Eared Grebes

 

While they’re whiling away the winter in way-south Texas, they look like this.

Maybe a little plain.

 

It’s nice to see them up north in Colorado in breeding plumage when they look like this.

 

 

Devil's Kitchen Trail

 

It started off gentle enough.

 

Then it got steeper.

 

The last part was a scramble up a hillside, but we made it.

 

This is what the Devil’s Kitchen rock formation looks like.

 

The little dots in the shadow in the middle are people.

 

This is what it looks like looking back down the way we came.

 

Then we took a wildflower walk.

 

 

 

 

Then we went back up to the rim to watch the white-throated swifts.

 

 

They’re so fast, it’s pretty hard to catch one in flight, but I got a few clicks.

 

 

 

 

Colorado National Monument

 

Right across the Colorado River from us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Colorado River State Park

 

We’re here now.

 

2016 Summer Trip Map

 

We’re all set through the Memorial Day Weekend.  It’s always important to get reservations for major holiday weekends.  We had to leave the Front Range a few days before we meant to.  We ran out of room there.

 

It’s nice to be here too.

 

 

 

Oops

 

Didn’t mean to drive back to Glenwood Springs today.  We thought this was going to be a quiet day at Rifle Gap State Park.  Woke up in the early morning light with indigestion though.  I told Judy it was probably from the Chinese Food we had for dinner last night (it was excellent).  We talked a little more about what hurt and how, and she called “bullshit” on my story, found a Urologist in Glenwood and got me an appointment for this afternoon.  She was right (of course).  My indigestion story didn’t hold up.  I’m passing a kidney stone.  No problem though, it has moved quite a ways down the ureter already.  No reason to think I won’t make it the rest of the way through by myself (with the help of some painkillers).  It doesn’t hurt all the time; just when it wants.  No drastic measures needed.  (Now the tiny little 2.2mm kidney stone is the boss of me,)

 

We like it here.  This is our campsite and view.

 

 

We've done it again

 

We moved on.

 

2016 Summer Trip Map

 

Stopped at Rifle Gap State Park for a couple nights.  Looped right back to Glenwood in the car for dinner with Jon and Deb.

 

We met Deb at the Physics Center in Aspen at least 20 years ago and have been able to keep in touch ever since.

 

No cell or internet connection at Rifle Gap.  We’ll carry the computer back and forth to town to send and receive.

 

No more baby owl saga

 

The owls have moved on.

 

Of the three babies, the smallest was the most active.  He’s the one we watched venturing farther out onto the branch than the others.  He’s the one losing his balance and waving his arms (wings) trying to regain it, falling over backwards, and bouncing to a stop several branches below.  It was an hours-long scramble, crawling, climbing, hopping, and flapping his way back up.

 

Then, within a couple days, they just flew away.  Mom is no longer standing in the sentry tree across the road.  They’re all gone until the next batch next year.

 

In the meantime, here are geese and baby geese.

 

 

Now you see them.

 

Now you don’t.

 

Must be practicing coordinated evasive maneuvers.

 

 

Spring has sprung

 

I wake up in the morning to allergies.  I’m so stuffed-up it feels like my face needs to be lanced.  We look outside the bus in the morning.  We’re practically parked in a pine tree.

 

A closer look reveals the pine tree in full bloom.

 

Lucky for me there is Claritin to get me through.  Nothing serious, Claritin helps, and it only lasts a few days.  It’s better already today.

 

 

In the afternoon, the weather darkens.

It rains, hails a little, then moves on.

 

Then it looks like this.

Spectacular from the outside; tornado warnings underneath.

 

Black billed magpies doing the dance in front of our bus.

 

 

 

 

A black-billed magpie

 

 

Acting a fool.