Trip22

Sunday

This campground is a really birdy place. Walked it. Drove the scenic loop. Figured out most of the birds. Lots of woodpeckers, robins, catbirds, mocking birds, tons and tons of bluebirds, warblers, pine siskins, a couple wrens, and a hermit thrush. This is an opportunity to see a red cockaded woodpecker, but they’ve left their roost trees for the day and won’t be back until dusk. We won’t stick around for that. We’ll save them for another trip. We’re on our way back to the beach. Headed for St George Island State Park. It’s on a Florida barrier island, like Padre Island in Texas.

Saw that Florida sign about windshield wipers in the rain again. In all fairness, I should tell you the entire sign. They wanted to say something, and it would sound too stupid to just say just that one thing, so they had to expand the message. They wanted to remind you to turn on your headlights when it is raining, but can you imagine the lawsuits if they had just said that? All those people driving around in the rain, switching from high beams to low beams and still can’t see a thing? So they wrote the sign, “turn on headlights and wipers when it’s raining.” I can’t blame them.

Here’s a question for you: Let’s say you’re sitting in the car by yourself, waiting for Judy to check us in to a State Park. There are birds all around, so your get out the binoculars to identify a few while you wait. You can even see birds in the outside rearview mirror. So here is the question: when you focus the binoculars on the birds in the mirror, are you focusing real close, on the image in the mirror, or are you focusing distant, the distance from you to the mirror, then back to the birds?

Can you believe I’ve gone this long without even mentioning racquetball? I’m just demonstrating I can go this entire trip without thinking about, or talking about racquetball. My last session with Woody, the racquetball coach, was on December 19^th. After an hour and a half or so, we always finish up with a game to eleven to conclude the lesson. That last game wasn’t going really well for me. I was trailing six to two when I thought to stop the game and ask if I had mentioned that it was my birthday that very day. Turns out, I hadn’t said anything before, and I got an enthusiastic “Happy Birthday” in response. Then something even better happened. Play resumed, I made a miracle comeback, and won that game. How amazing is that?

Got to the island state park and got checked in. Being in this campground is like being in a giant bird cage. Everywhere you look, there are birds flying around. Not a lot of variety. They’re mostly mockingbirds, catbirds, robins, and yellow-rumped warblers, but it’s fun to be in the middle of so many.

Good run. Not a power run, but I got to run on the beach. Low tide. Hard sand to run on. The shoes came off. I love to run on the beach.

Fifty miles. Florida Panhandle. Birding. Driving. Birding again. Beach running. One new bird. No drugs.

We’re still a long way from Denver. Tomorrow: time to leave and head for home.