pressed on and slowly the first couple of miles were behind us. We'd entered early on, the Golden Trout Wilderness area and then progressed up the hill until we entered the John Muir Wilderness area. The next day, we were supposed to enter into Sequoia National Park, but we needed to finish out this day first. 

With the headache, at least checked for now, the hiking was a bit easier, but I had no appetite. So that meant the weight of my pack wasn't declining either. I forced down some food knowing that I needed calories in my system, but it took me the better part of an hour to eat an entire Clif Bar. If you've ever backpacked, these are snack bars designed for hiking, very dense, loaded with calories to give you energy. 

I think there was another contributing factor as well, in that we were getting smoke being blown into the area from the French Fire, which was about a hundred miles away or so. The views were rather hazy and you could smell smoke in the are. If you look at photo number 4, you can see the view from our campsite was rather hazy. I'm sure this didn't help since we were also hiking above 10,000 feet.

After setting up camp and finding a geocache at the far end of Muir Lake, we hung out at camp and discussed the next day's hike. This would have taken us up over 12,000 feet in elevation and been the longest mileage day of the hike. Neither of us were feeling really well and we made the decision that we were going to end our adventure early and head back down to Horseshoe Meadows and go home.

Some of you might say that the trip was a disappointment. Not really. I learned some valuable lessons from the trip. While my tent is an awesome tent for car camping when I'm by myself, it's too heavy for a backpacking trip, so I need to look for something that's much lighter to carry on my next trip. And there's the second thing I learned and that even though this trip was very hard, it wasn't something that would turn me off on backpacking forever. I'm looking forward to more adventures like this, perhaps even coming back here next year. 

The third thing I learned was I packed way too much food. A guy in camp told me his bear canister weighed 10 pounds for an 8 day trip. I had a 10 pound canister for a 4 day trip. Yeah, I had way too much food. And so I'll adjust.

When we got back to the car at the end of our up and back overnighter, I told my friend, "Let's remember the good things about this trip." And so I leave you with one last photo that I took that morning. The winds had shifted overnight and blew all of the smoke from the fire down the hill into Owens Valley and we were left with crystal clear views. The sun was rising, just starting to hit the tops of the peaks. The waning gibbous moon was starting to set over the same peak and the scene was magical. This is why I go on adventures like this.

As John Muir stated, "The mountains are calling, and I must go."

Please be sure and check out some other people's interpretation of the same theme on P.J.'s blog.

Some real wandering

In a couple of days, I'm going to be doing some actual wanderings, something that I haven't done in about a year and a half, since right before the pandemic shut everything down. I've been planning this trip for the past 6 months, getting everything together, taking training hikes at altitude, and keeping in shape, just so this could happen.

Next week, I start a 23+ mile backpacking trip into the Sierra Nevada out of Horseshoe Meadows trailhead. The nice thing about this trek is the most I'll be hiking on any given day is about 8 miles. Most of the days are in the 5 to 6 mile range. I haven't been backpacking since I was in college, way back in (mumble, mumble), let's just say, Elvis died the week I was backpacking in the Sierra.

Our first day, we'll hike about 5 miles up to one of the Cottonwood Lakes and find a campsite. There's actually a couple of geocaches up there, so we'll probably look for those after we set up camp. Those might be the only geocaches we find on the entire hike, but that's fine. My plan is to enjoy this, take lots of photos, and possibly put together some video blogs when I get back home.

The second day is probably our toughest day, hiking 8 miles up and over New Army pass into Sequoia National Park. Campsite is scheduled to be Soldier Lake in the park. From there, on the third day, we'll hike south, pick up the Pacific Crest Trail and follow it southbound to our next campsite. The next day, we'll complete the loop and end up back at Horseshoe Meadow. 

I'm really looking forward to this trip.

Petrified Forest National Monument

Once again, it's time to look back on my youngest and my 2017 road trip to Wisconsin and back. When last we checked, we had stopped at Capulin Volcano National Monument in northeast New Mexico. The following morning, we headed off with the intention of making it into Arizona, somewhere near Petrified Forest National Park. As we drove we, of course, geocached along the way, because that's what we do.

We stopped for lunch in Albuquerque, New Mexico and then continued on to Arizona, reaching Petrified Forest sometime around 3 o'clock in the afternoon, which gave us plenty of time to tour the park. This was my second visit to the park and the first for my youngest. For those of you unfamiliar with the park, you can either enter the park at the southern end or at the northern along Interstate 40. There is no established camping in the park but there is plenty of wilderness backpacking opportunities, although you'd have to be prepared since it is a desert and water is scarce.

