As Promised

The sneak peek of Hubby's book. Hehehehe...
For even more fun, go to his website, sean-conrad.com, and watch the book trailer! Yes, he was a wild man back then.

Jumping Coot

At Wilderness Lakes Thousand Trails in Menafee, CA there was waterfowl in abundance. Hundreds of ducks, thousands of American Coots, and some geese and Canada Geese.

Out of all of those birds, there were only TWO Coots that knew how to do this.

 

This one was pretty protective of it, too. The Einsteins of Wilderness Lakes!

Newport, OR

The RV park we stayed at in Newport, OR was right along the ocean by the harbor, and this bridge stood guard over the boats.
Also docked at the harbor were two huge NOAA ships. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is a federal agency focused on the condition of the oceans and atmosphere.

McArthur II departed on her maiden NOAA cruise on 1 June 2003 from Seattle. She conducts oceanographic research and assessments, throughout the eastern Pacific Ocean, including along the United States West Coast -- where is involved in studies in several National Marine Sanctuaries-- and the Pacific coast of Central and South America. She engages in measurements of chemical, meteorological, and biological sampling for several large scale programs within NOAA, and the scientists who carry out research aboard her come from many divisions of NOAA, as well as other United States Government agencies, and academia.

Also along the harbor was a very large brewery, Rogue Nation.

 

We entered the building around 11 a.m., toured the grounds and actual brewery, and by the time we left at 8 p.m., we had sampled a great deal of their wares, ate in the restaurant, met the owners, and quite possibly every one of their employees. Just kidding. Sounds like fun though, right?

 

Lots of fishing happens along the Oregon Coast.

Unfortunately, there will be no more fishing for this guy!

 

 





Discovery

We had some errands to run today to a totally different section of Indio, CA today. This is desert out here. Real desert. Every so often there are areas filled with palm trees and housing developments. Palm Springs proper, in my opinion, is older, as is Indio, but Palm Desert, La Quinta, Indian Wells look newer. La Quinta and Indian Wells are closer to the mountains (why haven't I taken pictures?) and by the looks of it, the areas, have $$.

On the more warehouse-ish side of Indio, driving between to RV stores (looking for outside light covers), we noticed a couple standing just outside of some water reeds in some sort of riparian area with binoculars. Hmm, what's that all about? Moments later, we passed a sign for Coachella Valley Wild Bird Center, which is a wild bird rescue center. What? Out here in the desert?

A quarter of a mile, a Uturn, and we pulled into the parking lot. From the front of the building, it didn't look like much. As we approached the door, it was opened by a very nice woman that said, "Come on in. I have to let you in because we have a bird out and I need to close the door."

Once inside, we noticed Big cages against the walls of the trailer. I immediately fell in love. Screech Owls, who knew they were so Beautiful??? Why do I not carry a camera with me EVERYWHERE? Yes, there were dead mice in the cages for lunch, but, hey, I just couldn't focus on that.

Well, we are going back, with binoculars for the open water area, and a camera for the outside cages which hold recovering Great Horned Owls, Barn Owls, Perigrin Falcons, Red-Tailed Hawks, and more.

We had planned on going back in this morning, camera in hand, but I woke up with a nasty cold. Boo! We'll make it back in there, but maybe not until we make our way back from AZ.