Olaf Danielson's Blog, page 7

RVing in the time of COVID 7: The Gadsden Route

We spent the last two weeks birding, hiking, and camping in SE Arizona and SW New Mexico.  Birding a part of America that was the last part of America in the lower 48.  All of this was a part of Mexico and only because America needed a transcontinental railroad and Mexico needed money did we get it--The Gadsden Purchase, named after James Gadsden.

History does not look kindly on James Gadsden.  There is nothing politically correct about him in any sense.  Almost everything bad that was happening from 1830 to 1860, he was in the middle of.  In the US Army, he actively worked on the rounding up and the deporting Seminoles from Florida in the "Trail of Tears." He promoted succession by South Carolina after California was admitted as a free state in 1848-49.  He then connived the state of California with a project to split the state in two where he would settle a colony in the southern half with 1200 colonists and 2000 slaves.  When that didn't work, he ended up in Government of all things, as the appointed U.S. Ambassador to Mexico in the Pierce Administration, specifically, the Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Mexico, what a title. 

As bad a man as he would be looked on later, but he did negotiate the last significant land acquisition to form the contiguous 48 states, the Gadsden Purchase added some 20 million acres at a purchase price of just over 33 cents/ an acre. Santa Ana, the ruler in Mexico at the time hated Gadsden, and as far as can be found, almost everyone hated him.

He tried to get more and he did get more, but the US Congress voted the original agreement down, but then agreed to by 2/3 of it at 2/3 of the price.  $7.1 Million dollars was sent to Mexico City but oddly, only $6.1 million reportedly arrived.  The final agreement was signed in June 1854, and the purchase basically added all the land in New Mexico south of I-10 and then a line north near the present New Mexico/ AZ border to Gila River, and all of Southern AZ south of the river.  

For us birders, this Purchase added nearly 50 birds to the US Birding list, as all of the Sky Islands are in this territory, and what was almost bought, would not have given the US a port on the Gulf of Baja, but would have dropped the border south of where it was now nearly 100 miles.  Many might not know that the Gila River in Arizona was the Southern boundary until Gadsden came around.

Then there was George Bascam, a 2nd Lieutenant in the US Calvary stationed at Ft Buchanan south of Tucson.  He graduated next to last of his class at West Point.  Bascam through idiocy and bad luck (the bad luck was that his major and captain were on leave, and indisposed), caused the decades long Apache War by trying to get the release of a local rancher boy from Cochise, but would not believe him when Cochise said he didn't do it (turned out he was correct, a northern tribe had), During the sit down, Bascam took many of Cochise's family prisoner, then Cochise escaped.  Then he took a Calvary patrol prisoner, and offered to exchange them with Bascam, but Bascam only wanted the boy which Cochise never had. and hung Cochise's brother and killed others.  Cochise killed the soldiers and then the war was on, with the Apaches changing their hatred of Mexicans to Americans, and taking no side in the Civil War attacking Confederate outposts as well as Union and then continuing to even 1933, when the last band was defeated in Mexico.  The death and misery caused by an inexperienced young officer in charge of "getting the boy back at all costs," was incalculable.  Would someone else caused the massacres later?  Bascam died in the mud in the Battle of Valverde Ford New Mexico the next year, being run over by Confederate Calvary, in an inglorious end to a man that deserved such a fate. 

Ruins of Fort Bowie built to protect the northern Chiricahua Mountains at Apache Pass, near location of the Bascam Incident of 1861.  Before this fort closed in 1894 it was surprisingly large, with many many buildings.
The Geronimo Surrender Memorial near Apache, Arizona, he surrendered in Skeleton Canyon in New Mexico east of here.  It was a sad end to a people who lived by marauding in a world that changed
South Fork of Cave Creek
view above the forks of Cave Creek
Chiricahua National Monument

View above Cave Creek
Some of the birds of the Gadsden purchase, we saw the eared quetzal on three days, but I was not able to get a decent photo, I had a photo in June so it wasn't a priority
Blue-throated Mountain Gem at Cave Creek Ranch
Female ladderbacked woodpecker
Red-naped sapsucker
A female Ruddy Ground Dove from Rodeo NM, a Mexican rarity seen most years north of the border, this year there seems to be lots of them

Gambel's Quail
Great Horned owl
Then there was this Bullsh%#t, literally.  we were at Willow Tank and this bull was snorting sand then I realized the fence was incomplete.  We got into the car quickly.

