RVing in the time of COVID 6: Our day in Tucson

COVID hits home again, my younger sister sent out a text that she had been feeling achy and had some chills and tested positive for COVID, oh boy, two young daughters, expecting a third...and now...the plague. Not much I can do but send her a birthday card, pray a little, and hope for the best.  Sort of a terrible wait in this pandemic, a very slow moving virus, but moving everywhere.

So we are in Tucson, on our way to Florida, very slowly, today with uber birder Thor Manson.  He is an Uber birder because like Uber, he is taking us around. Some people come here for the gem and mineral expo (been there) but that is cancelled, some come for the University, no students seen at U of A, others for well, I don't know, why do you come to Tucson?  When I get to a town, it is usually for the sewage treatment ponds and/or the dump, today, it wasn't the dump but where I was was near to a water treatment effluent and of course there were birds.

So we went and saw this rather persistent Northern Jacana, a Mexican and Central American wader, rarely seen north of the border.  Both Silja and I had not only seen them a few times in South Texas, we saw them in January in Costa Rica, This one is a lot easier to see than one in the grass at Santa Ana NWR in Alamo TX for my lifer in North America.  They are like Snowy owls, though, they suck out the exposure of cameras and are hard to get a perfect photo unless the light is perfect, and it wasn't, but it was a good bird, and we saw it fly, they have cool looking wings.

Green heron was a bird I've never seen in Arizona

So we went off to Columbus Park to see Midwestern warblers not usually seen in Arizona.  We found a half dozen birders and a ....

Blackburnian warbler, a bird I have in Alaska, but not here

nothing says quality photos more than having a fishing pole in the way of a rare bird

a northern parula, another rare bird here, but one I seen in five states this year

for me, a local "trash" bird, this Vermillion flycatcher was a better find, and a year bird, the others seen in Minnesota and South Dakota in May were not.

So out of the park we went to find something I needed, a picture of a "real" Mexican duck which I have never photographed, so off we went to the zoo, well this wasn't A "zoo bird" (I had my doubts), the park near the zoo and in a pond surrounded by a construction fence we spotted out quarry, 

Nice yellow bill, no curled tail feathers, nice brown back, and nice face, this is a Mexican duck and no hybrid.  They added this species to the checklist this year from a mallard subspecies, I'd seen ones before, but in the mud and what looked like a construction site, today I got the bird on film.

In the park I spotted something else...

a cute little girl feeding a hoard of ducks with her dad

below a sign saying not to....but at least they were wearing masks, 

So not your typical sightseeing in Tucson but I saw some sites, some birds, and well, we are stayed as safe as we could.  

So an update, and yes, birding is going on

Stay safe

Olaf

RVing in the time of COVID 5: Goings on down at the border

Another state, another state lifer bird, which is just something to do in these COVID days, but even a pine sisken (yellow) can keep me amused for a little while, trying to get a photo of the local "rarity," it even got me to put out my feeder. 

Our RV keeps moving, and we leave no stone un-turned or so to speak, to keep ourselves entertained and figuring the safest place is out in the desert, we just spent the last week in the California chaparral in the mountains of San Diego County near Jacumba Hot Springs.  It was a week of updates and catching up.  I have been up here almost every year since coming in November of 2012.

The owners of just about everything in the town for the last 20 years have largely sold out, selling their Jacumba Hot Springs Spa last month and announcing the sale of the RV park we stayed at a few days before we showed up, but I guess the trails in the state park adjoining are still there but as the two places shared a cook, the place we stayed at did not have food, this was despite COVID, no one to make it.  The bar, well, it never looked open to me.  So the future? It may be different as I guess if I had wanted kit to stay the same, I should have bought it, but I did not want it.  We went looking for a reported KOA an exit west, scouting, but it led us down the road that then announced "sets" longer than 40 feet would not be allowed, too dangerous, too curvy....which is quite short for RVs, not a good place to have a KOA....and then the KOA sign pointed right, and then a mile later we saw a sign pointing back where we came, we never found the KOA after driving in circles, so a back up spot might not exist here, if this RV spot closes.  What would some young guys want with a quirky 480 acre RV park in the desert?  Then again what did the wealthy Hamann family want with a dude ranch west of here (more on that in a moment).

