Steve and Judy's Travels!

Pelicans perched on wires. Imagine that.

On the way to California, we stopped for lunch outside Reno. At the place
we stopped, there was a work-of-art/motorhome struggling against mechanical
difficulties to make it home from Burning Man. Wonder what Burning Man is?
So do we. It is “an annual experiment in temporary community”. What does
that mean? It means a whole lot of people get together in the desert every
year for a week and get covered in dust. We saw lots of vehicles carrying
bicycles, headed west, covered in white dust, driving home from Burning Man.
It takes place 120 miles north of Reno in a dry lakebed, where they set up a
temporary city to practice “radical self sufficiency”. Everybody was
carrying bicycles because you are not allowed to move your vehicle once you
settle into your campsite. Travel is by bicycle or foot. You are welcome
to express yourself, or contribute to the community, in any way you see fit.
They advise to be prepared for loud noise and explosions. We read that 25,000 people attended this year.

You probably can’t tell, but I’ve gone back to work. We’re still on the
road. We haven’t left California. We still admire and enjoy the scenery of
the day, but thoughts have shifted back to work. I think there is a lot I
can do without being right at the office. I’ve updated some mailing lists
for the September mailing. I can update some website pages. I have 2005
financial and capacity projections to make. I can do that stuff from here. Here, by the way, has moved. We left the coast and headed off to the
desert. We’re parked out in the middle of the Mojave, east of Barstow.
Blue sky. Ninety-five degrees. We get full hookups, shade, a small lake,
two islands, and friendly neighbors.

Deep in Elkhorn Slough. I can only guess at how much life goes on
underwater and in the mud. It supports a massive churning swirl of life on
the surface and in the air. Thousands of birds. Paddling and drifting with
the tide within twenty feet of the bank we watch with binoculars that make
them all seem within reach. Western Sandpipers and Least Sandpipers.
They’re the tiniest littlest peeps: smaller than baby chicks. Sanderlings.
Plovers. Godwits. Willets. Curlews. Egrets. Herons. Terns. Gulls.
Falcons. Hawks. The smallest birds in the largest numbers. Progressively
fewer as the birds get larger or more predatory. A single peregrine falcon.
A red-tailed hawk. A northern harrier. This time we got bombed by terns. Boom splash. A tern hits the water
within six inches of the dock. A look at him with the binocs. Long thin
orange bill. If it were a large orange bill it would be a Royal Tern. If
it were a very heavy red bill, it would be a Caspian Tern. Long thin bill?
Elegant Tern. A new bird. A seal swam to see us.

Judy’s nephew, John Jacobs. He and his wife are both in Iraq. They’re in
different places in Iraq, but they’re both there, as Marine Officers.
John’s dad and wife drove down from Livermore to join us in a paddle of the
Elkhorn Slough. Sunshine. Shorebirds. We paddled into a school of
baitfish and drifted while a flock of brown pelicans pounded the water all
around us. That was pretty cool. Tidal creeks. During high tide, creeks
form along the edges of the slough. They have no flow in them other than
the tides. We get to paddle all through them, finding the main channel
through, to come back out into the slough in a different place. Marbled
godwits. Western sandpipers. Least sandpipers. Long billed curlews.
Seals and sea otters. A nice paddle. A nice way to spend the day. Thanks John and Trish.