Review: Halfway to Heaven

Halfway to Heaven: My White-knuckled--and Knuckleheaded--Quest for the Rocky Mountain High
by Mark Obmascik

Like, wow! This dude takes a notion--all mixed up with middle age crazy and other feelings of inadequacy and boredom and stuff--and sets out to climb all the Colorado Fourteeners. There are 58 named mountains exceeding 14,000 feet in elevation.

As they say on the web page https://www.14ers.com
No 14er is "Easy" so when you hear this word when discussing 14ers, it simply means the peaks which are the least difficult to hike. Every peak is different and some have trails from bottom to top. Those are the easier peaks. Then there are peaks without a trail or require specific climbing skills to reach the summit. Those peaks are much more difficult and thus more dangerous. Don't jump into the 14ers by starting with the more difficult peaks.
 
So he didn't. I think he started out with walk-able mountains only, but soon ran out of them and went on to some pretty serious climbing. Awesomely serious. So I say, wow!

A lot of fun to read, too. And pretty scary at times.

Gardening, end of April

 I think I finally see some canteloupe coming up. It's about time!

Meanwhile, here's a lovely snap pea harvest. Maybe I need to do a stir fry.

And a very strange vegetable, too.

 

Book review: Exit Interview

Exit Interview: The Life and Death of My Ambitious Career
by Kristi Coulter

How in the world did she remember all this?  She must have kept awfully great diaries! This is a really, really detailed (but in a good way) story of her years working at the fledgling Amazon.com.  If you read her other book, Nothing Good Can Come of This, you'll know that she was struggling with alcohol overuse during the first half or so of the time detailed here. She mentions those events but does not repeat what we already know--or would know, if we'd read the other book and I highly recommend we do.

It's a little hard to read at times, but only because you want to jump up and scream at the people she has to deal with--and you can't. Like her, you just have to sit there and take it. And then go cry in the restroom.

Never the less, she's a champ and I love everything she's written. Even when I hate it. And I definitely love this.

Book review: American Ramble

American Ramble: A Walk of Memory and Renewal
Neil King Jr.

I listened to this book while jogging, and I was enjoying it so much that on the rare occasions when my surroundings distracted me from hearing about his journey, I backed up the audio and repeated. I didn't want to miss a step.

He describes in really precise detail a journey from his home in Washington D.C. to New York City, ending at the Ramble in Central Park. I'll leave it to the book blurb to tell you why he went, how long it took, and how he fared along the way. I'll just say that what he found along the way astonished me. He was walking in historic places, and at times met up with people who could tell him all about them--Valley Forge; unknown graves; peoples and places gone by. But he was also walking through the modern world, and some of the people he met up with were very much in that world.

He approached them all with what I'd term the "journalist's" mind--he listened or questioned or argued but all without expressing his own strong opinions. I came away not knowing much about his own politics, religion, or environmentalist views, but I did experience a delightfully diverse cross-section of other people's.

Delightful--it's a lovely word. And it's how I'd describe this book.

Book review: How to Know the Birds

 How to Know the Birds: The Art and Adventure of Birding
by Ted Floyd

The book cover described this with words like witty, charming, and endearing. While I wouldn't go quite that far, I could see how a person might call it "cute."  But it wasn't what I expected, and so I don't have much else to say.

He takes one page per bird, choosing many of the more common birds a novice birdwatcher might see, and he uses it to illustrate a anecdote about birding. Or about bird behavior or various other topics. It's nice, but it's by no means a manual on "How to Know the Birds."

Magnus in New Mexico, Day 12

Fri 29 Mar

On to Lake Colorado City state park. Marvelous drive--not. Google choose Texas State Highway 176 and showed an area of road construction, but not THREE areas of road construction with single lane road segments. One of them had a guide car with a driver who stopped to chat up the girl manning the "wait for pilot car" sign, and he seemed to delay a good five minutes after the opposite lane was through. It was awful.

We had a fuel stop, two pee stops, and the road construction stops, of course; also we got behind slow trucks that couldn't be passed and that seemed to take a long, long time. It was just horrid and I never want to go that way again.  I don't remember the exact timing, but it was supposed to be a 3:45 drive and it took 4:30 or maybe even five hours.

