End of the year

Apparently it's supposed to be a time to reflect. However, Mother Nature seemed to be doing a perfectly reasonable job of that this morning.



It was nice to get a last ride out to Tallebudgera Valley -- even if I stupidly turned off my computer for 12km and dudded myself out of some distance today. Not really the end of the world, but frustrating just the same. In anycase, I finished the year with 22,715km and a little over 163,000 metres of climbing, so I really can't complain. I have a much bigger 2006 planned.

Cleaning ducks

We've been thrilled lately with plentiful downpours, cloudbursts, thunderstorms, showers, drizzles, sprinkles, and mists. Over six inches of very welcome precipitation over the past two weeks or so. (I'm sure that only seems like more rain than we've had in the last two years.)
Our Muscovy ducks don't much like the water. You'll find one in a pond only if you've thrown him in there yourself. They don't particularly like the rain either — they'll retreat to the porch to stand under the eaves to stay dry.
But the recent rain has often been at night, when the Muscovies like to be in the (uncovered) pen.

Boy, are those ducks clean!
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Submitted to the Friday Ark.

10 Days on the bike

OK, not constantly on the bike for 10 days - I have ridden every day in the last 10 days. During that period I logged in 193 miles. One of the days I only rode 3.5 miles - during trail work. The rest of that day was shooting the cyclocross race at Swanson.
Its harvest season in the heartland. With wall-2-wall sunshine for the last 2 weeks, the combines have been busy. That kind of weather has been perfect for bike riding.
After 2 days riding in the Wabash Trace, the last 2 days I have ridden the loop around Council Bluffs. Looks like the Missouri River is slowly receding - again! Will take some time before we will be able ride the full loop at Lake Manawa.
Thankfully, West Sidewinder is (and has been all year) above water lever and rideable. Weather is gonna be awesome for THOR's Bring Your Kid Mountain Biking festivities on Saturday at Lake Manawa.
Lastly, today I (finally) topped the 1500 miles mark for the year.

Boulevard Palms

Mexican fan palms, Washingtonia robusta, line a street in Santa Barbara.

No More Mississippi Sound … Hello Gulf of Mexico

Gulf State Park — Gulf Shores, Alabama
Temps: Lo 57F / Hi 74F (14C / 23C)

On Monday (April 22), we left Mississippi behind and made the 131-mile (210 km) move to our new home at Gulf State Park, in Gulf Shores, Alabama.

131 miles (210) km from one temporary home to another.

We didn’t intend to dally along the way, but sometimes things don’t go as planned … mostly because our fuel/propane stop at the Flying J just outside Gulfport took nearly two hours. Why? Because first the trucker in front of us at the diesel lane, and then an RVer near the propane fill-up station left their rigs in place after filling up instead of pulling ahead and clearing the way. With a car in tow, it was impossible to back up and maneuver, so we had to wait and wait and wait to take our turn. Oh well; this is the first time this has happened since getting on the road in December. It probably won’t be the last time.

The delay at Flying J put us at the Grand Bay Alabama Welcome Center just in time for lunch. We were planning to stop here anyway to collect some brochures, so that worked out well.

Alabama joined the Union in 1819 as the 22nd state.

The bonus … murals inside the visitor center. Someone said that once you become aware of murals you’ll start finding them everywhere. How true!

Once off I-10, the GPS wanted to route us to Gulf Shores via AL-59/US-90, but Streets and Trips showed construction on the road, so we came down US-98 instead. That added a bit of driving time as we had to go through some small towns. Finally, we arrived at the campground at 3:00p.

You can make camping reservations in advance at Gulf State Park, but you can’t pick your site until you arrive. The procedure here is to put you in one of the 496 sites they have, and then you can drive around and see if there’s another site that catches your fancy. Seems a little bass-ackwards to me, but so be it. We picked a pull-through to make it easy for us to move, dropped off the Phaeton at the site, and went site-shopping. All but two of the “on lake” sites were occupied, leaving us with little choice but to pick the one with the smallest view of the lake. Oh, but what a site it turned out to be.

Site 277 is the last “on lake” site on Gator Road (see red arrow).

