Down Mexico Way
Hi, readers!
I am leaving tomorrow afternoon for my vacation. I will be heading to Grand Junction, Colorado tomorrow afternoon, and staying overnight there. Saturday morning (Feb. 23), I fly out of GJ at 6:00am, headed for warmer weather. I am going alone, and that will be weird, but I am still so excited I can hardly stand it!
I will fly to Salt Lake City, UT, from Grand Junction, then on to Los Angeles, then to La Paz, BCS, Mexico. That all happens within 8 hours. I arrive in La Paz at 2:50pm. The tour starts the following morning.
I will spend 3 days sea kayaking around Espiritu Santo (an Island in the sea of Cortez), camping on the beach there, and visiting a sea lion rookery. We get to snorkel with the sea lions. I have never sea kayaked, or snorkeled, so that should be interesting. They tell me it’s easy, though, and I am always up for something new.
On the third day, we return to La Paz, and spend the day there. The next morning, we drive across the Baja peninsula to Magdalena Bay, where we do the whale-watching portion of the trip. We get to go out in Magdalena Bay in skiffs, and see the whales within a couple of feet, and hopefully, touch one. That’s been something I’ve wanted to do for almost as long as I can remember. These are big, barnacle-covered California grey whales. They come south to Baja every winter (December through early April) to mate, and calve (have their babies). I am very excited about the whales!
After the trip (which ends on March 2), I fly to L.A., and stay overnight there with Rich’s mom, then back into the sky for my flights to Salt Lake City, and Grand Junction. I should be home, in my own bed by 8:00pm on March 3. That’s something to look forward to after a trip.
I will, of course, be spending all my free time hiking around, finding cacti & succulents in habitat, and hopefully some tarantulas and interesting reptiles.If anyone is interested in a more detailed itinerary of my trip, it can be found at this link: Sea Kayak/Whale Watching trip
I am going on this trip for work. I love my job, and my bosses.
Today’s other news: I rescued a small finch (I don’t know what kind). She ran into the picture window in my parents’ diningroom just after we finished lunch. She lay on the cold, wet ground, twitching. I went out and picked her up, hoping that would shock her into flying away, but she didn’t. She just held very still in my hand. She flapped her wings a few times, so I knew they weren’t broken. My mom took a few photos of me holding her, and then I took one of the little finch when I laid her down under a shrub. She DID eventually take off, which was a really good thing. I was really worried about her. Here are the pictures we got:
See you all when I get home!
Today’s Strangeness
Today, we woke up to some tapping, and some clunking coming from our livingroom. When we inspected, we found a flicker (red-shafted flicker) in our fireplace. He must’ve either climbed (being woodpeckers, they are great climbers) or fallen down the chimney. Once in the fireplace, you can’t see back up the chimney and see actual daylight because of a bend in the flue. Consequently, the only daylight he could see was through the glass doors into the livingroom.We couldn’t think of any way to get him out without hurting him. We thought of just opening the doors, and letting him fly his own way out, out the open front door of the house. We also thought of throwing a sheet over him, and carrying him out. Then, I decided to call animal control. They never called me back, and he was continuing to scrabble around in the fireplace, looking for a way out. I felt so bad for him!
I finally decided on the sheet method, opened the doors to throw the sheet on him, and out he flew, into the diningroom window, into the kitchen window and behind the curtains. I held the front door open while Rich tried to coax him off the kitchen windowsill. He finally understood (I guess, if flickers understand anything in their little flickery brains), and flew out the door. He flew up into the tree, caught his breath, and then flew away. I am glad he was okay. I was really worried about him. He did keep himself busy in the fireplace…he tried the partially burned log that was in there for bugs in typical woodpecker style, he climbed the chainmail curtains, pecked the metal walls a bit, etc.
I had to exploit his situation a bit…here are a couple photos of the poor guy, looking terrified:
In other news: My Amaryllis has finally opened its first flowers of the season. It’s not as pretty as the picture I posted of my mom’s butterfly Amaryllis, but here it is:
Enjoy!