We’re off to Aspen. While we were at St Vrain, we did a half-day birding trip to Pawnee National Grasslands seventy miles northeast. Bill will remember the grasslands, we took a hike there to Pawnee Buttes. Judy and I went there for one bird, the chestnut collared longspur. We put four birds on the target list, just in case: the chestnut collared longspur, McCown’s longspur, mountain plover, and burrowing owl. We didn’t get the chestnut collared longspur. We did get two out of the four; two new life birds for us, the McCown’s longspur and burrowing owl. Eight burrowing owls altogether, and flocks of McCown’s longspur. Had a close encounter with a mountain plover. Made eye contact. Naked eye, no binoculars, but there in the grass, maybe fifty yards away, a plover head looking right at me. As I raised the binoculars, I could see his head lowering. By the time the binocs were up, there was no sign of him. I kept locked on that exact spot and walked right to it, but there was still no sign of him. Nothing moved, he just disappeared in the grass. Didn’t get a good enough look to count him. No chestnut collared longspur, but two new birds…. And a good reason to go back.
St Vrain State Park
We’ve left Northwest Colorado and headed back down for five days with the kids on the front range. Craig was good, the job went well, saw lots of birds, and even got in a game of racquetball with the executive director, my first racquetball in months. Didn’t get to explore the surrounding countryside as much as we wanted; maybe next time. No freeway routes for the ride back to the front range. We took the scenic route, highway 40 east through Steamboat, Rabbit Ears Pass, and Muddy Pass. Highway 14 through Walden in North Park (the moose viewing capitol of colorado), Cameron Pass north of Rocky Mountain National Park, and down the long winding Poudre Canyon to Fort Collins, then south to Longmont. We’re at St Vrain State Park. It used to be Barbour Ponds County Park. They’re upgrading it. Nice pads and electric at all sites. Next year they’ll have some full hookup sites. It keeps getting better and better for us. Meanwhile, family for the Fourth of July.
Las vegas
After the conference, we exposed ourselves to the slot machines. Dropped a few twenties, then my machine started dinging. Then Judy’s machine started dinging. Played a little longer then quit. It seemed attractive to leave with a little of the casino’s money in our pockets. Judy left with a hundred. I left with five hundred. We’ll keep it for bail money we might need the next time we go back to Texas (no word yet from the jury coordinator’s office).
Conference
It was a good conference in Las Vegas. It’s a conference for small firm owners, so we always get lots of good business ideas. This year, we had an additional agenda. We’re at capacity for our mobile office jobs, but there is more demand for what we do. It’s fun to promote what we offer, but we can’t do that without adding capacity. We want to recruit another team or two to do what Judy and I do, travel around Colorado and New Mexico in an RV, working with nonprofit organizations. How hard could that be? All we have to do is find the intersect between the population of Certified Public Accountants, and the population of people who have RVs and want to live full-time in them. We’ve put some ads out, but haven’t had any qualified responses yet. So we went to the conference armed with handouts. At the roundtable luncheon for small firm owners, we always break into discussion groups. I presented my problem to the discussion group. The moderator got hold of it and had me present it to the entire room. A couple days later, at the breakout session for building a specialty practice, I got called on again to explain to the full room what we’re doing for a niche practice and what we’re looking for. I was introduced with references to old hippies, Bob Dylan, and Willie Nelson. Lots of good exposure; a few hundred people heard about us. Nothing has come of it yet, but I’m sure we got a lot of people thinking. We handed out cards, so no telling who will get in touch with us. It was a good conference.
Killdeer
Killdeer in Cortez at the KOA. Eggs perfectly camouflaged so they’ll be safe. No predator is going to spot them right in the middle of the driveway.