I didn't like Lake Colorado City at all the other two times we've stopped here, in summer. But in the springtime it's very nice.  Many flowers. Not many birds to speak of, not yet anyway.  Molly especially liked the ground squirrels.

 The Lake is formed from the Morgan Creek tributary, which joins the Colorado river just a few miles down.

I had a nice walk on a trail that ran through the big rocks along the western side of the lake; I started the walk by bushwacking from the campsite across the trail, and then I turned left (North-ish). But if I'd wanted to make the walk longer, I could have gone south, too.

 

And next day, we went home. Long drive and nothing else to say about it.

NOTES

1. Always, always always make a note of the route to use whenever you're out in nowheres-ville -- there may not be phone signal.  I guess some of the trips can omit this step--like in Central Texas or Louisiana. But in the Davis Mountains, or Utah, or even the mountains of Pennsylvania, check the route on Wifi before travel day.  There is NO data signal for AT&T in the Davis Mountains, period.  Maybe the Observatory has their own private tower; whatever. We didn't have it.

2. I'm not sure it's possible to always avoid all road construction, but I should try harder.

3. When I saw the swallows, I should have went and got my camera right then and there. They would have been a new species for me.

Magnus in New Mexico, Day 11

 Thu 28 Mar

Drive to Brantley Lake State Park. We stayed there the previous year, on our Carlsbad trip in August.  At that time it was very hot--108 degrees I think? And pretty much empty. Very nice. 

But this time, not so much. It was almost full up with other campers and very few of them cared to keep their dogs on a leash. No close encounters, but I was on edge the whole time I was in oraround the campground.  

Molly and I took a decently long walk up the trail to the day use/boat launch area. It looked different but also the same as I remembered. But, of course, last time I was coming to it down the road and not over the hill.

Only a few birds. Kestrel.

The horrible drive took us over the Guadalupe Mountains and through much road constructions. Bleah!

Magnus in New Mexico, Day 10

Wed 27 Mar

Went to Las Cruces farmer's market--only four vendors and nothing we needed although the huge bags of dried chili peppers were tempting. Should have bought one of the bags of ground chiles. Then Mesilla, the square. It was historically interesting--

 

 

Then on to Dripping Springs National Monument. Cool place!  The hike to the springs was 1.5 miles, which I guess meant round trip, so we didn't risk it with Ed's hip the way it is. The guys in the visitor center said the walk to the cave was only .9 miles, so we did that. Unfortunately it was all downhill to the cave, which was really just an overhang but a nice big one. After Ed walked downhill for almost a mile, he wasn't inclined to go back up since we could clearly see on the map that there was a parking area on about the same level as the cave, in a different direction. So I hiked back up to get the Jeep and let Ed mosey on over to the closer parking area and bathroom.

The coolest thing was, that with the additional elevation and the clear sunny skies, you could see all the way to snow-capped mountains to the west.  My guess that that they were the mountains of the Gila National Forest.

 

 The cave

 Mountains in the distance

After that we drove to the day use/picnic area of our park so that Ed could see the Colorado river up close.  And a Phainopepla.  And stopped at Fort Selden but didn't go on the tour. The old for ruins looked really cool but it cost money and we couldn't take the dog in the museum to access the ruins trail outside, behind a fence. No matter.

When we returned Molly and got a really long walk down the Mogollon trail. I thought I could get onto it by going all the way to the southern end of the park, but there was no connecting trail. So we walked down there and then walked back to the connector, then over to the canal and across the bridge. In the day use area the Phainopepla of the day before wasn't there (since I had my camera this time), so we went on all the way back to the bridge at the north end, which took us to the group camp. And down the hill to home! 

Lovely itty bitty park. Lots of birds, too. There were swallows in the canal that were most likely Violet-Green Swallows, but without my camera I was never able to get a good enough look at them. Swallows in motion are impossible!

And I finally saw a Verdin!!! Lifer for me.

No picture of the Verdin, though. 

