Well

 

 

That was a fun game for the Broncos.  Shoutout to the Bengals defense for scrimmaging with the Broncos offense like that.

 

 

Didn’t get there in time

 

 

Missed this bloom.

 

Didn’t miss this one though!

 

Bird of Paradise.

 

Poignant

 

 

I still imagine hiking the Appalachian Trail.  There is not anything specific about it that I need to see or do, but the thought of it, walking a 2,200 mile trail all in one go, is something that has appealed to me all my life, since I first heard about it.  I think I always expected I would get to it eventually.  From time to time a snippet pops up on my cellphone; someone’s account of their experience that day on the trail.  A lot of people now post reflections of their time on the trail, real time.  I don’t follow any one person in particular, just whatever pops up.

 

The last one I read offered a perspective that hadn’t occurred to me.  The first day off the trail.  After months on the trail, when that has been your sole focus in life, walking that trail; what do you do when it’s done.  What happens to you and your identity?  The account I read started off with a list, with each item crossed off:

 

I am a thru hiker

My name is To Go     (Trail Names sometimes appear out of conversations along the way.)

I’m heading North

I’m going to Katahdin

I’m just passing through

I’ve been on the trail for 6 months

I started in Georgia

I walked 2,000 miles to get to Maine

 

All crossed off.  Her account went on from there, about reclaiming the life she had before the trail, and the story was fine, but that moment struck me.  Now What?  That identity, the trail identity, your focus for so many months, it’s suddenly gone. 

 

One way or another

 

 

It’s all gone or in the wagon.

 

With enough room for a few neighbors to throw some of their stuff in too.  Angel’s Wagon did its job.

 

Angel’s Wagon

 

 

We have this neat tradition here at Sandpipers.  Periodically, during the season, the Park will call Angel, and he’ll bring his trailer here and drop it up front for a few days.  People can put anything they don’t want in the trailer and Angel will come back and haul it away.  If there is anything in the trailer that Angel can use, he gets to keep it.

 

Well, it’s not the season yet. And we’ve cleaned out our shed over the last few weeks.  We hired Angel’s Wagon so we could fill it up with all the junk we took out of the shed.  He parked it right in front of our house for us.

 

(Never mind the van, it’s just parked there for the moment.  It’s not hauling the trailer.)  We started with a couple old barbecue grills that are way too big to throw away, they have to be hauled away.  We’ve already got the grills loaded in the trailer.  We brought a giant pile of other stuff to put in Angel’s wagon, but that stuff is going away about as fast as we can bring it out.  The neighbors are stopping by to pick treasures out of our discards.  Some of it actually is good stuff, but duplicates, and we don’t need duplicates.  We’ll see how much more stuff we can get out there again tomorrow, and how much actually makes it to the wagon.

 

The evening glow

 

 

 

Another day in paradise

 

 

Oh No!

 

 

We stayed in the pool too long and my skin got wrinkly.

 

Oh, wait.

 

Nevermind.

 

 

 

Port Mansfield

 

 

As the coastal squall approaches…

 

 

 

What is that our there?

 

 

A covey of something.

 

We backed up for a better look.  It’s a herd of jackrabbits!  (Not really rabbits, you know, but a species of hare.)  Those long ears and leggier than any rabbit.

 

We see them singly from time to time, but never in an entire herd before!

 

Port Mansfield

 

 

Always good for deer spotting.

 

 

 

 

Taa Daa!

 

 

 

Buff-bellied Hummingbird.  Although we’re looking at it from the back, so we can’t see the belly.

 

Judy and I were at Knott’s Berry Farm

 

 

We were young.  We were on a date.

 

At Knott’s Berry Farm there were gift shops.  There was a crazy miner’s cabin where water would (appear to) flow uphill.  A carousel.  We rode it together.  There were souvenir photo stands where you could dress up in period costumes for a memorable shot.  I saw a stand that was cast as a wedding chapel.  I suggested we could get a wedding photo.

 

Judy declined.  She was not interested in “pretending” to get married.  It wasn’t a subject to be taken lightly.

 

I was surprised.  And impressed.

 

 

Between photoshop and A.I.

 

 

Now my first reaction/impression when I see something most beautiful or amazing, is not wonder, as much as “I wonder if it’s real”.  I don’t get to go straight to appreciation, without first wondering if I’ve been tricked.

 

 

Drove to Austin yesterday

 

 

Austin trip

 

This is a photo at the rest area on the way there.

 

This is a photo at the rest area on the way home today.

 

I’m not suggesting the trees changed from one day to the next, just photographs of different sections of the rest area.  The many moods of oak trees.

 

Freddy?

 

 

 

 

Plug in solar

 

 

What a great idea.  Instead of the prohibitive (for most) (or for renters) $20,000 solar installation on the roof, just buy a little plug in system.  Panels, micro-inverter, wall outlet.  Set up the panels and inverter in your yard, plug them into a wall outlet, and provide a little power to your house.  Brilliant!