The park, for the most park is a drive through, something that can be seen in a couple of hours, but that doesn't diminish it in any way as a national park. The scenery is breathtaking with broad vistas in the northern part of the park. The small loop hikes take place in the southern part of the park where the concentration of petrified wood is found There's even several geocaches located within the park boundaries, which is very rare since the National Park Service views most geocaches as litter, but since these were all placed by a ranger who was stationed in the park, the park service allowed these. They even have a page dedicated to geocaching on their website. For the most part they were simple hides, but they took you to many viewpoints and points of interest within the park, without impacting the landscape in any way. Besides the traditional caches, we also found a couple of virtual caches and a couple of geological based earth caches.

Looking at the second shot, you can see in the distance, a developing thunderstorm. This would curtail a little bit of what we wanted to do, but we still were able to enjoy the park and what it had to offer. We drove through the painted desert part (northern) and stopped at all of the viewpoints, including one where there was a rusted hulk of a very old Studebacker roadster where there is a geocache hidden. Petrified Forest also has the distinction of being the only national park that the original Route 66 crosses through, which is what this viewpoint was pointing out.

After that viewpoint, you then cross over Interstate 40 and are now in the petrified forest. At every viewpoint, you get glimpses of logs, petrified with beautiful colors. As you can see in the third pooh  the colors of all of the logs were simply amazing. According to the park's website, the colors primarily come from three different minerals. "Pure quartz is white, manganese oxides form blue, purple, black, and brown, and iron oxides provide hues from yellow through red to brown." Most of the logs during this point are farther away, but you can walk out to them. Being in the high 90s, we opted to take photos and then continued on our drive, hoping to hike the Crystal Forest loop trail.

Once we got down to the Crystal Forest, we stopped and decided to hike the loop which takes you through a large portion of petrified wood and brings you very close to a lot of the logs that are preserved in the park. The temperature had cooled down considerably at this point owing to the impending thunderstorm which was approaching from the east. We kept hearing thunder in the distance and occasionally would see flashes of lightning, so we quickened our pace just a little bit. There's not a lot of cover out in the desert so the threat of a lightning strike was slightly higher, not to mention the distinct possibility that we could get rained on by a cloudburst.

I took some more photos and we finished up the loop and hurried back to our car, getting there just about the time it had started to rain. You can see the rain in the distance of the last photo as we hiked the Crystal Forest loop trail. As we walked the loop, I was struck by the immenseness of the logs, many like the one in the last photo lining the edge of the trail. I also lamented the fact that there had to be signs along the trail at regular intervals telling people that it was against the law to remove any of the petrified rock. In fact, people were encouraged to report other people who had removed pieces of petrified rock from the area. As you can see from the last photo, there's a lot of petrified wood, but if everyone took a piece every time they visited, the park would soon not have any of its namesake to even be a park anymore. If you are out and about anywhere, please practice the Leave No Trace principles as outlined on the link provided.

As noted above, you can probably see the entire park in about a couple of hours. To really delve into some of the trails, it would probably be more like four or five hours. But if you're traveling on Interstate 40, in the eastern part of the state and you're not in a hurry, this is a spot that you'll probably enjoy. I've been back a second time in October of 2019 when I was coming back from my Colorado road trip. I mainly stopped that time to find some of the geocaches that we hadn't found on the previous road trip mainly because it was really hot the day we were there. In October, I didn't have worry about heat and I was able to find the ones we'd bypassed two years previously.

Happy

Well, July was a total bust regarding this blog. I had high hopes for the month of July, but the month just got away from me. A trip to the Bay Area during the second week in July fulfilled my retirement goal of an overnighter per month, which is starting to look pretty good for the near future at least. 

And I was able to get out and take some photos, so P.J.'s monthly photo blogging challenge looks doable this month as well. With these photo blogs, I usually don't try to think about the theme very much and then when the month is ended, I look at the shots I've taken and see if they fit into the them for the previous month. Sometimes, it's really easy, sometimes, I don't participate because I didn't take anything that I felt fit the theme.

This month's theme was happy and I think I was able to get five shots that fits the theme pretty well. So without further adieu, I give you my take on the theme happy.