Our home for the week, Temple Mountain center

 Strange Goings on along McCain Road

We were out mindlessly exploring for new campsites sites, when we spotted a sign showing a campsite up McCain Valley Road near Boulevard seven miles west of Jacumba off on Old Hwy 80.  I drove up and saw a flock of blackbirds, mostly tricolored which then flew away as I was trying to roll down my car window, so we kept going.  It was hunting season up on the high country, and people were out driving anywhere, even here.  

First we stumbled upon a rather inconsequential sign, so inconsequential I never took a picture. McCain Valley Conservation Corps, which is not some YMCA camp for the outside.  But then I noticed the property was marked with Department of Corrections signage.  I laughed saying they misspelled McCain Valley Concentration Camp, not realizing how close I was to the truth.  It turns out this is a nice way to describe a huge prison which is just over the hill and out of view.  2500 inmates, stashed out here, in the desert.

So we drove down the road, saw something called the Rough Acres Ranch, surrounded by rather new fence that looked more to keep people in, than the prisoners out.  I sort of struck us as a front for some nefarious or secret activity.  Either a front for criminal activity, a place to extract information from CIA type spies captured covertly, or maybe a high end brothel for sex slaves.  I looked up the ranch.  The place  has a little history, back in 1963, after a really bad season, the coach of the San Diego Chargers brought the team up to the ranch to toughen them up for training camp for the season, they lifted weights were injected steroids three times a day, and then went back to San Diego and had the best season in the history of the franchise, winning the AFL Championship, the only Championship in franchise history, but that was the past.

In 2020?  Since 2014 The Hamann companies, a big family owned San Diego Construction company now owns the ranch has been trying to make the place a men's retreat and conference center.  A men's retreat....?  Hum.....I still am suspicious.  Up the road they have built a wind farm operation, that also has quite a bit of CIA looking buildings, and these guys seem to have not made any friends locally, so the Hamanns have tried to become the kings of Boulevard by just building things, maybe like the railroad that goes nowhere (we'll get to that) getting friendly government money to do so.....I guess by the couple in Jacumba, being the local king up here isn't everything.  But I learned a good football story, 57 years ago.   Now I'm scared to go up a road for fear I'll be detained by the CIA or something.

The Border wall

11/2020 construction

2018 border, same area

There is more to this wall than meets the eye, besides the obvious question of who and why there is this half a mile hole right here just east of Jacumba.  This wall here was just sort of approved without any hearings and huge water and cement trucks began scaring a Wilderness protected by a 1994 Wilderness Protection Act....but being "national security" it wasn't reviewed.

I like wilderness, you all probably like wilderness, and wilderness aside, there is more to this story.  First, there are federally protected Peninsular bighorn sheep a species that has dwindled in recent years that need to migrate on both sides of the border, this wall might eliminate this species in years with very sporadic water (which might be every year).

Hate Trump, okay, blame him too, fine, BUT, don't have your hate for him blind you of any common sense, because here, in this issue we are all at fault.  We haven't pushed either party to solve this, either, a wing of one party apparently wants "open" borders (because all we ever here from is hard left or hard right on any issue as that makes ratings) with I suppose full benefits and access to jobs without restrictions, Medicaid, idk, If you are thinking that is bunk, I could give you citations, companies like Tyson Foods, almost all agricultural interests, smaller farmers, bigger farmers, Sanderson Foods, etc which are probably on the other side of the spectrum can pay less for employees or even get employees, and they aren't employees either, just subcontracted companies that contract labor, down the food chain of companies, cash gets handed to these people.....because here in America we want cheap food, low quality goods.  Now I fully understand, cheap food allows many to live off of poverty.  So the poor do get something back.  The average Romans benefitted from slave labor as did the South.  Well I guess underpaid Guatemalans and El Salvadorans are not slaves in the sense, they came willingly,  just people who are taken advantage from the Coyotes and the gangs that convince them to go and overcharge them for the one-way trip.   They get paid well.....  

