Texas Roadtrip, part 1 (Colorado)

My good friend Lydia and I (Lydia is from Virginia!) are on a Moste Epic Road Trip from Hayden, Colorado, to Laredo, Texas!!!! Here are pics from our first few days.

My good friend Lydia and I embarked on a big ol' trip from Denver to Rocky Mountain National Park, after meeting at the airport. Here is a mountain outside of Estes Park (a town which is itself only a few miles from RMNP).

chipmunk friend eating someone's leftover chip-things!

View of the mountains, with one of my favorite trees, Ponderosa Pine, in the foreground.

so-so picture of a gorgeous bird: Steller's Jay. It's spelled Steller because the bird is named after William Steller, an explorer.

We spent the night in Estes Park and when we were driving along the road IN TOWN the next morning, we came across this fellow chowing down, with his harem nearby. Crazy! (Elk)

this was the 3rd time I had been there. :)

Elk.

their backdrop!

We had to completely change our plans, because part of the park road that we planned to drive through on our way back to Hayden was closed due to snow! So we ended up going to Fort Collins, north of RM N. Park. Here is a lovely, lovely park as we left Estes Park town. We were kinda bummed we didn't get to go up further into the park, look for Ptarmigan again :), and just see more mountains, but we certainly couldn't control the weather!!

lovely river on the way to Ft. Collins!!!

self-portrait :D

We had a great time dining and shopping in Fort Collins. After, on the drive back, we stopped to look for American Dipper, and we got it! This little dude was singing his heart out! It was a life bird for Lydia (bird she'd never before seen).

Gambel's Quail (not the best pic) at Colorado National Monument!

this was my 3rd time here, too!

So we're just driving along the road at CO. National Monument, and I see some animals crossing the road about 20 feet ahead of the car, with a car stopped in the opposite direction, waiting for the animals to cross. Deer,  I think. Then I realized THEY WERE BIGHORN SHEEP!!!!!!!!!! I have been WANTING to see Bighorn Sheep ever since I moved to CO, and twice when I've gone over to Denver I have stopped at the Bighorn Sheep viewing area and scoped and scoped the far hills...but to no avail. These dudes were SO close here at CO NM!!!!!

WOW!!!!!!

kinda sweet face. Kinda.

Lydia took this one and the one before it, since she was closer to the sheep. This is the Desert Bighorn, a different subspecies than the Rocky Mountain Bighorn.

Side-blotched Lizard, I believe. :) He was tiny!

perched!

Sunlight through the trees.

path!

Upcoming Adventures!

I am really excited, blessed, and happy to say that I have accepted a full-time, permanent position as Park Interpreter at a state park in Laredo, Texas!

My agenda is as follows:

This Wednesday, I fly back to Eugene to visit family and hopefully go through my storage unit there, deciding what to ship to Laredo and what to leave behind/sell on Craigslist/give away. I fly back to CO on Tues, Sep 25th. Then at the Denver airport, I am picking up a  good friend, who will be flying in to help me out. She and I plan to visit and camp one night at Rocky Mountain National Park, and then that Wed. we will drive back to my place here at the Park.

Then that Saturday (the 29th of Sep), friend and I are planning to embark on a HUGE road trip down to Laredo!! It will take about 10 days or so, and we plan to see Arches National Park, Mesa Verde National Park, White Sands N. Monument in NM, Roswell New Mexico, Carlsbad Caverns, Big Bend National Park, and other fun things along the way. Friend is planning to help me unpack in Laredo, and we'll spend one night there before driving up to Corpus Christi area to bird the Gulf coast! Her flight is out of Corpus Christi on October 10th, and then I'll drive back to Laredo and prepare to start my first "real" job on October 15th!!!!

So I am looking for an apartment in Laredo. I am so excited for this new adventure in my life!!!  

I plan to post many, many pictures from my friend's and my upcoming roadtrip, but in the meantime, I thought I would post a few pictures that I took while I was in Laredo in July for the interview.  !

this was a really neat park I birded at a few times in Laredo.

where I got my life Olive Sparrow!!!!!

This is a Great Kiskadee, terrific birds. :)

this picture and the next few were taken at the park where I will be working!!! It is going to be SO different from Oregon, but I am super excited!