The camper next to us in Rodeo.  A different camper where one has a semi pulling a 5th wheel.  The smart car drives up between, apparently there are a whole convention of these types of campers  that meet.  The ramp folds up and is stowed below the car.

The view from our Campsite at Rusty's RV Ranch north of Rodeo, NM

Our last night in the Gadsden Purchase, before we zoomed across to El Paso and left eastward to continue our journey.

As COVID goes, Hidalgo County NM has few cases, we bought a rug from an old lady that last Monday, New Mexico told her she had to close and this was her source of income.  Her shop was the only touristy place open in New Mexico.  The restaurant next to the Museum on the Portal road was supposed to close access for inside, it was a quarter mile from AZ border, yet....the Portal Lodge could be open in Portal just up the road.  
In El Paso despite reports on TV of the dire overflowing morgue.  Of the two ERs we drove by yesterday one was dead, the other looked like they had a couple of patients, but no lines.  The restaurants were crowded.  Juarez had people all over the streets you could see from I-10 and the traffic in El Paso was nuts, and on a Saturday.  The shopping also looked busy, so maybe things were bad, but people were ignoring it, or they just said screw it and were doing what they wanted, or the TV was into sensationalism.  El Paso is the largest US city no one ever hears about and the most Democratic in Texas..so, it isn't a red/blue issue...you don't hear news from El Paso unless it is very bad.  We are heading to Jeff Davis County in Texas which has had just a few cases.  














  

So      

RVing in the time of COVID 6: Our day in Tucson

COVID hits home again, my younger sister sent out a text that she had been feeling achy and had some chills and tested positive for COVID, oh boy, two young daughters, expecting a third...and now...the plague. Not much I can do but send her a birthday card, pray a little, and hope for the best.  Sort of a terrible wait in this pandemic, a very slow moving virus, but moving everywhere.
So we are in Tucson, on our way to Florida, very slowly, today with uber birder Thor Manson.  He is an Uber birder because like Uber, he is taking us around. Some people come here for the gem and mineral expo (been there) but that is cancelled, some come for the University, no students seen at U of A, others for well, I don't know, why do you come to Tucson?  When I get to a town, it is usually for the sewage treatment ponds and/or the dump, today, it wasn't the dump but where I was was near to a water treatment effluent and of course there were birds.
So we went and saw this rather persistent Northern Jacana, a Mexican and Central American wader, rarely seen north of the border.  Both Silja and I had not only seen them a few times in South Texas, we saw them in January in Costa Rica, This one is a lot easier to see than one in the grass at Santa Ana NWR in Alamo TX for my lifer in North America.  They are like Snowy owls, though, they suck out the exposure of cameras and are hard to get a perfect photo unless the light is perfect, and it wasn't, but it was a good bird, and we saw it fly, they have cool looking wings.
Green heron was a bird I've never seen in Arizona
So we went off to Columbus Park to see Midwestern warblers not usually seen in Arizona.  We found a half dozen birders and a .... Blackburnian warbler, a bird I have in Alaska, but not here
nothing says quality photos more than having a fishing pole in the way of a rare bird
a northern parula, another rare bird here, but one I seen in five states this year
for me, a local "trash" bird, this Vermillion flycatcher was a better find, and a year bird, the others seen in Minnesota and South Dakota in May were not.
So out of the park we went to find something I needed, a picture of a "real" Mexican duck which I have never photographed, so off we went to the zoo, well this wasn't A "zoo bird" (I had my doubts), the park near the zoo and in a pond surrounded by a construction fence we spotted out quarry, 
Nice yellow bill, no curled tail feathers, nice brown back, and nice face, this is a Mexican duck and no hybrid.  They added this species to the checklist this year from a mallard subspecies, I'd seen ones before, but in the mud and what looked like a construction site, today I got the bird on film.
In the park I spotted something else... a cute little girl feeding a hoard of ducks with her dad
below a sign saying not to....but at least they were wearing masks, 
So not your typical sightseeing in Tucson but I saw some sites, some birds, and well, we are stayed as safe as we could.  
So an update, and yes, birding is going on
Stay safeOlaf

RVing in the time of COVID 5: Goings on down at the border

Another state, another state lifer bird, which is just something to do in these COVID days, but even a pine sisken (yellow) can keep me amused for a little while, trying to get a photo of the local "rarity," it even got me to put out my feeder. 
Our RV keeps moving, and we leave no stone un-turned or so to speak, to keep ourselves entertained and figuring the safest place is out in the desert, we just spent the last week in the California chaparral in the mountains of San Diego County near Jacumba Hot Springs.  It was a week of updates and catching up.  I have been up here almost every year since coming in November of 2012.