This is just a yucca in bloom --

 

 

Train going by our campsite

 Magnus in New Mexico, Day 9
Tue 26 Mar

Left my beloved Rusty's and headed to Leasburg Dam State Park.  But first, good-bye to lovely mountains with their new coat of snow.

And across the continental divide.  Strange...I though that was in western Texas.

 
/Leasburg Dam is a lovely place, right on an irrigation canal beside the Colorado River. The campsites were kind of small and tightly spaced together in loops, but I'd chosen one at the end of a loop where I could take Molly directly on the road for walks. Our loop was full, I think, but I don't recall seeing a single neighbor outside all the two days we were there.  It was a little chilly maybe.

The park is smallish, but they've made lots of little rock-lined trails all in and around the site. They were very enjoyable, and I did see people on them. Not a lot, but enough to make it seem sociable.  At the top of the hill was a big group pavilion and overlook to the dam over the Colorado River--

 

On that first day, all I did was explore the trails a little. I made it to the day use area and was greatly pleased by a lone Phainopepla talking to himself in a willow tree. He sat there for a long time while I watched.

 And them we went to eat at Chachi's Mexican, a convenient little place south on I-25 about halfway to Las Cruces. I thought it was excellent; Ed not so much. They only had chile rellenos with cheese, not beef, and the enchilada dish he chose instead was kind of bland and didn't have cheese on it. I'm not sure what else was wrong with it, though.

The only problem with my meal was that there weren't any vegetarian dishes on the menu, sigh. No nopalitos or veggie fajitas or calabazas. I ended up with shrimp tacos, and although I prefer not to eat shrimp in restaurants because it's like prepared with slave labor in Indonesia, I have to admit they were prepared perfectly! 

Great murals in the restaurant,  here's one:

Magnus in New Mexico, Day 8

Monday 3/25

Rusty's porcupine

Slow day; the only plan was to visit the museum. Saw swallows, probably Barn Swallows, staying within a couple of feet of the ground. This doesn't happen at home. Rained all night and in the morning the wind shifted to the north and turned fierce and icy.

Intermittent squalls keep coming through, mixed with intervals of very warm sunshine. So I went jogging, determined to do 30 minutes. I started out with a hoodie pulled tight around my face and a windbreaker zipped up to my chin. After ten minutes of jogging with a 20 mph ice-cold wind pushing me, the sun came out. I stripped off the windbreaker, then eventually the hoodie. After fighting them to stay tied around my waist for a while (note to self, put the windbreaker around my neck from now on), I finished the jog out on the road.

So when I finished the jog, which turned out to be 42 minutes with a couple minutes of stoppage to mess with the jackets, I tried to walk and look at birds. I could see a line of rain coming from the northwest. After a few minutes walking, I put the hoodie back on. And after it started spitting rain, the windbreaker.

Desert mountain weather is weird.

They call these mountains "sky islands" -- isolated mountain ranges in southeastern Arizona and northern Mexico. Some of the mountains rise more than 6,000 feet above the surrounding desert floor making the lowlands and high peaks drastically different. Plants and animals living in the mountains could never survive in the surrounding deserts.

Much more snow on the mountains this morning 

 
We weren't able to (willing to) do much birding in the mountains this trip. It was just too cold and rainy. Damn. Plus, I'd pretty much have to leave Ed sitting and go off for a long walk to see anything. Birding takes a lot of time in the best of times, and there just weren't a lot of birds to make it worth my while.  At one point he parked for me and he sat on a log overlooking the creek while I wandered around with Molly. I had a great time (him too) but didn't see much in the way of bird life. Much, aka, nothing.

Magnus in New Mexico, Day 7

 
Sun 24 Mar

The plan for the day was to take the scenic route across the Chiricahuas to the visitor center and then up to Massai Point. But alas, the point was closed. Here's what happened.

We started out in chilly morning clouds that looked like rain, and indeed they did sprinkle a bit of rain here and there.  We headed north and then west, up into the mountains and the town of Paradise. We'd barely hit the highlands until the road turned into damp mud and it started to look like flurries. Soon there was a lot of snow on the ground (quarter inch or more, but remember, this is the desert and that seems like a lot). And it began sleeting on us and continued, off and on, sleet, snow and freezing rain. The road was murder--one lane most of the time and slimy--no ice, just mud--and very rocky and dangerous. We were lucky  to hit 10 mph.