1. The COVID hairstyle

Most of you who have been following along know I decided right from the get go that I wouldn't expose myself unnecessarily and so things that didn't need to be done, didn't get done, like getting my haircut. Several of my friends took the same tack, one of them being John, a fellow geocacher. We both had gotten our last haircut in February of 2020 and had only seen each other via Zoom meetings. We joked about the length of our hair and decided to have a contest as to which of us could have the longest hair length by the time the next time we met at a geocaching event. Yesterday, for the first time in about a year and a half, we saw each other at a geocaching event. Since I got my haircut about a month ago, I definitely lost that contest, but it makes me happy that we were able to get together once again.

2 & 3. Family and Dogs

As always, getting together with family makes me extremely happy. In mid July, my wife and I drove up to visit with two thirds of our kids, both of who live up in the Bay Area with their respective spouses/partners. My youngest was visiting with his partner back east, so he wasn't along for the ride, otherwise it would have been the first time the entire family had been together face to face, since before the pandemic began.

We also got to meet my daughter and son-in-law's new dog. I say new, since we'd never met her before, but they've had her for over a year now. About a week before we got there, my son's partner got a German Shepherd puppy which we also met for the first time. It's been a long time since dogs have been in our households and it was really good to see four legged friends enjoying life under our rooftops again.

4. Travel

I love to travel. I especially love to travel to new places that I have never visited before, but a couple of places are near and dear to my heart, one of them being San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge. I think I could sit in the shadow of the Golden Gate Bridge and watch the sunlight and clouds play around its spires for days and days. No matter how many times I visit, I try to sneak in a visit to the bridge and this last trip up north was no exception.

Because I was doing some geocaching related things I also decided that it would be a good time to explore Ft. Point again, located underneath the bridge and to also walk across the bridge over to Marin County. I've done that one time previously about 6 years ago, but it felt like a good time to do it again. I'm not sure I'd do it again, mainly because of the noise and the fact that I've already done it twice, but standing on the bridge and getting different kinds of photographic shots still inspires me and makes me happy, so I won't say I won't ever do it again, because I know in the long run what makes me happy.

When I originally took this shot, I thought it was going to be a throw away shot, one that I take, because I don't think I've gotten enough shots of a particular subject. I always take more than what I really need to take for this reason, because every now and then, you get a shot that just tends to grow on you. This is one of those shots. I love how the south spire of the bridge disappears into the mist of the cloud bank and how you can barely make out the north spire. 

I love the architecture of the bridge and how the bridge was redesigned  to include the arch so that Ft. Point wasn't demolished when the bridge was built. I love that surfers use this area as a gathering spot in which to ply their particular hobby (It's not for me, but that's what makes the world go around, is a little bit of diversity).

5. My love

I met her at a party in June 1986 and we were married a year later in July 1987. We've had our ups and downs, but mostly it's been a lot of ups, which makes me very happy.  To this day, I can't for the life of me even begin to understand why she still wants to be around me with all of my faults, so I guess I can consider myself a very lucky man.

I know she doesn't really like this particular photo, but I think it's one of the better photos I've taken of her over the years. It was taken at an outdoor dining venue in town, where we went just to enjoy each other's company and enjoy eating together. I like how it shows her relaxed side. As my daughter says, "Vacation Mom is the best mom." 

We don't eat out very often during her regular work year, but when she's on summer vacation, we get to spend a lot more time together. Evening walks to help keep us in shape happen during the summer time and she's expressed an interest in continuing that into the fall and winter months. I'm agreeable to that. And so it goes. But she makes me happy and I hope I make her happy as well.

And that's my take on this month's theme. Stop by P.J.'s page and click on the links at the bottom to see how other people have interpreted this same theme.

Capulin Volcano National Monument

This is a continuation of our 2017 road trip that I took with my youngest in June and July of that year. The day we drove through 5 states in one day, we stopped at Capulin Volcano National Monument in the late afternoon for a quick day trip of this out of the way national monument. It's a small park, only open during daylight hours, so it's perfect for a quick side trip. 

Usually, when we enter a national park or monument, we usually hit the visitors center first and this part was no exception, but there were a couple of extenuating circumstances to this visit. There was an actual physical geocache located inside the visitors center. Usually, geocaches are not allowed within national park boundaries, because the park service views geocaches as litter, for obvious reasons. However, this one was being maintained by one of the rangers there and so this was one of those special circumstances. I'd found a geocache hidden in the visitors center of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, but this one was a little bit easier to find, because all we had to do was ask the person behind the desk for the geocache and they pulled it out from behind the counter. Cool deal all the way around. After signing the logsheet and dropping a travel bug off in the container, we then headed back to the car and the road which would take us to the rim parking lot.