The owners of just about everything in the town for the last 20 years have largely sold out, selling their Jacumba Hot Springs Spa last month and announcing the sale of the RV park we stayed at a few days before we showed up, but I guess the trails in the state park adjoining are still there but as the two places shared a cook, the place we stayed at did not have food, this was despite COVID, no one to make it.  The bar, well, it never looked open to me.  So the future? It may be different as I guess if I had wanted kit to stay the same, I should have bought it, but I did not want it.  We went looking for a reported KOA an exit west, scouting, but it led us down the road that then announced "sets" longer than 40 feet would not be allowed, too dangerous, too curvy....which is quite short for RVs, not a good place to have a KOA....and then the KOA sign pointed right, and then a mile later we saw a sign pointing back where we came, we never found the KOA after driving in circles, so a back up spot might not exist here, if this RV spot closes.  What would some young guys want with a quirky 480 acre RV park in the desert?  Then again what did the wealthy Hamann family want with a dude ranch west of here (more on that in a moment).

Our home for the week, Temple Mountain center

 Strange Goings on along McCain Road

We were out mindlessly exploring for new campsites sites, when we spotted a sign showing a campsite up McCain Valley Road near Boulevard seven miles west of Jacumba off on Old Hwy 80.  I drove up and saw a flock of blackbirds, mostly tricolored which then flew away as I was trying to roll down my car window, so we kept going.  It was hunting season up on the high country, and people were out driving anywhere, even here.  

First we stumbled upon a rather inconsequential sign, so inconsequential I never took a picture. McCain Valley Conservation Corps, which is not some YMCA camp for the outside.  But then I noticed the property was marked with Department of Corrections signage.  I laughed saying they misspelled McCain Valley Concentration Camp, not realizing how close I was to the truth.  It turns out this is a nice way to describe a huge prison which is just over the hill and out of view.  2500 inmates, stashed out here, in the desert.

So we drove down the road, saw something called the Rough Acres Ranch, surrounded by rather new fence that looked more to keep people in, than the prisoners out.  I sort of struck us as a front for some nefarious or secret activity.  Either a front for criminal activity, a place to extract information from CIA type spies captured covertly, or maybe a high end brothel for sex slaves.  I looked up the ranch.  The place  has a little history, back in 1963, after a really bad season, the coach of the San Diego Chargers brought the team up to the ranch to toughen them up for training camp for the season, they lifted weights were injected steroids three times a day, and then went back to San Diego and had the best season in the history of the franchise, winning the AFL Championship, the only Championship in franchise history, but that was the past.

In 2020?  Since 2014 The Hamann companies, a big family owned San Diego Construction company now owns the ranch has been trying to make the place a men's retreat and conference center.  A men's retreat....?  Hum.....I still am suspicious.  Up the road they have built a wind farm operation, that also has quite a bit of CIA looking buildings, and these guys seem to have not made any friends locally, so the Hamanns have tried to become the kings of Boulevard by just building things, maybe like the railroad that goes nowhere (we'll get to that) getting friendly government money to do so.....I guess by the couple in Jacumba, being the local king up here isn't everything.  But I learned a good football story, 57 years ago.   Now I'm scared to go up a road for fear I'll be detained by the CIA or something.