 

At the town of Paradise, which seemed to consist of three houses, we passed a woman walking a little boy. People live out there? Seemed impossible. How would they get utilities run up so narrow and curvy a road? I couldn't imagine a concrete truck making the route. 

We eventually met a car, stopped on the opposite side of the road. We spoke to the driver and he said he was just taking a break. And soon we knew why--we were heading over the route he'd just traversed--he'd just done an hour of hard mountain driving.

Eventually we came out over the mountains--very beautiful. We met another SUV on the way, this one driven by a guy with a German accent who seemed to be having a ball. He said it wasn't too bad ahead (for us) and sure enough it wasn't. Eventually we came down into a valley (a high valley) with a cemetery that appeared to still be in use.  Somewhere along there a flock of very small quail crossed the road. I didn't think to stop and look at them, but they were almost certainly Montezuma Quail, which would have been a new species for me.

Eventually the road improved enough that we could go 12 or even 15 mph in spots. And then a very nice dispersed campground. I don't think it had restrooms or any utilities, but it was nice.

 

It would have been a blast to hike the route we'd taken. Although I have to admit that it took us about an hour-and-a half after we hit the mountain, so that would have been at least a four hour walk or even a whole day. With birdwatching, longer. But a person could have backpacked into the campground and spent the night, then walked north and out.

 

To get to the visitor center, we had to pass out of the mountains, turn north for a bit, then hit a very nice asphalt road going back east. That's where the entrance person told us that the monument had no fee but that the scenic drive to Masai Point was closed.  We went on to the visitor center, not too great, and on to another campground for vehicles 28-feet and under. Or 25 or something. It was lovely. Just as we were turning around ot go back, a park service guy told us he was opening the route a little farther but that it was still closed at the peak. So we went on and saw some cool rock formations.

 

Molly didn't get much walking. Dogs were forbidden on the trails and the parking lot was too wet and it was really cold out there. Note that when we were coming over the mountains, the temperature got down to 32 and had barely climbed up to 38 when we reached the other side. And it was still sleeting.  So given the choice of walking Molly on the road or going back to camp, I chose to go back.

We returned on the Interstate, getting on at Bowie, Arizona, the pistachio capital of the U.S. (or so the sign said) and drove through tons of pistachio and pecan groves to return. The entire drive took over five hours.

Also we drove past the trailhead to Fort Bowie, a notorious place in the Native American/Apache genocide story. The walk out to the fort was marked 1.5 miles which would have been a blast to take--with interpretive signs, too--but out of the question for us all.

The usual birds, but nothing much special on account of the weather.  Molly and I saw curve-billed thrashers on our walk and stirred up a whole colony of Gambel's quail. Also in the morning I tracked down a peculiar bird song and found that it was a white-crowned sparrow. How peculiar that I'd never heard one singing before. Also Cactus Wren and Ladder=backed woodpecker (on the ground, weird)

Magnus in New Mexico, Day 6

 Sat 23 Mar

First full day at Rusty's RV Ranch and the Chiricahua Mountains. Since the day was "supposed" to be warm and sunny, then a cold front was coming through in the night, I decided that our long drive to the official Chiricahua National Monument should wait until tomorrow or even the next day. It would be a very long drive--at least two hours--and if we were going to be sitting in a car for hours, it might as well be on a chilly day. 

So the choice was made to make a quick drive down to the Willow Tank and then over to the east side of the Chiricahuas, where all the alleged birdwatching sites were. Alas, it appears that once again, we were there too early in the year. Not very many flowers were out and not a sign of any hummingbirds or other spring migrants.

I did at least get to enjoy a pair of curve-billed thrashers doing a dance on the road in front of Magnus.

In the afternoon Molly and I jogged for 40 minutes. Once around the park, then up and down the road for 15 minutes. Then we walked and talked to Norman to fill up the hour of exercise. Good enough? I hope.

Some shots of our drive: