Snowbirding Magnus Style, Day 14

Monday, November 17

Bird notes: Rock Wren, Curve-billed Thrasher, lots doves

Weather: Warm in sun at 7:45. 42 overnight.

From journal:
There are times when I’m sitting outside or walking about, that I just feel content. There’s no place I’d rather be than right here right now. I need to remember that feeling when I’m feeling down—that there are places to be that make me happy. In my garden...and here.

It was a lazy day today for us at Rockhound. I really like the place! And I don’t know why, other than the mountains, the space, and the lack of people.

There are probably lots of critters around but I’ve only seen one—a squirrel. Skulking halfway up the slope behind the campground. Two rock wrens checked out our campsite yesterday, and I saw and heard many more today. 

Rock wren: 

A whole bevy of Scaled Quail assembled at the dump station.  One of them, a fairly dark-colored one, stood on a rock and called constantly while the others pecked around on the ground.

Quail: 

 

There were doves galore; also a Curve-billed Thrasher, a Ladder-backed Woodpecker, one stinking House Sparrow, and a couple of Black-throated Sparrows. Something big and buteo-like went soaring over the cliffs at Spring Canyon but I didn’t get a look at it.  And of course House Finches.

 We did a pancake breakfast and then headed toward Spring Canyon in the Jeep. On the way we stopped at the visitor center and spoke to the two ladies there. There were nice exhibits—worth spending more time at, but we’d left Molly in the jeep and had to move on.  

The drive to Spring Canyon included a 17% grade, aka, a really steep hill.  I didn’t think they called a slope a “grade” unless it went on for a mile or more, but this was much shorter. Still it was a little scary.

And then we arrived at the trailhead for a very steep walk up, up and up the canyon, which is called a box canyon according to the visitor center ladies. We didn’t have to climb—no hands were needed—but we did have to do a walk that was not to be taken lightly.  We went up about half a mile of the .9 mile trail, far enough to get some magnificent scenic views. But we’d not taken sticks to help us climb and Ed admitted—after I decided to turn us around—that he’d about reached his limit.

I would have liked to go on, but I’m not so good on the downhills and I knew it was going to be a challenge returning. So we went back. It wasn’t so bad, but with Ed’s hip the way it is we were probably better off that way.

Still, it was a lovely canyon and lovely trail. I lovelied it.

Back to our camp site: 

 

Returning to camp, we just hung out for the rest of the day. Molly and I took three walks, each about 45 minutes or so. I went up the hill behind camp like I had done the last time we were  at Rockhound, but this time continued on the trail to the north instead of veering off to the south and circling around. The  trail didn’t climb all the way to the top of the slope (hill? Mountain?), but instead leveled off and went along the ridge halfway between bottom and top. There was a picnic bench for scenic sunsets and also a small pavilion too, both facing west. 

Then the trail descended and dumped us out into a botanical garden and then the campground. The botanical garden wasn’t much, but had probably been nice once upon a time. Most of the signs were still intact but there weren’t very many of them. And a lot of the interesting plants weren’t even labeled. Oh, well. If I lived there I could volunteer to fix it up. But it’s a long way to home and  I have my own garden to tend.

 

 

Great sunset, but I went inside too soon. I missed the best part! When I stepped back outside a half-hour later I saw that the skyworks were still firing.