The Border wall

11/2020 construction
2018 border, same area
There is more to this wall than meets the eye, besides the obvious question of who and why there is this half a mile hole right here just east of Jacumba.  This wall here was just sort of approved without any hearings and huge water and cement trucks began scaring a Wilderness protected by a 1994 Wilderness Protection Act....but being "national security" it wasn't reviewed.
I like wilderness, you all probably like wilderness, and wilderness aside, there is more to this story.  First, there are federally protected Peninsular bighorn sheep a species that has dwindled in recent years that need to migrate on both sides of the border, this wall might eliminate this species in years with very sporadic water (which might be every year).
Hate Trump, okay, blame him too, fine, BUT, don't have your hate for him blind you of any common sense, because here, in this issue we are all at fault.  We haven't pushed either party to solve this, either, a wing of one party apparently wants "open" borders (because all we ever here from is hard left or hard right on any issue as that makes ratings) with I suppose full benefits and access to jobs without restrictions, Medicaid, idk, If you are thinking that is bunk, I could give you citations, companies like Tyson Foods, almost all agricultural interests, smaller farmers, bigger farmers, Sanderson Foods, etc which are probably on the other side of the spectrum can pay less for employees or even get employees, and they aren't employees either, just subcontracted companies that contract labor, down the food chain of companies, cash gets handed to these people.....because here in America we want cheap food, low quality goods.  Now I fully understand, cheap food allows many to live off of poverty.  So the poor do get something back.  The average Romans benefitted from slave labor as did the South.  Well I guess underpaid Guatemalans and El Salvadorans are not slaves in the sense, they came willingly,  just people who are taken advantage from the Coyotes and the gangs that convince them to go and overcharge them for the one-way trip.   They get paid well.....  
How many wealthy people have illegal gardeners and housekeepers, and they might not even know because they hire a "service."  Rich political donors with good reasons for the status quo, be it cheaper landscaping, construction, or any trade, undocumented people who get paid cash are rampant....but it is easier to look the other way.  These people hire a service, pay the "service" a fee, those running the service, pay cash, sneak by in the shadows.
a huge environmental disaster project, the Border Wall 2020
I don't know the answer, doing nothing doesn't seem like that is working, letting in everyone isn't either, but I don't need a job, and I am as cheap as the next guy, so anything that keeps prices down....good?  No one wants to be a plumber, electrician, or a landscaper so might as well pay cash for a Honduran to get the job done....?  Who does odd jobs on your houses?
I'd just like to know how many migrants perish en route it is a harsh desert and legal immigration is harsh and long.....you know, It is terrible in El Salvador, but it is also terrible in Compton and Watts, should we not try to fix that first?  Should we grant refugee status for residents of these bad Los Angeles districts?  I'm sure thousands feel threatened.  Oh well, no political party had straightening out Compton in their platforms, because how would you even start?  The Red party didn't even have a platform.  I see TV commercials about donating to helping elderly elderly Russian Jews, winter is coming, it is the same woman's voice about saving abused animals.....I guess this is all well and good but can't we have the same woman try to convince us to help Compton?  It would beat seeing the wet half dead dogs or the old Russians with three fingers and no teeth.....I guess no one really cares about our own people enough to solve anything. 

Pacific Imperial Railroad

Nature never intended for man to build a railroad through the Carriso Gorge, but yet in the early 19th Century, they did.  The 146 mile railroad was built from San Diego into Tijuana and on to Telcate, Campo, Jacumba, and dozen to Ocotillo and El Centro.  This route has some of the coolest trestles, drops off the tracks of 900 feet, and 20 tunnels.  Old fallen box cars sit where they fell.   Now, the railroad is owned by the state and has been continually "operated" so that nothing has actually operated.  Railcars, engines, equipment sit abandoned all over the line, which would have value at least for scrap.  The whole deal in 2020 (which looks like the first time I was here (in 2012)  three leasees later, a couple of frauds, and at least two bankruptcies as well, (the line is owned by San Diego MTS) not a car has gone down it and all looks the same except the weeds are growing up around the tracks and despite the railroad telling the government they fixed a tunnel collapse a jack rabbit would have difficulty getting through the supposedly fixed tunnel.  So in 15 years of all of this, not a single railcar has moved past here.  But despite a lot of governmental waste, the line is very photogenic.

"The Impossible Route" Leaves Jacumba and circles Round Mountain, the magma center of an extinct volcano, before turning into the Carriso Gorge.
There is still abandoned railcars passenger and freight all over this rail line, chairs and windows thrown out, and just a junky place
Here is the same cars in November 2012, free of graffiti, the cars looked almost usable cars three and four have disconnected in 8 years....
The railroad in the Gorge is pretty scenic, a scary looking route even just looking at it
this tunnel wasn't that scary to walk through in 2012, now it is, and I couldn't even get down to there
We hiked around everyday, this is the local scenery...
The Birds I didn't take a lot of photos, looking at it, but here are a couple...
Brewer's sparrow
California Thrasher
I had a goal of seeing and photographing Mountain quail but all I got a lens on were California quail, which became easier to photograph when the storm came in
The Rain Don't let that pretty rainbow fool you, on the weekend, it began to rain here for the first time in over half a year, the wind blew, the temperature dropped, the RV shuttered, everyone holed up, and well, we watched football...."you should be here when it gets windy."  Someone told us.
Monday is a new day and we left and are heading towards TucsonNow we turn east, Florida by the end of the month.....
Wearing our masks, avoiding restaurants, gatherings, and setting a good example...like everyone should
So another year, another visit to California and like every year I leave scratching my head
Olaf

RVing in the time of COVID 4: Moving on

Well, for me, after a while of hanging out for a while, I tend to get itchy feet that want to roam.  So after a month north of Phoenix in New River, some great hikes, some bad pentaque games, so nice meals with friends, we slid out of town this morning heading to "no man's land," otherwise known as California.  I like California but I'm also afraid of California.