Oh no big deal, just Cactus Wrens hanging out on the women's bathroom. :D

I told you it'd be different from Oregon!

I looked this lizard up but I forget what species he is. I plan and hope to get many exciting lizards, snakes, and amphibians while in TX!! Note this little guy's stripes on the underbelly!

There are crazy butterflies and dragonflies down there, since it's pretty much almost in Mexico. Here is a picture of a Roseate Skimmer dragonfly, a gorgeous animal!

Javelina at the campus of Texas A and M International University!

Tales (and photos) from Elkhead Reservoir!

So in this summer job, I have been working 3 days a week as an Interpreter. No, not the language kind. So being a Nature Interpreter is not unlike being a language interpreter. I sometimes tell people that if a person speaks Spanish, and another person speaks English, well, they need someone to go between them to help them understand each other. "Resource" interpretation, as my job is called, is not that dissimilar. Sometimes we scientists (for I do consider myself a scientist as well :)) are poor communicators and don't speak very good "English". So sometimes scientists need help communicating information about the natural world to make it not only understandable, but relatable and relevant  to the general public. That's where teachers, book authors, and Interpreters come in. Anyhow, so that's my interp job, where I lead programs, etc. for campers here at the park, and the general public, too. BUT this post is not about that. This blog post is about what I do the "other" two days of my work week. So those two days I work up at another State Park in our management unit, called Elkhead Reservoir. What I do there is inspect boats for aquatic nuisance species (ANS) such as zebra mussels. They are nasty little critters from Europe that are now in many bodies of freshwater in the US, and they wreak havoc on lakes, boats, and general ecosystems. Here are some pics of some neat animals/scenery I've seen up there. :)

this is a Snakefly!! very cool. that long stinger-looking thing is not actually a stinger, but an ovipositor for laying eggs; this is a female.

here is a deer chomping away.

I told you that I was going to see lots more prickly pear cacti here in CO this summer!

lovely lizard sunning himself on the rock!

Sage Thrasher singing his heart out as he perches on top of the picnic table.

evening sunlight on the boats and the lake. You can see the twin peaks, "Bears Ears" (in the brochures it has no apostrophe; egads!) above the left-hand truck. 

ski beach in late afternoon/early evening sun.

Horned Lark! I think I have been working around kids too much lately, because I have the urge to ask, "why do you think it's called that?"

here is a Robin looking very perky and wary about the piece of bread, as he hangs out in front of one of our cones.

still not entirely sure about this bird's species. I think it's a Brewer's Sparrow. It was wanting to feed its baby, which unfortunately appeared to be a Brown-headed Cowbird.

I got to go out on the boat ON the lake a few times. Here is the view with some pretty flowers.

I guess I really like prickly pear photo taking.

This is a mediocre picture of a lovely bird, a Forster's Tern.

this is our "unicorn" deer, Elliott.

velvet ant! this is actually not an ant at all, but a wasp, with a very bad sting, so I've heard!

sometimes we get strange contraptions coming in....here is a...um...semi....camper...thing...pulling a boat!

see the little blob at the top of this big gravel pile?

it's Mr. Grumpy Horned Lark!

here are some female hummingbird, all of which my coworker Sand (pictured below) has dubbed "Alice", fighting over the hummingbird feeder.

this is my coworker Sand. His real name is James. I don't know how he got his name "Sand". He is a REAL kick. he is from Alabama and has a great accent and lots of funny stories. There is a  LOT of down time in between boats coming in or going out of the lake!!! Sooooo we find interesting ways to entertain ourselves. We are allowed to read, etc. when we have no boats.The past month or so, Sand has taken to playing guitar....

with a local fisherman named Mike. Mike often brings his mandolin. They like me to sing and I have learned some new old-fashioned songs!

sunrise at Elkhead! this was one of two days I opened. We opened at 6 earlier this summer so that boaters could come fish early!

I hope the blood in this picture doesn't offend/gross out anybody. Basically we have these huge, UGLY fish called  Northern Pike in our lake. I wish I'd gotten a picture of one. You can see the tail of one on the bottom left of this picture. But the two cute fish in the picture are Bluegill! They may not look special, but let me tell you: they are adorable compared to Northern Pike! :)

evening sunlight on some deer.

deer under the moon!

the moon was almost full this night.