This particular monument is only open during daylight hours, there is no camping inside the park, so it would only take a couple of hours to tour the entire park. We spent about an hour and a half there, either in the visitors center, or walking the rim trail around the volcano. We opted not to make any hikes after the rim trail mainly because we had had a long day already and still had another hour or so to drive to get to our motel room further down the road.

The rim trail is self guiding with several interpretive signs around the rim giving you insight into why this volcano is here and what happened when it erupted many thousands of years ago. Because it stands out from the surrounding landscape, it offered views of New Mexico in all directions. I'm sure that if we'd been paying attention to details on a couple of the signs, we might have been able to see into Utah to the north, but I don't recall any distinguishing features that stood out.

There were two interesting things that did stand out on that particular walk. The first was the abundance of ladybugs that were in the early stages of getting out of hibernation and into mating mode. They were everywhere and I got a couple of shots of them, but nothing to write home about. Those of you who are still reading at this point are probably wondering, why I chose to put a picture of a damaged bench here instead of a photo of the ladybugs.

Well, this damaged bench was interesting, mainly because the damage was caused by a lightning strike. That, in my estimation, made it the coolest thing we saw up there on the rim that day. The bench actually had its own interpretive sign, so we weren't just guessing about it and we didn't really wonder whether we were in danger of a possible strike since the clouds off in the distance weren't the thunderhead type of clouds.

While up on the rim, we also completed what needed to be done for a virtual cache that was in the park and we would have probably also completed the steps for an earthcache that was there as well, but hadn't read the cache page ahead of time. It was only after we were back down off of the volcano that we realized that the information that we needed was back up on the rim and there wasn't enough time left to get back up there before the park closed, and so we called it a day.

All in all, it was an enjoyable couple of hours we spent in the park, once again marveling at the power of nature. If you're ever in the northeast corner of New Mexico, you might want to consider checking out this little park. It was a mid summer day and we practically had the park all to ourselves. 

700 and Scenic Route & becoming a Trail Angel

Two weekends ago, I was fortunate enough to go on my first camping trip in almost 2 years. Yeah, COVID will do things like that, but I digress. Most of you who are probably reading this, have already seen my video I put together about the hike we did on that Saturday up to Kearsarge Pass. If you haven't, I would suggest clicking on that link and watching it. As we were making our way up to Kearsarge Pass, we kept bumping into Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) hikers coming down the trail heading either to Independence or Bishop for a resupply of food. I talked with several of them and made up my mind if I could help a hiker or two get down the hill the next day, I'd do it. 

The next morning, Sunday, as I packed up camp and loaded up the Jeep for the ride back home, I did a good job of Tetrising my stuff so there'd be enough room for two other backpacks and two hikers I could bring down the hill. And as luck would have it, as I was entering the hiker part of the parking lot, there stood 700 with his thumb out and I asked him how many in his group. He said one other, Scenic Route and I said "Hop in." We drove down to where Scenic Route was and the look on her face as she put her thumb out, then realized that 700 was already in the car was priceless. We loaded up her gear into the Jeep and down the hill we went.

I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation as we made our way down the hill into Independence. 700 told me that he got his trail name because that's the amount of water he carries maximum. I guess in the Sierra, that's probably OK since there's lots of water around, but hiking with only 700 milliliters of water in the desert just seemed like downright scary to me. Scenic Route got her trail name because she ended up taking several hikers down the wrong trail at some point, thus she took them on the scenic route.

I dropped them off at the corner of the road as it joined up with HWY 395, we fist bumped and I asked if I could get a photo of the two of them. Now, I wish I could have gotten a couple more shots of them, but this one will do. Scenic Route took a photo of me with 700 for her albums. I got 700's Instagram account and am now following him there, so I can see how the rest of their trip is going. We then said out goodbyes and I watched them as they headed north to get a burger at a local restaurant.

And that's how I became a trail angel.

Spring has Sprung

It's the first week of the month and that means that it's time for P.J.'s monthly photo blog, this time with the theme Spring has Sprung. With all of the hiking I've been doing recently, it wasn't much of a stretch to come up with 5 photos that fit the theme for this month, so here we go.