How many wealthy people have illegal gardeners and housekeepers, and they might not even know because they hire a "service."  Rich political donors with good reasons for the status quo, be it cheaper landscaping, construction, or any trade, undocumented people who get paid cash are rampant....but it is easier to look the other way.  These people hire a service, pay the "service" a fee, those running the service, pay cash, sneak by in the shadows.

a huge environmental disaster project, the Border Wall 2020

I don't know the answer, doing nothing doesn't seem like that is working, letting in everyone isn't either, but I don't need a job, and I am as cheap as the next guy, so anything that keeps prices down....good?  No one wants to be a plumber, electrician, or a landscaper so might as well pay cash for a Honduran to get the job done....?  Who does odd jobs on your houses?

I'd just like to know how many migrants perish en route it is a harsh desert and legal immigration is harsh and long.....you know, It is terrible in El Salvador, but it is also terrible in Compton and Watts, should we not try to fix that first?  Should we grant refugee status for residents of these bad Los Angeles districts?  I'm sure thousands feel threatened.  Oh well, no political party had straightening out Compton in their platforms, because how would you even start?  The Red party didn't even have a platform.  I see TV commercials about donating to helping elderly elderly Russian Jews, winter is coming, it is the same woman's voice about saving abused animals.....I guess this is all well and good but can't we have the same woman try to convince us to help Compton?  It would beat seeing the wet half dead dogs or the old Russians with three fingers and no teeth.....I guess no one really cares about our own people enough to solve anything. 

Pacific Imperial Railroad

Nature never intended for man to build a railroad through the Carriso Gorge, but yet in the early 19th Century, they did.  The 146 mile railroad was built from San Diego into Tijuana and on to Telcate, Campo, Jacumba, and dozen to Ocotillo and El Centro.  This route has some of the coolest trestles, drops off the tracks of 900 feet, and 20 tunnels.  Old fallen box cars sit where they fell.   Now, the railroad is owned by the state and has been continually "operated" so that nothing has actually operated.  Railcars, engines, equipment sit abandoned all over the line, which would have value at least for scrap.  The whole deal in 2020 (which looks like the first time I was here (in 2012)  three leasees later, a couple of frauds, and at least two bankruptcies as well, (the line is owned by San Diego MTS) not a car has gone down it and all looks the same except the weeds are growing up around the tracks and despite the railroad telling the government they fixed a tunnel collapse a jack rabbit would have difficulty getting through the supposedly fixed tunnel.  So in 15 years of all of this, not a single railcar has moved past here.  But despite a lot of governmental waste, the line is very photogenic.

"The Impossible Route" Leaves Jacumba and circles Round Mountain, the magma center of an extinct volcano, before turning into the Carriso Gorge.

There is still abandoned railcars passenger and freight all over this rail line, chairs and windows thrown out, and just a junky place

Here is the same cars in November 2012, free of graffiti, the cars looked almost usable cars three and four have disconnected in 8 years....

The railroad in the Gorge is pretty scenic, a scary looking route even just looking at it

this tunnel wasn't that scary to walk through in 2012, now it is, and I couldn't even get down to there

We hiked around everyday, this is the local scenery...

The Birds

I didn't take a lot of photos, looking at it, but here are a couple...

Brewer's sparrow

California Thrasher

I had a goal of seeing and photographing Mountain quail but all I got a lens on were California quail, which became easier to photograph when the storm came in

The Rain

Don't let that pretty rainbow fool you, on the weekend, it began to rain here for the first time in over half a year, the wind blew, the temperature dropped, the RV shuttered, everyone holed up, and well, we watched football...."you should be here when it gets windy."  Someone told us.