First, the Diesel is 1.40 a gallon more than in Phoenix, but I guess the residents like paying more, no one complains, but I do.  I had to make sure we filled up in Arizona.  COVID, would we even be welcome.  Where we went an RV resort located in Jacumba Hot Springs, just got sold last week, would it be a housing development next year?  Would this be our last trip here?  Some yuppy place?  Who knows, I'm glad we don't go here for the whole winter.

Would the trails be open, even anything open to buy food?  Would there be butterflies.....

The road in is the worst access road for any RV campground we've ever driven in, but no one seems to care and the former owner has always been considered the town hero, but alas...the hero has sold out.  

 There are even a couple of birds down here, I'd maybe try to go see, but this is California, is anything open, so we are going to just sit up in the mountains, find some trails, I'll work on my elusive futile quest to photo mountain quail and well, hopefully a butterfly or five, maybe see something rare...

On the drive over....The Campgrounds in Yuma seems a lot less full than last year, where we were in AZ was down a little, and as there were not Canadians, I suspect that largely, the decrease is Canadians. There are a lot of campers on the roads, many out in BLM land, few who don't do this realize how many thousands and thousands live like this.  Gila Bend Arizona looks like it needs a fire, the grocer closed, many other stores, closed, sad really, a town based to service I-8 traffic.  A helicopter was at the clinic, which in my history as an ER doctor was never a very good sign.  Helicopters at clinics were some of the worst.

We met many in Arizona, one couple was moving on to Texas, another was looking to move out of California, as the state is not their kind of people any more, and others off like us to other spots, sort of moving on

There are three types during COVID, those paranoid and afraid, still locked down, hidden, using the age old strategy of hibernation which has worked for many creatures, those who just don't give a f&&k, had enough of it or deny it.....met many of those camping, some had good ideas and good observations

LIKE WHERE ARE THEY GETTING IT FROM THIS CURRENT SURGE, dakotas, Michigan, even Europe?  ARE WE NOT BEING TOLD....IS IT THE AC or central heat FROM APARTMENTS?  idk....questions I don't know

then there are the ones in between, careful but not overly so and trying to enjoy their lives.  Eating outside, but not afraid of pools, I don't know which is best.....is living in isolation and not doing anything any way to live?  I'm a not a big risk taker in a good day, but living has risks, heck, Silja ended up in the ER down here eating tainted salad......

I say, get outside, get vitamin D, fresh air...

So we poked around Phoenix, got warranty work done on my Volvo before it turned over 36,000 miles which it just did.  We would have shopped and enjoyed some more restaurants but we ate at the campground some and my wife had to make a trip to Michael's for yarn for weaving projects.  

In Phoenix, we stayed outside, got vitamin D, and fresh air.... we did our now annual climb of Daisy Mountain, it is a scramble up 1100 feet from the bottom, pretty steep through the cacti and cholla ...some year we'll have to take the trail on the other side

We found the White Tank Mountains, this year and as a bit of a surprise (in Surprise) we found some cool petroglyphs

always a neat find anywhere
a Rufous crowned sparrow in a hidden waterhole

we had whiter throated swifts, a Crissal thrasher, lots of cactus wrens and even more cacti, lots of saguaros, many saguaros, wow..... 

