Posted on

Dark eyed juncos

  And fiendish looking yellow-eyed Juncos.    We’ve moved on from Rusty’s. https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=1XYsAPbRQNrLQGGU8N54Xezsw54E&ll=32.00467602011817%2C-109.4978990420891&z=8 We got to drive on the road we first meant to travel several days ago, closing a loop and moving on west to Kartchner Caverns State Park. Met up with Jim and Elle; it’s been a couple years since we last got together with them.  We’ve got three days to catch-up! 
Posted on

We thought it was allergies

 But Judy may have caught that crummy cold that has been going around.  She is still ambulatory and plowing through it, but we’re keeping her well drugged. We’re still at Rusty’s. This is the dark place where the amateur astronomers come.  In fact, we’re surrounded by sparsely populated housing developments with home observatories; sky sheds.  Some of the telescopes here in the park look as big as a couple 50 gallon drums stuck together. Each one gets covered up with a silver blanket during the day.  We watched acorn woodpeckers.    
Posted on

I remember

 I remember learning in school about significant digits and accuracy.  The number of significant digits you have defines the confidence you have in your number.  If you add, multiply, or divide, you only have as much confidence in the result as the lowest number of significant digits that went into it.  If you’ve got a weight measured to 17.2857 grams, you’ve got 6 significant digits of accuracy.  That’s accurate!  If you multiply it by a number, like 3.14, you get 54.277098, but not really; you don’t get an answer accurate to 8 digits.  The number you get is only as accurate as the least accurate number you used in your calculation, so the answer you have confidence in is really only 54.3.  A lot of the accuracy of your original weight just went away in the calculation, from 6 significant digits to 3. This was all brought to mind while driving down the highway; seeing the construction sign that announced the total cost of that project to be $45,172,843.10.  Really?  And ten cents?  Not eleven cents, ten cents!  I realize that a highway construction project is not bound by scientific accuracy, and there might be a fixed contract that specifies that exact amount, but how much useful information did that ten cents add?  Two significant digits $45,000,000 might give us all the information we need, maybe three $45,200,000.  Surely everything after the first five digits $45,173,000 is just clutter.  We’re still at Rusty’s. Watched curve-billed thrashers.  
Posted on

Wednesday

 A warm calm day.  Blue sky and 65 degrees. We saw a Streak-backed Oriole.  That doesn’t happen very often.  This is a bird that lives in Mexico and Central America.  I think this is the only one being seen in the United States right now.  Lucky for us, it’s coming to eat oranges in Bob Rodrigues’s back yard every day. Happy Wednesday everyone. 
Posted on

Plan C

 Tuesday.  The interstate opened last night after dark when the wind laid down, but it’s already closed again this morning.  We can stay put and wait out the wind, or we can do something.  It’s a big drive-around, but we can still get to where we want to be.  We were 95 miles from our destination, but our path was blocked.  We drove south on Highway 191 to Willcox and fueled up.  There was an interesting puller and trailer next to us at the fuel stop.They had a load of horses and a heifer. We continued south on Highway 191 through Cochise, Sunsites, Sunizona, Efrida, and McNeal.  We turned left just as we got to the Mexican Border at Douglas on Highway 90, and drove back up to the north through Apache and Rodeo, and here we are; Rusty’s RV Ranch!  One of our favorite places.  It just took another 175 miles today to get here. https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=1XYsAPbRQNrLQGGU8N54Xezsw54E&ll=32.017833025052084%2C-108.93821790273438&z=8 The sites are back-to-back, but they’re a hundred feet long and about that far between them too. Saw Gambel’s Quail.