 

Simple systems only cost a thousand dollars or two, maybe as much as three thousand depending on capacity.  Here is one on Amazon:

 

Here is a different one:

 

They don’t provide all the power you need, maybe only 10% based on 10,000 kWh per year usage for an average American home, maybe providing 20% for an apartment, but hey, it’s something if reducing fossil fuel seems like a good idea.  Some come with storage batteries so if you produce more electricity than you use during the day, you can store it and not have to feed the excess into the utility grid during the day, then buy it back at night.

 

I’ve read that plug in solar systems are popular in Europe.  They call them Balcony Solar.

 

Plug in solar hasn’t caught on here in the U.S. yet, because there are safety and permitting issues.  That’s what Google says anyway.  A patchwork of City, county, state and federal regulations.  Each local utility company has its own requirements.  It’s not that simple.  Tantalizing though for a situation like ours where the roof isn’t constructed to hold the weight of rooftop solar, so we’re left out of that loop.  And for a renter, who may not have access to a roof, or know how long they are going to be staying, these systems are portable.  Decide to move?  Pack it up and take it with you.

 

How we Bronco

 

 

 

It’s not the game on the television.  That one’s on mute.  Today we got the Sirus XM radio Bronco broadcast to link to Alexa in the living room.  That’s Alexa on the TV tray.

 

We got what we wanted, we listened to the Broncos game in real time, but sadly their undefeated season has come to an end.

 

 

Football

 

 

We watch football.

 

Sometimes, as I’m watching football, I’m impressed by how big the game has gotten.  Then I marvel at all the ancillary connections to the sport.  At its most basic, football is a game that requires a few players and coaches.  Some local people might watch that game, but maybe just a few hundred.  A thousand?  A high school stadium?  Now bring in the broadcasting industry.  Radio, television, and streaming coverage.  Play-by-play announcers, the color guy, and sideline reporters to get us excited about teams and players.  No need for any of the broadcast team without the football game, but the football games would barely exist without being built up by the broadcasting either.  It is a symbiotic relationship that has driven the massive growth of both.

 

Camera people, sound people, engineers in the trucks parked at the stadiums.  Drivers, equipment people, and the people that make that equipment.  Attorneys and agents.  Million dollar, ten million dollar, and hundred million dollar packages for individual players and the economics still work; and the unimaginably rich team owners get richer.  Medical staff.  All the sports journalists reporting and projecting.  The whole refereeing cadre must be an ecosystem of its own. 

 

High school and college football programs feed into the pros.  Huge stadiums provide construction jobs for all the people that build them.  There are ticket sales and concessions at those huge stadiums.  (Let’s do some quick math.  If tickets are $100 each and attendance is 100,000 that could be ten million dollars for each home game.  Maybe it’s only half that, five million dollars.  Okay.)  (Television rights provided over 400 million dollars to each team in 2024.)  Parking.  Security.  Merchandising.  Sponsorships.  Travel packages and tailgating.  Fantasy leagues.  Sports betting.  Grounds crews.  The companies and people that make those massive jumbotrons in the ever-bigger stadiums.

 

Such an immense economic web, and now it’s gone global, with games scheduled in other countries around the world.  It’s all built up around a few people playing a game.

 

Right now you’re probably asking yourself

 

 

“Hey, where are all the hummingbird pictures.”

 

Oops.

 

Sorry for the delay.

 

 

 

 

Mimi

 

 

Two decades removed from the last time I set up a yard train, the live-steam Mimi locomotive still holds a place of honor, not outside in the yard, but inside on a cabinet now.

 

 

Morning light

 

 

 

 

 

This flowering bush

 

 

Is called Pride of Barbados.

 

And this, perched on the Pride of Barbados, is a Giant Swallowtail!

 

 

Too expensive to get the out of market NFL games?

 

 

Time for a Sunday driveabout and a picnic.

 

This is how we Bronco.

 

Go for a sixty-mile drive.  Listen to the home team broadcast on Sirius XM radio.  Have a late afternoon picnic for an early dinner.  Putter around in a favorite park.  Drive home.

 

Undefeated

 

 

Of the 32 NFL teams, as of the end of this week, only 16 remain undefeated.  The Denver Broncos, along with 15 other teams, are rocking that perfect record!

 

Go Broncos!

 

 

An abundance

 

 

An abundance of Spoonbills.

 

 

Last trip to Corpus, at the Birding Center.

 

 

Along the way

 

 

 

A quiet backwater in San Antonio.

 

Cooling oneself on a hot day

 

 

 

The air conditioning register is our friend.

 

A snarly tree

 

 

 

At a rest area between the Rio Grande Valley and Corpus Christi.

 

Common Gallinule

 

 

 

It used to be called a moorhen.

 

Some names get changed every year to make sure the taxonomy is all sorted out properly.  Whatever, our common gallinule still has that same goofy candy corn face.

 

A gecko in the dark

 

 

On the ceiling of the outdoor deck.

 

It appears to be a nocturnal Mediterranean House Gecko.

 

It eats crickets, beetles, and such.