Bird pictures

Birds in Saguaro National Park

Curved Billed Thrasher sitting on pick-nick table

At the beginning of our trip we had the opportunity to make some wonderful pictures of birds in Saguaro National Park. This small but very nice national park is a haven for all sorts of birds.

Thrasher sitting on Chola Cactus

I was sitting outside one afternoon with Wahids camera on my lap and I took some nice shots, even though it is difficult to take a good shot of those birds, they are so skiddish. Especially the Gambles Quiale, they never sit still. Somebody had left some grapes on the pick-nick table and a bowl of water and that sure helped getting those birds to the table.

Thrasher on dead Saguaro branch

& Gamble's Quail

Close Up Impressions

Most of the photos that I have been putting on the blog were made by me, but of course I do not travel alone and my beloved partner has got a super camera, with a huge zoom lens, so I thought it would be nice to put some pictures of his on this blog.

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This male Elk was visiting the Moraine Campground in Rocky Mountain National Park, this was without any doubt the biggest bull around. Later he would be strutting around in the valley in search of his harem. Pretty big boy.

I saw a beautiful photo opportunity, but when I started climbing towards the edge of the rocks my fear of heights got the better of me and I chickened out. Wahid did climb the rock, and was posing quite happily. But when it came to going back from the rock even he hesitated a little. The drop you can not see that well on the picture, but it a sheer drop of 2.000 feet.

This Turkey Vulture was sitting on this rock for the longest time, he was quite far away, but the photo did not come out too badly. This photo was taken on the scenic drive through Black Canyon of the Gunnison in Colorado. A small but ever so beautiful park. The canyon is almost more impressive then the Grand Canyon, because the walls of the canyon are almost dropping down straight.

The photo of this bird was taken on our way to Mt. Rushmore, it looks like its beak is crooked and that he would have a hard time catching anything. Somehow he is getting by alright, because he looked fine. We have not a clue what kind of bird it is, we still have to look it up.

One of the many Prairie Dogs in Wind Cave National Park, they life in big flat areas preferably were the bison come a lot. They make a lot of noise when an intruder is spotted and they hide in their burrow.

This bird of prey we spotted when we were on one of our hikes in the Badlands, it spotted it sitting on a branch quite far away, we moved closer and the bird flew away, we thought that we had lost it, but then it started circling right above our heads and Wahid took this neat pictures.

Still have to look up what kind of bird it is, maybe a hawk or falcon?

This Pronghorn was walking along the trail that we were taken in Wind Cave NP, it was almost like he/she was posing for the picture. These animals are the fastest land animals in North America and the second fastest in the world, with a speed of 70 mph. They are not very good jumpers though.

This Mule Deer was grazing the grass when we spotted her, soon after she moved into the shrubs and she was hard to spot. But with a bit of patience this nice close up shot was taken. Later on in the afternoon we would see her again from the top of the cliffs.

This picture was taken again in Badlands National Park, the evening light is so gorgeous and to our surprise were there some deer grazing in the grass, so we took the opportunity to take a couple pictures of this Mule Deer doe with her fawn complete the picture.

Chipmunck was making a wooshing sound with its tail, we could not believe that we could get that close to him. Funny little critters, we call all small animals "buddies", because sometimes it is so difficult to see if it is a chipmunck or a squirrel. The difference is that chipmuncks have stripes on their heads and squirrels do not.

Photo of one of the wild horse in the South Unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park. We were doing a hike and I got stuck in the mud near the river and this horse was standing at the other side of the bank and wanted to get to our side. I do not know who was more scared the horse or me. Wahid pulled me out of the mud and we tried to leave so the horse could come across. He started running across the river up the river bank, pretty cool sight.

Wild Caving Experience in Mammoth Cave, KY

When we arrived at Mammoth Cave we noticed that there was a wild cave tour scheduled for the Saturday & Sunday, at first they had said that the tours fully booked, but when we came back the next day the ranger at the ticket office told us that there were two tickets left. But after we purchased the tickets I started having doubts about a tour that involved crawling into tight spots, through dirt and wading belly down through water. But we had booked the tickets and Wahid was confidant that I would be able to do it.

Cave Crickets

So on Sunday the 12th of November at 9:30 in the morning we gathered at the visitor centre. I felt kind of nervous about the whole thing, but Wahid was thrilled and looking very much forward to the whole thing. The first part was dead easy, because we had to descend via a number of stairs into the cave. But soon enough we came to the first challenge, we had to crawl into a hole and crawl to on our hands and feet for a pretty long stretch. I was wondering what I had gotten myself into, was this really fun? We were provided with knee pads, but they came off almost immediately. But going over the rocks you really need some sort of protections. But in really tight spots they kept slipping off below the knee and were more of a nuisance then good protections. And they made it even harder not to get stuck.

