We heard a strange sound

  

We heard a strange sound last night about 9 o'clock.  It was loud.  Couldn't place it.  We went outside.  It seemed to be coming from the agricultural field across the fence on the north side of the park.  Something like maybe a hot air balloon flame on steroids; a jet engine; maybe firing up giant crop heaters for the impending cold weather.  None of those explanation made sense though.  Asked around.  Found out.

 

There is a dragstrip three and a half air miles from here.  Sometimes we hear them running on Saturday nights.  This Saturday night, last night, was different.  What we were hearing was a jet engine; more specifically three jet engines attached to a semi-truck called Shockwave.  36,000 horsepower.

 

It made two exhibition runs.  It would have looked something like this video I found on YouTube:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNBEO4udS58

 

It was exciting, even from here, not knowing what it was.

 

 

 

La Sal Vieja

  

Old Salt.

 

La Sal Vieja Map

 

Another of the salt lakes.

 

The trailhead.

 

A Harris's Hawk to welcome me.

 

Engulfed in the chortling calls of sandhill cranes in flight.

 

 

A walk up the trail.

 

 

 

 

 

A small pond on the way.

 

 

A morning vulture liftoff.

 

 

The approach to the lake.

 

 

And the view.

 

 

A look back.

 

Salt harvesting equipment decaying in neglect.

 

 

This is my second trip here recently.  It turns out we have a salt scientist among our friends.  (Yes, that really is a thing.)  I made a trip here to collect a sample, but it didn't turn out like I wanted.  I didn't have the right tools, and the hard crusty sample I collected came with a lot of dirt and debris attached.

 

So this time I returned with more sophisticated scientific equipment.

 

And was able to scrape off a top layer of salt to collect a much cleaner sample.

 

 

 

A lump in the trail ahead

  

 

That moved!

 

Closer inspection reveals a charming little wild Texas Tortoise.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A table for three

  

 

The traditional meal.

 

And a fire table after.

 

 

Thinking of family and friends.  We feel thankful.

 

 

 

Name that butterfly

  

To demonstrate how much I don't know about butterflies.

 

Even when I look really closely

 

 

I still can't name it.

 

 

 

  

Fourteen billion dollars has been spent on the 2020 elections so far, and the runoff elections are still going on in Georgia.  What's up with that?  Does it really cost fourteen billion dollars for us to be able to choose responsibly among the candidates?  Is that the best way we could be spending our money (our being used in a very loose sense in this context).    Who benefits from that much spending?  Campaign people getting paychecks.  Consultants.  Media.  I suspect it's a fairly narrow slice of our economy that benefits.

 

Spending fourteen billion dollars ($14,000,000,000) on an election seems like such senseless churn.  Is there some other way we could run an election so fourteen billion dollars changing hands would provide more benefit to more people?  I guess the best we could hope for though is that elections could just cost less, and the people that donated to elections could do something more constructive with that money instead.

 

The stress of the pandemic has us thinking about all the people forced out of work.  Small businesses with no reserves forced to close.  Impending mass homelessness as a wave of evictions looms.  Working families hungry.  A generation of disadvantaged students driven to remote learning but without the resources to access online classes.  As a hopeless flaming liberal, I'm thinking we're all in this together, government has a part to play, and we should all be helping each other out.  I guess even if we spent less on elections though, it wouldn't mean we'd spend more helping each other in a time of need.  One wouldn't necessarily lead to the other.  I know; make campaigns simpler and less costly.  Let the campaign people, that then had less to do, run campaigns to help people through the covid crisis, and other crises as they come along.  Run small dollar campaigns where people, like we who contributed to political campaigns, can voluntarily make recurring contributions in favor of specific causes instead; massive campaigns generating millions and billions to provide shelter for the homeless, food for the hungry, educational resources, job training; ways to help people who want to improve their lives invest in themselves.  Every vote counts.  Every person counts too.

 

 

 

A day at the dog park

  

And a good time was had by all.

 

 

 

 

A day at the dog park

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Geese fly in formation

  

It's more efficient that way.

 

Military jets fly in formation at least partly for the same reason; flying more efficiently uses less fuel, increases range, and costs less.  That makes me wonder about truckers.  There are a couple million trucks on our highways just in the U.S.  They can't drive side-by-side in formation like geese, but even staying single-file, out on the open road, there must be an ideal formation for trucks; an ideal separation for each truck to follow in the wind-shadow of the truck in front for maximum efficiency.  Remember the concept from the seventies?  "We got ourselves a convoy!"  A whole pack of trucks driving fast, nose to tail.  Like that, only smarter.

 

The technology exists to find the separation sweet spot.  The factories that run race cars know everything about how the air moves over, under, around, and through their vehicles on the track.  The technology exists to lock in a distance from another vehicle.  Our Jeep already does that with Adaptive Cruise Control.  Any tiny increment of additional efficiency would have a giant multiplier with all those trucks on the road.  I'd be curious to know if the sweet spot for trucks is a few inches apart, a few feet apart, or a few car lengths apart.  If the best formation is an endless string of trucks, it could be compromised with periodic breaks, to balance trucker efficiency with driver safety and convenience for everyone else on the road.

 

I wonder why they're not doing this already; or if they already are, but more subtly than I can detect.

 

 

 

 

Hey look

  

 

SQUIRREL!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wallace Road Ponds

  

 

https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=1UDWCRPxwTpvIKAUhAJNTaLQqbQA-E3eI&ll=26.442829212158454%2C-98.24115226038884&z=17

 

Not your usual birding hotspot.  It's not really anything.  Just a dusty dirt road, some farm ponds, and there isn't even a spot to pull a car off the road.  I park at the entrance to a plowed field at one end and walk out and back.

 

 

But it is a place with birds.  Our latest visit there got us 24 species in half an hour.  Here is an unusual one for us; an American Robin.  They don't often come this far south.  Funny how one person's common bird is another person's rare find.  Geography matters!

 

And a charming little Eastern Phoebe.  They are not uncommon here.