Monday is a new day and we left and are heading towards Tucson

Now we turn east, Florida by the end of the month.....

Wearing our masks, avoiding restaurants, gatherings, and setting a good example...like everyone should

So another year, another visit to California and like every year I leave scratching my head

Olaf

RVing in the time of COVID 4: Moving on

Well, for me, after a while of hanging out for a while, I tend to get itchy feet that want to roam.  So after a month north of Phoenix in New River, some great hikes, some bad pentaque games, so nice meals with friends, we slid out of town this morning heading to "no man's land," otherwise known as California.  I like California but I'm also afraid of California.

First, the Diesel is 1.40 a gallon more than in Phoenix, but I guess the residents like paying more, no one complains, but I do.  I had to make sure we filled up in Arizona.  COVID, would we even be welcome.  Where we went an RV resort located in Jacumba Hot Springs, just got sold last week, would it be a housing development next year?  Would this be our last trip here?  Some yuppy place?  Who knows, I'm glad we don't go here for the whole winter.

Would the trails be open, even anything open to buy food?  Would there be butterflies.....

The road in is the worst access road for any RV campground we've ever driven in, but no one seems to care and the former owner has always been considered the town hero, but alas...the hero has sold out.  

 There are even a couple of birds down here, I'd maybe try to go see, but this is California, is anything open, so we are going to just sit up in the mountains, find some trails, I'll work on my elusive futile quest to photo mountain quail and well, hopefully a butterfly or five, maybe see something rare...

On the drive over....The Campgrounds in Yuma seems a lot less full than last year, where we were in AZ was down a little, and as there were not Canadians, I suspect that largely, the decrease is Canadians. There are a lot of campers on the roads, many out in BLM land, few who don't do this realize how many thousands and thousands live like this.  Gila Bend Arizona looks like it needs a fire, the grocer closed, many other stores, closed, sad really, a town based to service I-8 traffic.  A helicopter was at the clinic, which in my history as an ER doctor was never a very good sign.  Helicopters at clinics were some of the worst.

We met many in Arizona, one couple was moving on to Texas, another was looking to move out of California, as the state is not their kind of people any more, and others off like us to other spots, sort of moving on

There are three types during COVID, those paranoid and afraid, still locked down, hidden, using the age old strategy of hibernation which has worked for many creatures, those who just don't give a f&&k, had enough of it or deny it.....met many of those camping, some had good ideas and good observations

LIKE WHERE ARE THEY GETTING IT FROM THIS CURRENT SURGE, dakotas, Michigan, even Europe?  ARE WE NOT BEING TOLD....IS IT THE AC or central heat FROM APARTMENTS?  idk....questions I don't know

then there are the ones in between, careful but not overly so and trying to enjoy their lives.  Eating outside, but not afraid of pools, I don't know which is best.....is living in isolation and not doing anything any way to live?  I'm a not a big risk taker in a good day, but living has risks, heck, Silja ended up in the ER down here eating tainted salad......

I say, get outside, get vitamin D, fresh air...

So we poked around Phoenix, got warranty work done on my Volvo before it turned over 36,000 miles which it just did.  We would have shopped and enjoyed some more restaurants but we ate at the campground some and my wife had to make a trip to Michael's for yarn for weaving projects.  

In Phoenix, we stayed outside, got vitamin D, and fresh air.... we did our now annual climb of Daisy Mountain, it is a scramble up 1100 feet from the bottom, pretty steep through the cacti and cholla ...some year we'll have to take the trail on the other side

We found the White Tank Mountains, this year and as a bit of a surprise (in Surprise) we found some cool petroglyphs

always a neat find anywhere

a Rufous crowned sparrow in a hidden waterhole

we had whiter throated swifts, a Crissal thrasher, lots of cactus wrens and even more cacti, lots of saguaros, many saguaros, wow..... 