Then we got to a part that was called The Bare Cave, accordingly someone had lost their clothes there, because the spot was so incredibly tight. And for a moment I thought I was going to get stuck there. But I made it and I was not the only one having trouble there. Then we came to a hole that was called the Birth Canal, this hole was going straight down and you had to go head down. It looked a lot more scary then it was in reality after that we ended up in the Fallopian Tube, which was kind of long and very narrow. Up till then I had been ok with it all, but in the afternoon I was getting tired and we had to do some tricky stuff still.

One of the last tricky things we did, called Lover's Leap, you could choose which route you wanted to take, the lower side was slightly wider, but rougher and wetter or the upper route, which was a lot tighter. It did not look that much tighter for what we had done before so I went for it, but once I got in the hole I could not move around that much and my feet had no grip behind me. The only thing I could do was to get a hold of a rock or something to pull my self forward. I finally managed to get my head and shoulders of the tight area were I discovered that I had no room to climb out. It was a sheer drop of a couple of meters. So I was hanging face down, still with my legs in the cave and had to lower myself down and at the same time grabbing a rock on my left side in order to block my self from falling face down. Some of the others tried to encourage me, but I was so focussed on getting out that I could not listen to them. I have to admit I was shit scared and I did not enjoy that one bit. Somehow I managed to wiggle my legs beside me on that tiny ledge and from there I could move further on the ledge and finally jump down. Luckily we did not have to do much of crawling after that. We walked along very narrow canyon walls for quite a while and had a look at some of the domes in side the cave. By that time I had developed a huge headache that I could not wait to get out of the cave. So when we finally we finally got out I was so relieved. It was a nice experience, but I think that I will think twice before I do that again though. The trouble is that Wahid enjoyed it immensely so he if already talking about another tour. Something neat happened though when we drove back on the bus to the visitor centre. A Red Tailed Hawk was sitting right on the road and when we came near he started flying right in front of the bus. The hawk was so close, it was awesome. A little bit further down the road we saw some deer standing near the road side. Hunting season had started the day before and for some reason they seem to know that they have to get their behinds in the national park in order not to get shot. A large number of bucks had been sighted in the park, when normally they are never seem, is not that weird?

While writing this piece for the Blog I do not feel so good: my muscles are sore and my knees bruised and I think that I never will do this again, but who knows when all the pain is gone……..!

January & February & March 2006

January 2006

We arrived at the beginning of 2006 in Houston, from where we were planning our journey thru the States. We had planned to find and buy a motor home within a week or three. During that time we stayed in a rented motor home, we did not go to any campgrounds, but tried to stay as much in parking areas for the night to keep the cost down.
We used most of the month in finding a suitable motor home to buy and stock up with groceries and buy other things we needed for the rest of the year. Like buying a cell phone & bikes. But we did do some activities as well in the weekend to make things a little more pleasurable.

Galveston: On the Mexican Golf, we stayed here one of the first weekends, it was nice to go to the sea, but was way too cold to swim or sunbath. We went to see the Moody Gardens.
Brazos Bend State Park: this small state park is south of Houston, it is home to alligators. We cycled most of the park and we had very nice weather although it was in the middle of the winter. It is a busy little park, in that time of the year you need reservations which we did not have, but we were allowed to stay in the overflow campground.
Sam Houston National Forest: We went away for the weekend and ended up at this national forest, we found a campground that had Internet, and Wahid ended up internetting most of the time. The next day we visited a garage sale, but most of the stuff was junk. We did find a flee market as well and had a look down there, Wahid bought some stuff fro the motor home, also a clock that looks hideous, but was very cheap. But it just keeps falling of the wall…., never should have bought that.

Big Bend National Park: this is one of the least visited parks in the US, just because it so much out of the way from everything. It borders Mexico with the Rio Grande; this park is excellent for hiking. Especially the Chisos Basin is very nice, but this time we did not go there. The road to the basin is very bendy and motor homes of certain length are not allowed there. We had our first mishap over there, the couch batteries would not charge and that left us with no power in the motor home. Which mend that we had no lights and the fridge would not work no more. So the next day we had to get a hook up to electricity for get everything started again. But getting a hook up is pretty expensive and not every park has got electricity, so we had to get that fixed a little in the journey. Hot Springs & Rio Grande River

February

Guadalupe Mountain National Park: is situated at the border with New Mexico, we have been here before and there is a lot of hiking to do. The best time to come to this park is in the fall, when the colors in the canyon change color. We hiked to Guadalupe Mountain Peak; it is the highest mountain in Texas. And at the top you have this wonderful 360 degrees view of the valley below. We also did a number of other hikes. We stayed here about 4 days, then the battery gave problems again and we had to go to Tucson.

Saguaro National Park: After spending a couple of nights in Tucson to get the motor home fixed we were ready to do some hiking and cycling again. We did a wonderful night hike, to Wasson Peak, and afterwards we had to cycle back in the dark as well on a dirt road and that was not that easy. But we made it in one piece. We also visited the Tucson Studio’s, which was a bit corny but fun nevertheless.