1. Ladybug on a leaf

Last year at this time, I was taking photos of insects left and right. Butterflies and ladybugs were the main subjects last year. This year, I've been concentrating on the reptilian end of the animal kingdom (more on that later), but that hasn't stopped me from occasionally sneaking a shot of some insect that I end up crossing paths with. Insects are out and about finding mates, laying eggs and generally doing those life things that perpetuate their species, so this is a general photo indicating that spring definitely has sprung. I really liked the contrast of this one with all of the green and that single splash of red color in the middle.

2. Making more sunflowers

This particular trail leads up to Johnson's Pasture from Pomelo Ave. in Claremont. It's kind of tricky to find the actual access to this particular trail on the low side because there's a lot of no trespassing signs all around, but if people pay close attention, they'll notice that the no trespassing signs pertain to the horse ranch to the west. Even so, the trail itself it still kind of hidden and you kind of have to have inside knowledge about it.

In reality, I don't mind since that usually means there's less people on this particular trail, thus more wildlife to see, etc. I've encountered all kinds of birds, snakes and insects up there and there's a nice "grove" of wild sunflowers up there lining the trail. I can usually guarantee there are several honeybees pollinating the flowers and can usually get one or two decent shots of them creating more sunflowers for next year. This year's crop are starting to die out, but as you can see by the blur in the background of this shot, there's plenty of them up there for all to enjoy as long as everyone who goes through there practices the "Leave no Trace" hiking philosophy. Leave only footprints, take only pictures. I think we really need to keep that in mind as the population of bees dwindles over time due to insecticides doing what they do best to insect populations. It's not just sunflowers that we'll need in the future, but a lot of other plants depend upon bees.

3. Geocaching

I know, I know. I write about geocaching a lot. But it's something I enjoy and when an old teaching friend of mine said he was having problems with a particular cache, I jumped at the opportunity to go out and cache with him. I'd already found this cache, but it's always fun seeing people's eyes light up when they find a really well hidden cache, as this one was.

He, as most people do when they see me nowadays, commented on the length of my hair. In the past, my hair would get slightly longer in the springtime and usually after school got out, I'd go and get my summer cut. It was not really much of a difference back then, but you can tell it's still spring because I haven't gotten my hair cut yet. The key word there is yet. It's really starting to drive me crazy, but there are still a couple of people who haven't seen it in person yet, so I'm holding off until I see them and then I'm getting it cut. I'm fully vaccinated now and it's really time for the locks to go. Then we will know that summer has sprung, but in the meantime, my hair is still shaggy.

4. The snake whisperer

But Paul, that isn't a snake. Yeah, I know, but I don't have any still photos of snakes this month, just several videos, but lizards and snakes are in the same family and with the warmer weather, they are starting to be out in abundance, which means we all have to be careful while hiking or geocaching.

I've posted so many videos of snakes on Instagram and Facebook this season that several people have even considered not following me anymore, while other people have started calling me the Snake Whisperer and still others have suggested that I'm becoming one with the snakes. I'm not sure about any of those, but I might grab the handle of snake or reptile whisperer for a couple of reasons.

Once after a hike, I walked into the parking lot and there was a large lizard, similar to this one, sunning itself on a rock. I ended up sitting down on the rock right next to it, no more than 5 feet away or so. It didn't even flinch, like it knew that I was not going to harm it and I only wanted to get a close up shot for posterity. So it posed for me and then just sat there after the photo shoot was done.

The second instance happened earlier this week when I was taking the last shot in this series. I happened to look down the trail and there was another hiker just standing in the trail with camera out and I could see down on the ground in front of her, a two foot snake, although I wasn't sure what kind it was because I was too far away. So I hurried up to where she was, but the snake had already slithered away into the bushes. The other hiker confirmed that it was a Western Diamondback rattlesnake, which I assumed it was as I walked toward it because it had its tail up and I could see the rattles.

Anyway, I peered into the bushes on the side of the trail just in case I might be able to get a glimpse of the snake, but I couldn't see anything, so I turned to walk down the trail and continue my hike. Only after I walked away from the snake, did it rattle its rattle at me, as if to say, "Here I am." So I walked back over to where I'd heard the sound and spotted the snake curled up in the grasses by the side of the trail. It never rattled its tail again at me, even though I was closer to it when I finally saw it, as opposed to when I was walking away. Apparently, it knew that I meant it no harm and only wanted to see it. So yeah, I guess I'm the snake whisperer.

