Jacumba was good. We ended up getting crissal thrashers, abert’s towhees, and black phoebes. We drove the Jeep over through Borrego Springs the week before to look for the Le Conte’s thrasher but never found it. We looped around to the Salton Sea looking for the yellow footed gull, but he was gone for the season. Out through the Imperial Valley 200 feet below sea-level, freshly cut hay, and corn just going to tassel… IN NOVEMBER. Through Brawley, El Centro, back on Interstate 8. Speed limit 70. Truck speed limit 55. I imagine the biggest problem in heavy traffic would be accidents resulting from speed differential, but here, rather than have trucks go fast the same as cars, they’d rather trucks go slow and cars zip in and out around them. Must be more to it than I’ve considered. Past the turn to the twin border towns of Calexico and Mexicali. The Jeep cruise control is active, even on downhills. Before, our cars with cruise control maintained a steady speed on the level and uphill, but pretty much just gave up and coasted on the downhills. The Jeep cruise control downshifts and maintains the speed no matter what. Back up the steep boulder-field switchbacks to twenty-five hundred feet, and home again. Saw a bobcat cross the road at camp.
We’re not getting any “life birds” here, but getting plenty of birds we don’t see very often. If only we would go east of the Mississippi more often we’d get a whole bunch of new birds.
We took a day-trip in the Jeep on Sunday to see sister-in-law Barbara in Vista. A 200 mile round-trip over to the coast for some cool misty weather we haven’t had lately, as well as a side-trip to Angelo’s for a hot pastrami sandwich. Good visit with Barbara and her family. Alkaseltzer helped with the pastrami. A quick look at San Diego. A quick look at the Pacific. On the return trip drove past the lit-up stadium in the rain for the San Diego Chargers Sunday night game, and back to Jacumba.
Monday: travel day. Jacumba to Parker. In addition to all the other tow gear stuff (safety cables, electric connector for lights, compressed air line for brakes) we hooked up the breakaway cable. We’ve never hooked up the breakaway before. If things go horribly wrong, and the tow car separates from the coach, the breakaway cable will lock up the Jeep brakes and prevent it from traveling on indefinitely. Or, if something goes horribly wrong, and the breakaway locks up the Jeep brakes while it’s still attached to the coach, we get four screaming wheels behind us. I can see more possibilities for the second scenario than the first, but we’re supposed to hook it up so I did. Nothing went wrong. The jeep wheels rolled along quietly.
Easy navigation. Go a hundred miles east on Interstate 8. Turn left on highway 95. Drive another hundred miles. We’re settled in at Buckskin Mountain State Park right on the Colorado River for two weeks. We’ll be here for Thanksgiving with sister Sue and family. Got gambles quail, black phoebes, and a vermilion flycatcher.
We never adjusted to the time zone difference in California. Back to Arizona and Mountain time. Maybe we can quit waking up at five thirty or six and stay up past nine.