One thing we always look for in a site is privacy, or at least plenty of living space. Site 277 has both … and in spades. Going in head-first and facing the wide meadow between us and the lake gave us even more privacy. The daily rate for this 50Amp FHU site is $34/night, but with the weekly rate, we get a $4/night discount for $210 a week. Not bad … although the 11% lodging tax does add quite a bit to the total.

We’re delighted with the site we landed!

Going in head-first into this back-in site gives us more privacy …
and we get to enjoy the view from the cockpit.

There’s plenty of room between us and our neighbor on the hook-ups side of the site;
and the trees add privacy on this side as well.

In the few days we’ve been here, we’ve done everything in our power to enjoy our site … and the wildlife, which don’t shy away easily, have added to our pleasure.

There are a ton of birds hidden in the tall grasses and brush, chirping their little hearts out all day long. Mockingbirds and eastern bluebirds, and black birds that I have not been able to identify are all over the place. Cardinals flit about, flying headlong into anything shiny that reflects back their own image. Mourning doves come by throughout the day to pick through whatever they can find in the grass. We’ve seen a couple of turtles crossing the roads around the campground; and a few snakes too. I could do without the latter … and luckily there have been no sightings of them near our site.

Left: One of the many mockingbirds that sing all day long.
Right: Eastern Bluebird on one of the many warning signs in the meadow near our site.

And we have rabbits that come calling frequently at our site. I thought they might be jackrabbits at first, but their ears are too small, so I think they might be eastern cottontail rabbits instead. They just come and make themselves at home in the meadow in front of our site. They stay put unless someone makes a sudden move, but if you take your time, you can get quite close to them.

Eastern Cottontail Rabbit

With such a great site, it’s difficult to tear ourselves away, but both mornings since our arrival we’ve gone to the beach for walks of 3-4 miles (5-6½ km). Doesn’t sound like much, but the soft sand at the beach across the road from us is not the easiest to walk on, so we’ve really been getting a workout. As the crow flies, the beach is not far. But this campground is big, and it takes a while to walk to the boardwalk, so we drive to a small parking lot nearby instead of wearing ourselves out just getting to the beach.

The sign near the boardwalk asks visitors not to walk on the dunes.
So what’s with the footsteps to the left of the boardwalk?

Yesterday, we walked in the direction of the Gulf State Park Pier …

What’s with charging a fee for walking onto the pier? I don’t get that at all, so …

… we stayed on the beach and played under the pier!

Glimpse of the high rises of Gulf Shores … no thanks, we’ll stay at the campground.

Today, we wandered in the direction of Orange Beach, passing by the beach pavilion (free parking for those staying at the campground). Since we were walking into the sun, I let my shutter finger rest, except when we came to a castle …

Nah! Mui didn’t build the castle … he’s just posing with it at my request.

There are surprisingly few shorebirds on the beach; perhaps because they can go to a nearby refuge instead. Our old friends the laughing gulls, willets, and sanderlings are here, however. As are the royal terns. We haven’t seen any great blue herons on the beach, but evidence of their presence can be seen in the footprints in the sand. Most exciting for me, though, have been sightings of three new-to-me birds.

Willets
you look that way, and I’ll make sure no one sneaks up on us!

You can imagine my delight in this first-time sighting of an American Avocet …

… even when this willet horned in on the photo-op!
I posted My favorite shot of the American avocet in my viewfinder blog … worth taking a look.

I’m thinking these are sandwich terns.
(If not, let me know.)

A Sandwich Tern (right) with what I am thinking is a Forster's Tern.
(Could be a common tern, but my bird reference says they’re very rare in this area;
let me know if I am wrong.)

This is the only evidence we’ve seen of great blue herons around here.
(To give you perspective, I wear a 6½ shoe.)

I’m going to wrap up with sunset from the Gulf State Park Pier. It turns out that this beach is not good for over-the-water sunsets. Still, it was a nice way to bring yesterday to a close.

From this …

… to a more colorful sunset when I zoom in to the scene.

We plan to to see — one of these mornings — if the angle of view is better for sunrise!