On the Road

Entered Mexico at Nogales this time and said a little prayer at the church of the Immaculate Conception there.

I don't drive as well as I did. I've lost shirt and a pair of levies. Very hard to find hotels and motels that have the serene atmosphere I desire. Age. Still, I'm grateful that my humor remains good.

I've realized that I can't afford long term travel in a way that is truly comfortable for me.

From Nogales drove through Hermosillo to Guaymas. Of the two Guaymas was the more pleasant, but I went on to Empalme before I stopped and had some seafood. Took an expensive hotel room in Navajoa, but found its neighbors so noise that I left about 11 PM to sleep happily in my van.

It was not far form Navajoa that while I was traveling with 'Mando and my brother Gary long ago that Gary stepped very close to a coral snake with his bare foot and I a bit later fell from a train breaking hip and pelvic bones.

Ate jaiva and got an offer of a place to stay in Empalme.

A gentleman told me that the Mexican Government entered this downturn pretty flush. Seems the Fox administration was so tied up that it couldn't arrange to spend much so ended with a large surplus for Calderon administration.

Notes from Camp Thunderbird and Nearby

There is always 'greasewood' and some kind of cholla nearby.
Haven't seen a tortis in the wild for many years.
I see certain jack rabbits enough so that I nearly come to know them as individuals.
The cute little cotton-tails I know only by age grade. Saw one today even in this very cold weather.
Quail still visit. Haven't seen the little silver gray fox, that seemed to consider the place home, for some time.
Most reptiles a rodents are still in hibernation. Though a warm sun brings out a few little lizards.
Seems very long since I've heard a coyote sing. Did see fresh droppings on the place that indicates that I have had a full grown visitor.
The winds stir a wild dance from the larrea tridentata and the skys are beautiful.

Lively Desert Sand

There are none of the well-grown desert iguanas to seen these days. They had been getting big enough to be a bit intimidating, if one didn't know that they are vegetarians.

I have seen a pair of elegant chipmunks heading to or from my patio these days. They are the largest I've seen in these regions. Their full curled tails have a bit more white near their nicely bushed ends. Their nicely marked fur fits their healthy bodies just right. They could be called regal. The little fox might call one of them a banquet.

There have been lots of lizards around, mostly very young ones. Those most in evidence these days are the very speedy ones, nearly white in color, with a set of black strips circling the upper part of their tails. Those tails curl upwards when these guys are showing off their speed. I guess that right now they are mostly of an age we could call pre-teen. I'm not sure, but do suspect that they are eating some of the small ants living in many colonies in a wide circle around my home. Many had been living in my house and their dispersion is a direct result of our wars. I have been trying to keep them from organizing a counter attack.

There has also been a solitary road runner close around the house. He is probably eating some of the little wiptailed lizards, He'll be working hard to earn those tiny mouths full. He'd eat better if the portly iguanas hadn't become cautious enough to spend their days under the sand.

Natruralists All

Animals may be heading for the high country, but one handsome, little grey desert fox came to visit me this morning. I watched it calmly and purposefully walk across the back yard and up onto my back porch! Perhaps attracted by my cooler. It seemed to look directly at my door knob. It noticed me watching it and made eye contact with me. Then it walked toward me to just under the window at which I sat! We looked at each other full into both eyes.
It walked away with an attitude that seemed to say that it was well past time for me to be speaking and understanding pretty good fox.
It's great that we can interact with these free beings.

I have started reading "Cosmos." What a wonderful human being the Baron was. What wonderful contributions he made to our advancement. He was more than a naturalist, he was a cosmologist. The naturalists of those days are wonderful to read; wonderful, but not easy. I was pleased to get through a couple of works of Darwin in my early teens, but due to my lack of education and experience could not benefit fully.
Steller and Wallace deserve to be included ,with Humboldt and Darwin, among those early giants. Humboldt is still, I believe, included as part of college prep education in Latin America and Europe. Don't here of him being mentioned in High School here. Pity.

Among the natural history sites on line are:
http://www.californiamag.org/ search Museum of Vertebrate Zoology and Grinnell Resurvey Project