Elsewhere, we saw birds, phainopepla 

went hiking with friends, like Robin and Steve from San Luis Obispo 

and after a shriek I had to go back and photo desert tarantulas

Gilded flickers, which never seem to get photogenic

a verdin

all of this, and I got inspired and wrote a book

but that is another story

There was a COVID case at the campground, the first I've heard at about 30 affiliated campgrounds we either stay at our get into the politics of.  The only case?  Luck or large vitamin D levels by the campers, or all campgrounds....I don't know.  He is doing fine apparently, not sure if anyone we had contact with had contact with him but as such, we sort of laid low at the Halloween party and stayed home.  It was just 50 feet outside our RV, it sounded like everyone had fun, and lasted until 1:30 AM.....so there, it was a slow month in Arizona, stumbled upon a non-fiction book to write, hiked, birdwatched, met some friends, and got irritated watching political commercials, tomorrow, it is over, thank GOD for at least 2 years....can we finally do something everyone likes....?  

Doubt it, but where we are now, the only riots here will be the if the rabbits organize.....or if the cacti can walk.

Stay safe

Olaf

RVing in the time of COVID 3: Chasing European birds from Arizona

I am a lollygagger, which in 2020 just means to dawdle, but historically in the early 1900s it meant to fool around sexually, and when that changed to meaning to just be slow or dawdle, was somewhere before I was born.  One thing, I haven't been guilty of that. I'd be dead. I use this in the birding sense I use this word and it is a word that should be in the "birding" dictionary, along with words like dip, chase, armchair tick etc.  I define lollygagger in birding: as a birder who for various reasons waits unusually long to go on attempt to see a desired bird.  

    I lollygagged on going and getting the great black hawk for months but it remained, came back, and I got it.  I lollygagged on the Antillean palm swift, but if left, came back, and remained for weeks until I got around to go and get it.  I did the same on a white cheeked pintail and a crescent chested warbler.  This week I lollygagged on going and seeing my fifth of my last six straight lifer birds, only on the quetzal did I do what is supposed to be done, drop everything and go in an attempt to see the bird.  Curiously, like the rest, quetzals are still being seen in Arizona and even New Mexico.  I could have waited.

    Shorebirds don't usually stick for very long (stick is another birding term).  They are migratory, and they can stay a few days but unless there is something wrong with the bird, they won't usually stay, but yet, this one has.  I have spent three trips in Newfoundland in the spring hoping one of these would show up, none ever did.  Going to the Rock is not an easy last-minute adventure assuming the border is even ever to open again.  So, I am not sure why I was dithering.  I guess, at heart, I am a lollygagger.  

    So, when 11 days ago when a report of an European golden-plover in northern New Mexico, a place I had driven through just the day before, I dithered.  First, I did not believe the ID, then I looked at a picture of the bird a day later when it was still there, yes, I would agree with that.  Then it stayed...and stayed.   I am a retired RVer and we had parked for a while in New River, Arizona.  I had things to do: I had a birthday party to go to.  I had to pick up a package.  I had a book to edit.  I had a pickle ball tournament to see if I could repeat as being in 'last place.'  I got 4th to last!!  

     My wife kept asking me, "is that bird still there?"  I'd mutter "yes."  Part of me was hoping it would just leave.  It was 635 miles back up the road to go see, and shockingly 5 miles short of being exactly half-way home.  It would be a commitment to get there.  I asked my friend, Thor, what he was doing.  To see if anyone would share the drive, get this lollygagger off the couch and down the road.  He was in California and would not be back until this week.  I sighed and went back to doing the "nothing" I had been doing.  Lollygaggers do that.  We think about the things we need to do and don't do anything. 

    So on Sunday, the bird still there, I decided I'd leave after Monday night football.  It was Vikings-Seahawks....I had to stay.  OMG, the Vikings gave it up.  I should have left.

    During the game and not from the game (I think) my wife starting retching and vomiting.  During halftime, the Vikes had a big lead. I went to the store for illness supplies, Gatorade and the like and the Vikings gave up 21 points.  The game ended, Vikings lost, and my wife got worse.  To say she was "sicker than a dog,"  would be wrong as I've never seen a dog that sick.  I couldn't leave, and two hours later, I was dropping her off at an Emergency Room in north Phoenix.  

    It was an odd experience.  First, they allowed visitors, so preparing to nap in the car, I came in, secondly, they weren't wearing PPE, my daughter wore more PPE observing at a dental clinic in Milbank SD, thirdly, the ER doctors never even saw her skin, examining her belly through her gown and never using his stethoscope.  I was like they were scared of her. I'd have said something but we knew what was up.  We were sure she had eaten either some bad lettuce or bad potato salad so all she needed was some Zofran (anti-emetic) and IV fluids but sheez.....so we left at 2AM and went home.  

    By morning, Silja was eating bananas and on her way to recovering, I never got ill, even though I ate all the same things so it was all perplexing.  Tuesday, with her blessing, after the Tennessee Titans game, I took off on an all-nighter.   

    It was like a good old-fashioned bird chase.  I drove to I got sleepy, which was all the way to Las Vegas NM, when I slept in the back of my Volvo, which is why I own this model (as I fit).  A truck was in my primary spot, but I found a good secondary parking location and woke up at 0630.   I needed coffee to finished the last 100 miles, but shockingly, the McDonalds  is a good two miles off I-17 in Las Vegas, and they weren't open at 6:45, frustrated, and I don't really like Las Vegas NM, nothing good has ever happened to me in this town.  I even got food poisoning here from a Truck stop back in 1994.  

     I just took off and hoped something would be up the freeway, there is nothing between there and Maxwell.  One couldn't spend a dollar in Maxwell unless they wanted to by stamps.  At half-light, still on I-25, I saw something I have never seen on the road.  One of the classic road stories.  I have seen just about everything or so I thought.  I've seen bigfoot and UFOs, or maybe bigfoot and maybe an UFO. I'm not committing to anything.  I've seen crimes and deaths.  I've had everything come bouncing at me from loaded beer barrels to entire axels complete with wheels and tires.  I've seen naked drivers, and people doing things that lead in 9 months to more people being around.  I've had sightings of wildlife, from cougars, wolves, bobcats, moose, bears, people dressed as bears, a person dressed as a dinosaur, and well I even even seen things quite bizarre, so bizarre, it takes too much write about it.   Come to think of it, I've never seen a person dressed as bigfoot...

    So, I was trying to get the sleep out of me and I saw this old dodge pickup ahead of me.  It was doing about 70 and I was at 80 and was looking at the tailgate thinking was if it was a 1980 model or exactly when they changed that body style when something caught my attention.  I pulled up to pass it and then my mind clicked.  Stuck in the gas cap was a gas nozzle and trailing 15 feet behind and bouncing all over was the hose.  The driver had driven off while pumping gas in Las Vegas.  I started to laugh.  I pulled up along side the guy and matched his speed.

   The older driver, who reminded me of Denver Pile in "Dukes of Hazzard,"  Maybe itt was the 1980s! Uncle Jesse Duke was driving next to me!  He looked at me and gave me the "what the F%^% are you looking at?" look.  He rubbed his beard and before was looking to give me the finger or possibly the hose would hit the side of my car, I drove on, wondering if the gas station would even know they were missing something.  How many times a day in America does that happen?  I've heard about it but never seen it.  Now....I have.

    Seeing a plover was almost a secondary event.  Maxwell NWR had some Google map issues.  The direct route to the bird was blocked by a pipeline crew and then I got lost before driving 6 miles around to get to Lake 14, the site of the bird.  Someone was just leaving, said, "It is on the west shore."

      I stood up on the dike and surveyed.  The west shore was too far to even use my spotting scope.  I wasn't sure if I should circle the 40 acre lake or what.  The water level was down a lot so not knowing the rules I just walked out on the lake bottom.  I set up and began to scour the birds on the far side.  There were some dowitchers that were so far away, I couldn't ID them, I saw some killdeer, and every once in a while a flock of ducks spooked and left.  Then I saw the bird or I thought I had but a group of ducks in front spooked and I lost it.  I was about to start over when I saw a shorebirds fly right at me landing twenty yards in front of me.  I looked at it with my bins.  It was the golden plover.  Then it walked towards me.  Three other birders walked to me and asked me if I had seen it.  I pointed right in front of us.  I took pictures and the bird fed like we weren't there.

European golden-plover lifer #807

    I hung out for a while but there was nothing more to see and as one of the birders from Colorado Springs left, I did too.  I had 635 miles to get back to my RV and that was a long drive.  It showed us its underwing when asked.  It turned on all sides.  Now I had seen all three species of golden-plovers in North America.  I didn't have to go to Newfoundland to see this one.  I'm not sure how many lower-48 sightings of this bird there have been.  I heard of a couple in New Jersey on the coast but this was a great New Mexico bird....but...I don't keep a New Mexican list.   But a lifer bird none-the less...and those are about as rare as this bird.

My first sighting of a European Golden-plover in Iceland 2004, in summer plumage.  My only other photo of one.

This wasn't a world lifer bird so my paltry number of 1503 remains where it is, but I am drinking a beer tonight for bird #807/860 in my ABA list, which isn't so paltry.  I-40 was a traffic disaster on the way home, and the only thing of note was the Popeyes in Holbrook, where I had some great chicken.  They were almost out and I was worried a riot of truckers was going to occur, but they found another package and I left before they had used up these.....that Popeyes chicken, addictive like crack cocaine, maybe there will end up being a law against it, guess it depends on who is elected next month.  I for one, yearn for an end of the campaign, if I see one more McSally versus Kelly ad....OMG, I just want it to stop, do these two campaigns have such little good to say and this is how they think they should campaign?  Two asshole candidates, that is all I hear.  I guess anything to get elected.  I fully expect to see one with a baseball bat on a commercial beating up the other in effigy.  This is what he or she wants to do with retirees, the other party, babies, minorities, the voters....sheez. What ever happened to great Americans being above the fray?  If Arizonans are this shallow, the state is doomed...IMHO, maybe we are all doomed.  I'm glad I don't vote here, I wouldn't vote for either.  I don't care what party they are in, I can't tell what they stand for because they spend all their effort telling me their opponent is the Devil personified.  Kevorkian has better PR. 

    Popeyes chicken, now there is an ad I yearn to see.  I'll vote a straight Popeyes ticket....but who is Pro-Popeyes?

Well, back to the ranch, I will have a book out shortly and then a second, a history book on my home town, and last year's adventures so stay tuned.  

and....

Sigh....Olaf couldn't have done a sequel, could he?  

COVID, well, I think we'll stay isolated due to being in the hospital but staying out IN the sun and hopefully, staying healthy, just avoiding potato salad.

Lollygagging?  Don't do it, get up to New Mexico and see this bird, it is a lot easier than going to Newfoundland.

One wonders, did Olaf like his Popeyes so much, that maybe, just maybe, he too drove off with this gas nozzle in his Volvo, the hose trailing behind him on I-40?  No!  No? ...

RVing in the time of COVID 2: Some serious wood

So, we took off from Oklahoma, cruised down Route 66 into Edmund, swung through OKC and then headed west  on I-40.  We avoided pitfalls like stopping in Clinton, Oklahoma to visit the hometown of Toby Keith, my favorite C&W singer just as we had earlier avoided Checotah, the home of Carrie Underwood, because "She ain't in Checotah no more."  We sang Toby Keith's lyrics as we drove past

I ain't as good as I once was,
I got a few years on me now,
But there was a time,
Back in my prime,
When I could really lay it down,
If you need some love tonight,
Then I might have just enough,
I ain't as good once was,
But I'm as good once, as I ever was.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldQrapQ4d0Y

Which is so true, I'm 54 and on the downhill side of fifty....life is short....

we then drove past the Punjabi truck stop in Sayre, avoiding RV damage and crazy Indian food, zipped past the leaning water tower in Britten Texas, avoiding road construction in Amarillo and camped in Tucumcari New Mexico

Pearl crescent in Tucumcari

The next day we got up early and crossed New Mexico ending near Holbrook Arizona, camping at a place that probably wasn't open and some squatters charged as a camping fee that they strangely took to the local truck stop and returned with beer.  It was a bit strange.  We stayed there last year. They only wanted cash.  No one else camped there, despite a huge volume of campers on the road.  The amount of people living on the road in RVs is staggering.  I think we'll try a new spot next time.  We should have been concerned when we dropped the car to go to Petrified Wood National Park. We haven't been here since 1991.  Back then I tried to trade an entrance ticket to someone in Utah for a Zion Park Ticket and well, it was like giving away a cow pie.

But it is a beautiful place, and a park organized in 1906.  It is well worth the $25.00 entrance fee.  It is a barren place and there are COVID paranoid people.  Many from California drove with masks on in their cars, which as a doctor, I am at lengths to think of what they are protecting themselves from.  You are more likely to get Coccidiomycosis from mold spores in the air on this desert than COVID on a sunny hot day, but whatever, if it makes them happy....it is the AC buildings that I hate to even go in, masked, PPE'd or whatever.  At least most everyone masked there....

Common Raven

We got to New River Arizona on the weekend, and I expected the place to be somewhat empty due to no Canadians but it was stuffed full.  

There are no masks here, but no cases ever in this community, either....maybe the heavy sun and outdoors, a lot of vitamin D in this community, maybe the highest in America. IDK.  Coincidence?  Not sure.

We got the spot right next to the pool so I can't photograph my rig here, but oh well.  It is still quite hot in the Phoenix area.  We made it and will be stopping here for a month before we decide our next movement.

I will finish off two books.  I got the proof for my spring and summer project delivered here, very proud of this effort.  Pictures turned out very nice.

quite a nice book and finishing the proof for my other 2019 adventure missive. Brown boobies, hairy peckers, and great tits.....yes, a sequel.....I was busy in 2019.

So, we're still healthy and hanging in there....many here in New River have stories for the year, and COVID fatigue is high here....maybe denial, and maybe they have figured out a protective activity, too.  It is not like they are being careful.  Maybe it is the sun exposure?  I may be putting on my MD hat and looking at the numbers....maybe worth a scientific study.  I'm not sure anyone wants to know....I know six such communities, and no cases.....makes me wonder.

So we'll get out and start hiking, I have Gamble's quail on my roof and a female Anna's hummer at my feeder as I write this, what could be better?

I got to go try to get a rock out of a wheel on my car

stay safe, get out in the sun, another Toby Keith song surmises the ranch where we now are, maybe do karaoke with word changes this weekend?  we've parked next to that too

We got winners, we got losers,
Chain smokers and boozers.
An' we got yuppies, we got bikers,
An' we got , thirsty hitchhikers.
And the girls next door dress up like movie stars.
Mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, I love this bar.
We got cowboys, we got truckers,
Broken hearted fools and suckers.
An' we got hustlers, we got fighters,
Early birds and all nighters.
And the veterans talk about their battle scars:
Mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, I love this bar.....(Ranch) 

I love this bar (Ranch),
It's my kind of place.
Just walk in through the front door,
Puts a big smile on my face.
It ain't too far, come as you are.
Mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, I love this bar (Ranch).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Fulz4ytZ54

Cheers!

Olaf