5. California Gold

Even though our last governor declared our drought over, we really haven't been out of a drought in California in possibly 20 years. We'll get one or two good rainy years, but then the next six or seven years are below normal. This year is no exception to that with the snow pack in the Sierra Nevada at 25% of normal. That's not a good thing as it means a dry summer and fall and more wildfires throughout that same time period. We've already had a couple of local wildfires in Southern California already in the spring, usually a time of greenness, but this season, we're already into our California Gold season where the grasses start to die off and we get this beautiful contrast between the dark green of the oaks and the brown of the hillside. All this really means is that spring, even though it's sprung, is quite short this year and we're quickly approaching summer time.

And there you have it, my interpretation of the theme for this month, Spring has Sprung. Comments, as always are greatly appreciated. Please stop by P.J.'s page and see how others interpreted the same theme.

Five States in One Day

I was thinking I hadn't written here in awhile, but I was surprised to see it's been almost a month since my snake post. This continues my series of posts regarding my 2017 summer road trip.

When last on this series, I'd written about Mingo, the oldest active geocache in the world, located in eastern Kansas. The next day, we left heading to northeast New Mexico, but our route took us on a non-intuitive trek through five states, Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico. Had I been thinking a little bit more, I could have routed us through Nebraska and/or Wyoming and Utah. The purpose, obviously was to find at least one geocache in each state. And yes, there's challenges out there for finding caches in several states in a single day. 

I've signed one that challenges you to find caches in 7 states in a day. It's a lot easier on the east coast than on the west coast, but this one day took us through 5, so even in the west it's possible. Start at the edge of one state, travel through 5 others and end on the edge of the next state, which is about what we did at least to get 5 different states. The photo is of the two of us getting a virtual cache at the confluence of the borders of Texas, New Mexico, and Oklahoma. Believe it or not, this was the second confluence of three states that we'd visited on this trip, having previously visited the confluence of South Dakota, Iowa, and Minnesota. Once the pandemic restrictions have totally lifted, I guess I'll need to eventually get back to the four corners area and get a photo of me there as well.

Things I learned on this day's travel. 

1. Eastern Colorado is much more part of the Great Plains than it is of the Rocky Mountains. 

2. Smart phones and time zones are remarkably accurate. There was one cache we found, where we were driving on the road into New Mexico. I parked the car at the side of the road, walked across the road to find a cache at the northwest corner of Texas. In the time I walked across the road, my smart phone had adjusted itself to Central Daylight Time (Texas) and once we walked back on the other side of the road, it had adjusted itself back to Mountain Daylight Time (New Mexico).

Snake Magnet?

Last week, I took this shot of a 3 foot gopher snake. I also got a nice video of it, plus another smaller gopher snake and a ring-necked snake while out on my hike. All in all, I ended up seeing 4 snakes that day and because I've encountered other snakes in the past couple of weeks, I've been dubbed the snake magnet and several people had indicated that they don't want to hike with me because I attract snakes.

Now a little background is probably in order here. I've always been fascinated by snakes and wanted to have one as a pet when I was younger, but because my mother was deathly afraid of snakes, I never could. While teaching, a teaching friend of mine offered up his daughter's snake to me. She had gone off to college and he didn't want to take care of it, so he gave it to me for my science classroom. It was a beautiful corn snake that I had for about 10 years.

Now I encounter snakes in the wild, probably because during warmer months, I ALWAYS scan 10 to 15 feet ahead on the trail. I don't want to step on one, so I think I'm possibly more observant than the average hiker. And here's something else to think about. If you see lizards on the trail, there are snakes active as well, you just haven't discovered them yet. So the question is, would you rather hike with someone who is observant of snakes and spots them from 10 feet off, or would you rather encounter a snake from 10 inches? The choice is yours, but I'm always willing to hike with you.

And then there were 6

Here's a quick update on our bird situation. Yesterday and today were quite dreary and we got over a tenth of an inch of rain today. I hadn't seen any activity in a couple of days, so I decided to check on the nest. Definitely signs of activity as the nest is more feather-lined, but the most important evidence of activity is the number of eggs. Now, instead of the three that I noted on April 7th, there are 6 individual little eggs. With 14 to 16 day incubation periods, these little guys, if they've been taken care of by their parents correctly should begin hatching in a couple of days.

I will be monitoring, from afar, the progress over the next couple of days. Here's hoping the weather starts to warm up, but we have a 30 to 40% chance of some more rain on Monday, so these little ones are going to be in for a chilly first couple of days of life.

14 months

14 months ago today, I got a haircut, not realizing at the time that it would be the last time I'd gotten a haircut. To say it's starting to bug me is a bit of an understatement. And I know eventually I'll get it cut again, as it's so much easier to deal with when it's short. But for the moment, it grows, and grows, and grows.

To be honest, I never thought that the longest my hair would ever be was in my 60s. I figured my "long-haired hippie" days were far behind me, yet here I am, still embracing the shaggy.

And no, it's not really that lopsided. The wind was blowing making it pouf out on one side and flattening it down on the other. Yeah, that's my story and I'm sticking with it. So anyway, I thought I'd let you see what 14 months look like and since I'm not fully vaccinated until after I reach 15 months without a haircut, it will be a little longer before it eventually gets cut.

Birds in the Breezeway

About two weeks ago I noticed a bird flitting around in the breezeway between our garage and the main part of our house. Now, there's all sorts of stuff in the breezeway, mostly geocaching stuff, but there's also several containers, boxes, buckets and baskets. This bird, or actually these two birds kept flying in and out of the breezeway and eventually I figured out they were building a nest somewhere in the breezeway. By just sitting there, I also eventually figured out they were building the nest in the wicker basket. The lid to the white plastic bucket in the photo had been casually thrown into the wicker basket and it created a void underneath, with an opening about the size of a small bird, but not large enough for most predators. It was really a perfect place for them to set up housekeeping.

And of course, because I'm me, I had to see what the nest looked like and so I carefully lifted the plastic lid. Immediately, the bird that was sitting on the nest flew off leaving behind a perfectly empty nest. So, they were still in the process of building their home and hadn't settled down to family life yet. I carefully put the plastic lid back down and hoped that I hadn't scared them off from their nest. 

Fortunately, I spotted one of them the next day with more nest building materials, so I knew that their home was still being built and I hadn't scared them off. I'm pretty sure, based on everything that I've researched, that I have a pair of Bewick's Wrens nesting in that wicker basket. For a timeline, the first photo was taken March 27th and the second photo was taken on April 7th.

A couple of days went by and I stopped seeing the birds, so I was worried that they may have abandoned the nest, so I gingerly checked it again. No birds were in the nest, however, as the photo indicates, there were three little eggs now residing there, which meant that momma and papa were probably close by. As you can see by the first photo, they really did pick a choice location, as the spot gets a lot of warmth from the afternoon sun, which means they don't have to spend all their time sitting on the nest. I'm not sure of this particular bird's nesting habits, but I know other birds routinely leave their nests, so it's kind of nice that they're going to be naturally heated while the parents are away.

Last night, April 8th, I was sitting out in the breezeway talking with a friend of mine on the phone and I heard animal rustlings. This, in itself is not surprising, because we have quite a number of different kinds of animals that have come through our back yard from time to time, from squirrels and lizards, to possums, skunks and raccoons, not to mention a flurry of different kinds of birds. So naturally, I looked to my right to see what was making the noise and one of the wrens was sitting on the edge of a plastic bucket about two feet from where its mate was probably sitting on the nest, so I definitely know they're actively taking care of the eggs now too. 

For scale in your own mind, the cup of the nest is about 2.5 inches in diameter with an overall diameter of the nest on the order of about 5 to 6 inches. Although the photo doesn't show it very well, there are three eggs in there and who knows if they've laid some more after that photo was taken a couple of days ago. Incubation for the eggs is roughly 14-16 days, which means they could begin hatching as early as this upcoming Tuesday or as late as the 21st of April. Needless to say, I'll be keeping you posted as we await the chirping of little ones coming from the interior of that wicker basket.

Now I need to dig out the large bird feeder and fill it with some appropriate seed for the parents to use. And I also think that if everything had been put away correctly, they'd be nesting someplace else, so I guess it sometimes pays to be a little bit messy or disorganized.

Hacked

This is not about computer problems, but of things I've seen in my neighborhood park recently. A year ago, we went in to lockdown and this park was pretty much my world for a couple of months. The last photo I took before lockdown was on March 11th and the next photo I took while out on a walk was March 22nd. It was shortly after that date that I started noticing the birds and butterflies in my neighborhood and got out my big camera and started documenting them. This particular park was where a goodly amount of my shots were taken.

