Grandson Tony got on an airplane this morning to fly to Milan by way of New York. Here is a map: http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=205131835882428706345.0004bbdee903660def5a7&msa=0&ll=35.46067,-15.117187&spn=90.987586,227.636719 A big trip across the Atlantic.
The edge of the tropics
It’s not really the tropics here. That’s another 300 miles south. Here in the sub-tropics, at places like Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge along the Rio Grande, it can feel tropical though. Hanging moss.
Boardwalks through the marsh.
Harris’s Hawks.
A surprise visit with an Indigo Snake.
And the call of Chachalacas in the morning.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPS5zUATqDY
Boardwalks through the marsh. Harris’s Hawks. A surprise visit with an Indigo Snake. And the call of Chachalacas in the morning.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPS5zUATqDY Size matters
Sometimes ducks just kind of all look alike. Once in a while though, if you catch the right two side-by-side, like this Mallard and Blue-winged Teal, the difference is apparent.
It’s not like the old days
There aren’t individual gas pumps for each grade of gas. They’re all on one pump, one nozzle, just pick the grade you want and pump. What I notice from gas station to gas station is that they didn’t standardize the order of the buttons. The button for Regular might be on the left. It might be on the right. If you get used to it one way and just punch the button by reflex, you might end up unintentionally filling your tank with Super instead of Regular. I wonder if that’s an absolute accident…
Texas
It’s a whole ‘nother place. Of course before it was this place, it was Mexico. In the 1830s the people of Texas declared independence from Mexico, not as part of the United States, but as their own republic. The rest of the west hadn’t formed into states yet and Texas was bigger then than it is now, encompassing parts of what are now Oklahoma, Kansas, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico. Wyoming! Texas went all the way to Wyoming! The new republic had plans that included expansion all the way to the Pacific Ocean. The separation from Mexico didn’t go smoothly though. The new Texans and Mexico didn’t agree on what the border should be. Mexico thought the border was the Nueces River which flows through what is now Corpus Christi. Texas thought the border was the Rio Grande which flows through what is now Brownsville. After nine years on their own Texas joined as a state with the United States, bolstering their border defense capabilities. Eventually, as a result of the Mexican American War, the United States ended up “buying” the land in dispute in the 1840s, and everyone agreed on the Rio Grande as the border. (Of course the Rio Grande continues to complicate the issue by periodically flooding, then settling back down into a channel it wasn’t in before, thus altering the border.)