Author: Steve

 

… I spent eight nights in eight different hotels.  And I learned something.

 

I’ve rarely been comfortable in hotel rooms.  More often that not, I don’t sleep well.  I tend to wake up hot and sweaty in the middle of the night and have to toss the covers off, regardless of how cool I set the room temperature.  I take this to mean there is something too synthetic above or below me, or both, in the bedding.

 

Well, during the California trip, I slept comfortably two out of the first three nights.  I hadn’t been choosing hotels by type, I was choosing them by location; by where I wanted to start the next day. Those two comfortable nights were at La Quinta by Wyndham and Howard Johnson by Wyndham.  Something in common in those names struck me.  Wyndham has apparently bought up several hotel chains.  Could it be that they created a standard for bedding for all their hotels?  I tested the theory.  Every remaining night, except one, I slept at a Wyndham property.  Every remaining night, except that one, I had a comfortable night’s sleep.

 

So if you’re traveling, and you tend to have trouble sleeping comfortably in hotel room beds, I suggest you try Wyndham hotels.  They don’t always say Wyndham in the name, but you can google Wyndham properties and get a list of the Wyndham hotels wherever you are.

 

Merry Christmas!  (And thank you Wyndham.)

 

 

Mexican Duck at Salineno.  494.  Missed on the Seedeater.

 

South Texas part of the trip map

 

Six birds to go.  (And ten Continuing Education hours.)

 

 

Or Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, or Have a Nice Day!

 

We got all the electronics out for a digital Christmas morning with Matt and family, and Becky and family.

 

The weather was delightful.  Judy made us a great dinner.  We had a quiet happy day here.

 

Happy Holidays!

 

 

Eared Grebe.

 

Bufflehead ducks.

 

Snowy Egret.

 

 

Black Phoebe.

 

Allen’s Hummingbird.

 

Red-whiskered Bulbul.

 

 

…and you run out of power and you can’t make it home or to a charging station?  What then?  Do you just pull over to the side of the road and you’re stuck?  That keeps me from getting serious about buying an electric car.  I might start out to drive twenty miles and end up driving a hundred.  My trip to the island and back might get extended to two hundred miles.  I don’t always know ahead of time how much range I’ll need.  Gasoline cars can carry a gas can.  Can electric cars carry an extra bucket of electrons?

 

How about this; buy a little Honda generator and throw it in the trunk of the electric car.  In an emergency, fire up the generator and let it charge up the batteries until there is enough to get you to the next stop.  A bucket of electrons?  Problem solved?

 

 

No additional birds today.  The only I saw in the air today was me.  Miles driven: 600.  Miles walked: 36.  Birds seen: 28.  Birds remaining: 7.  I’m back home in South Texas with my charming wife and puppies. 

 

It’s good to be home.

 

 

 

We have self-driving cars.  They’re loaded with artificial intelligence making a thousand decisions a second.  Put a small fraction of that technology into an intersection and smart traffic lights could make some simple decisions, not only about whether there was anyone waiting at the light and triggering the light to change at the next cycle, but look down the road and modify the cycle to accommodate the natural flow of traffic.  If there is only one car waiting to go when the light turns green and there is no-one else coming, just move on to the next part of the cycle.

 

Southern California part of the trip map

 

Standing in a marsh, in the pre-dawn dark, making noises like a rail, hoping not to get arrested.  It worked!  Got the Ridgway’s Rail and I didn’t get arrested!  491.  On to Mile Square Park for the Swinhoe’s White-eye.  That’s a big park, it really is a mile square, and I walked it all, before I finally got the flock of White-eyes.  492.  Drive south to the San Diego River.  Search through five hundred American Goldeneyes to find the one Eurasian Goldeneye.  Got it!  (With the help of a local birder couple who had spotted it earlier and refound it for me.  It’s all good.  It counts.  493.

 

That’s it for the day.  We’re down to single digits.  Seven!