In the past week or so, "gardeners" came through and pruned the trees in the park. Please not I put gardeners in quotes, because in my opinion, they did a hack job and I believe the city is just paying them one and done for this job. It's rather obvious that the trees in this park don't get pruned on a regular basis, based upon how they were pruned this time. If you look closely, you can actually see the rubber band that was used when this tree was younger to hold it to the stake. No one was watching and maintaining this tree during the early years and the branch grew around the rubber band. Now that's a week spot on the tree and it's probably a good thing that the branch was cut because it probably would have broken later on. I get it with the trees as the city's tax dollars only stretch so far and this is probably a cheaper fix than to high a full time gardener for each park. So let's just pay someone to trim back the trees every five years or so. What worries me about this is how much is this going to affect the bird habitat that has been established over the past couple of years? 

On my walks recently, I've been able to pick out the calls of the spotted towhees, a bird that I got several good shots of last year, so they're still around. The scrub jays are here as you can always recognize their calls as well. What I haven't noticed yet is the return of the Western bluebird or the Northern Mockingjay. Of course, if my first photo after lockdown was taken until March 22nd, then there's still time for them to come back. This particular shot of a Western bluebird was taken on May 11th. I just hope the habitat they were enjoying this past year wasn't so totally disrupted that they don't come back. I guess time will tell on that one.

Trust me when I write that I will continue to document the birds in the neighborhood as they make their returns from parts unknown.

I Spy with my Eye

I got a grace period on writing this blog entry since P.J. posted his photo challenge for the month of February a little bit late this month. I'd checked it out and I had taken enough photos last month to get something together, so here goes. Last month's challenge was, I Spy with my Eye, a pretty broad theme, so just about anything goes.

1. Sunset

While I can't control what the power companies hang in the back yard easement, I can enjoy a beautiful sunset. I was standing in the kitchen looking to the east thinking, what the heck is that glow outside? I decided to check out the view to the west and was greeted with this. I called to everyone in the house to get out and check this out and then took a couple of shots. Should have taken the shot first, then called to everyone, but it still turned out nice even though it was already fading by the time I took the shot.

2. Covid Hair

Most of my friends are well aware that I've been growing my hair out since the pandemic started, not because I thought I'd start a different look, but more that I didn't feel like walking into a place with lots of other people while a disease was possibly about. More than likely, I'll get my hair cut once I've received my vaccinations, but until then, my hair continues to grow. This shot was taken on my birthday last month, 4 days after I'd passed one year without getting my haircut. Once I'd started embracing a short hair look, I figured my "long hair" days were gone and never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that the longest my hair would ever be would be after I turned 63.

3. You Make Me Happy

For those of you following along, one of the pleasures I've gotten this past year is viewing some of the artwork of talented people and the randomness of finding painted rocks out and about. I spotted this rock along a loop trail in the wilderness park north of my house while I was out cleaning up the trail. In reality, I probably should have picked this one up, but decided to leave it for others to enjoy. I also knew that eventually, it would disappear and I was correct. The next time I hiked that particular section of trail, the rock was gone, either picked up by rangers who would have considered it trash, or by another collector of painted rocks. 

4. Strengthening mind and body

This shot was taken on one of the many trails in the foothills north of my house. I love to hike on these trails just to clear my thoughts, get in shape and think about possible spots where I could hide a new geocache. Right down that fire road to the right about 200 feet or so is an old geocache, hidden by another person, that I found many moons ago, so I can't hide anything here, but that's not the point. I got out, got some good exercise and had a great view. And for those of you who are curious, the mountain on the right is the taller of the two peaks. Cucamonga Peak tops out at slightly over 8,800 feet above sea level.

5. It's too early

This photo was taken on February 23rd. It's the middle of winter, for crying out loud, and snakes should not be out and about at this time. But as climate change happens, we can expect to see this more and more unless we wake up and realize that there are things we can do to mitigate what could be a global crisis. I guess this is also a public service announcement, especially for people who live in Southern California, that you should always be careful when you're out on a hike or looking for geocaches, since we know these creatures could be active at any time. This gopher snake is pretty harmless, but I've seen rattlesnakes out and about this winter too.

And there you have it, my take on the theme I Spy with my Eye for P.J.'s photo challenge for this month. Click on the link to see his and other people's interpretation of this month's theme.