Catalina State Park: Some people had told us that we could not miss this park on our way to Petrified Forest. It is a wonderful park for hiking and we did not spend enough time here. We wanted to do this long hike, but when we got to the Pools, we lost the trail and spend way too much time in finding the trail that we decided to go back.

Petrified Forest National Park: On the way to Holbrook, a little town, near the national park we got caught in the worst sand storm. It was pretty scary and it felt like the motor home was getting sand blasted. Petrified was one of the parks that we had never visited before. It is a small park and has not got any camping inside the park. There are a couple of nice hikes, my favorite one is the Blue Mesa; the colors of the mesa are just incredible. We saw a coyote crossing the road and he looked at the motor home for a short while and then went on his merry way. Later we drove to Gallup in New Mexico, because we wanted to go to Mesa Verde. After checking campgrounds on the Internet we changed our minds about this, because everything near that park was closed for the winter. Because of this we had to rearrange our travel schedule for the next parks as well. So we decided that a number of parks that we had scheduled for June and July we would do in February. We would visit Mesa Verde in the month of July.

Moab: This town in Utah is the center for all sorts’ activities, biking, hiking, rafting, shopping and it is also the gateway to the Canyon Lands and the Arches. It was pretty cold when we arrived and we bought a little electric heater for when we had a hook up. We went to the Brewery, we were sitting in the bar area and had something to eat. Wahid had a couple of beers, but I was not allowed to have a glass of wine, due to the drinking laws in Utah.
Capital Reef National Park: We have been in this park before, a couple of years ago. We biked to Pleasant Creek, this was over a dirt road, and the scenery was beautiful. We also did a couple of hikes: The Fremont River Trail and the Fremont Gorge Overlook. The fun thing of staying in the campground is that the deer come past twice a day. The campground is near the orchard and they tend to hang out there most of the year. It’s fun to watch them.

March

Escalante Petrified Forest State Park: This small state park is near a lake; unfortunately we were not able to rent canoes that they have there. We did the walk to the top of the mountain; along the trail we were able to see lots of petrified wood. The weather was gorgeous and in the late afternoon we were still able to sit outside enjoying the sun. And in the evening we had finally a hot shower.

Kodachrome Basin State Park:

Wahid and I had a bit of a tiff and I went out to explore the park on my own. I biked the Panorama Trail, which was a bit tuff, because it was on a sandy trail. After that, I hiked up to the Eagles View. This is an incredibly steep trail, the park services do not recommend taking the trail, and it’s not maintained. But the view from up there is incredible ………..! Well, worth it.
The next morning we did the Grand Parade Trail and in the afternoon we biked to Chimney Rock and hiked the Sentinel Trail. For a moment we thought that we had lost the trail, and Wahid got a little upset. But luckily I have a reasonably good sense of direction and we got of the mountain OK.

Bryce Canyon National Park: This relatively small park is probably one of the most well known parks in the USA. Due to its high elevation it was pretty cold. We hiked on the first day into the canyon and did the Navajo Loop from Sunset Point. The next morning we hike up to Sunrise Point and walked to the Queens Garden and then back to Sunset Point. At this point there was some snow in the park, but not all that much; they were predicting lots of snow though.

On the Tuesday we drove up along the scenic drive to do the Bristle cone Loop, but it was hard, there was a lot of snow there and a storm picked up. In the afternoon we went to Ruby’s and had a bite to eat there.
Wednesday was waking up in a winter wonderland; we got out straight away and were almost the first people to get to Sunrise Point. We walked into the canyon; nobody had gone into the canyon yet, so that was kind of cool to make the trail. We walked to Queens Garden again and came out of the canyon at Sunset Point. Later in the afternoon we walked the Fairyland Rim trail, we did not do the whole hike that would have been too much. The snow was melting, but there was a very cold wind blowing. When we got back at the motor home we found out that the water pump had frozen up. Which mend no water, we had to get water from the toilets in some pots and pans.

On the Thursday we had planned to move out of the park and we were on our way to the Byway 89, when we started talking how nice it would be if we could see the park with a tick coat of snow. The prediction for that day was 70% change of snow, so we turned back and waited in Ruby’s. We had hot chocolate and did some internetting in the hotel lounge. But no snow came……..! Around seven o’clock in the evening it started snowing and it snowed all night. The next morning we were woken up by the plowing machine that was cleaning the parking lot. We quickly got up and drove back in the park. The campground was still not cleaned, but the road to Sunset Point was. We were not the first to arrive there, but we were the first to go into the canyon. We had a wonderful hike and after the hike we left the park. It is so stunning to see Bryce in the snow. The white against the red stone is something else though. Later in the morning it started snowing again and we got caught in a snowstorm all the way to Zion National Park, the drive was gorgeous, but very treasures.