Elsewhere, we saw birds, phainopepla  went hiking with friends, like Robin and Steve from San Luis Obispo 
and after a shriek I had to go back and photo desert tarantulas

Gilded flickers, which never seem to get photogenic
a verdin
all of this, and I got inspired and wrote a bookbut that is another story
There was a COVID case at the campground, the first I've heard at about 30 affiliated campgrounds we either stay at our get into the politics of.  He is doing fine apparently, not sure if anyone we had contact with had contact with him but as such, we sort of laid low at the Halloween party.  It was just 50 feet outside our RV, it sounded like everyone had fun, and lasted until 1:30 AM.....so there it was a slow month in Arizona, stumbled upon a non-fiction book, hiked, birdwatched, met some friends, and got irritated watching political commercials, tomorrow, it is over, thank GOD for at least 2 years....can we finally do something everyone likes....
doubt it, but where we are now, the only riots here will be the if the rabbits organize.....or the cacti can walk
Stay safe
Olaf

RVing in the time of COVID 3: Chasing European birds from Arizona

I am a lollygagger, which in 2020 just means to dawdle, but historically in the early 1900s it meant to fool around sexually, and when that changed to meaning to just be slow or dawdle, was somewhere before I was born.  One thing, I haven't been guilty of that. I'd be dead. I use this in the birding sense I use this word and it is a word that should be in the "birding" dictionary, along with words like dip, chase, armchair tick etc.  I define lollygagger in birding: as a birder who for various reasons waits unusually long to go on attempt to see a desired bird.      I lollygagged on going and getting the great black hawk for months but it remained, came back, and I got it.  I lollygagged on the Antillean palm swift, but if left, came back, and remained for weeks until I got around to go and get it.  I did the same on a white cheeked pintail and a crescent chested warbler.  This week I lollygagged on going and seeing my fifth of my last six straight lifer birds, only on the quetzal did I do what is supposed to be done, drop everything and go in an attempt to see the bird.  Curiously, like the rest, quetzals are still being seen in Arizona and even New Mexico.  I could have waited.
    Shorebirds don't usually stick for very long (stick is another birding term).  They are migratory, and they can stay a few days but unless there is something wrong with the bird, they won't usually stay, but yet, this one has.  I have spent three trips in Newfoundland in the spring hoping one of these would show up, none ever did.  Going to the Rock is not an easy last-minute adventure assuming the border is even ever to open again.  So, I am not sure why I was dithering.  I guess, at heart, I am a lollygagger.      So, when 11 days ago when a report of an European golden-plover in northern New Mexico, a place I had driven through just the day before, I dithered.  First, I did not believe the ID, then I looked at a picture of the bird a day later when it was still there, yes, I would agree with that.  Then it stayed...and stayed.   I am a retired RVer and we had parked for a while in New River, Arizona.  I had things to do: I had a birthday party to go to.  I had to pick up a package.  I had a book to edit.  I had a pickle ball tournament to see if I could repeat as being in 'last place.'  I got 4th to last!!       My wife kept asking me, "is that bird still there?"  I'd mutter "yes."  Part of me was hoping it would just leave.  It was 635 miles back up the road to go see, and shockingly 5 miles short of being exactly half-way home.  It would be a commitment to get there.  I asked my friend, Thor, what he was doing.  To see if anyone would share the drive, get this lollygagger off the couch and down the road.  He was in California and would not be back until this week.  I sighed and went back to doing the "nothing" I had been doing.  Lollygaggers do that.  We think about the things we need to do and don't do anything. 
    So on Sunday, the bird still there, I decided I'd leave after Monday night football.  It was Vikings-Seahawks....I had to stay.  OMG, the Vikings gave it up.  I should have left.
    During the game and not from the game (I think) my wife starting retching and vomiting.  During halftime, the Vikes had a big lead. I went to the store for illness supplies, Gatorade and the like and the Vikings gave up 21 points.  The game ended, Vikings lost, and my wife got worse.  To say she was "sicker than a dog,"  would be wrong as I've never seen a dog that sick.  I couldn't leave, and two hours later, I was dropping her off at an Emergency Room in north Phoenix.  
    It was an odd experience.  First, they allowed visitors, so preparing to nap in the car, I came in, secondly, they weren't wearing PPE, my daughter wore more PPE observing at a dental clinic in Milbank SD, thirdly, the ER doctors never even saw her skin, examining her belly through her gown and never using his stethoscope.  I was like they were scared of her. I'd have said something but we knew what was up.  We were sure she had eaten either some bad lettuce or bad potato salad so all she needed was some Zofran (anti-emetic) and IV fluids but sheez.....so we left at 2AM and went home.  
    By morning, Silja was eating bananas and on her way to recovering, I never got ill, even though I ate all the same things so it was all perplexing.  Tuesday, with her blessing, after the Tennessee Titans game, I took off on an all-nighter.   
    It was like a good old-fashioned bird chase.  I drove to I got sleepy, which was all the way to Las Vegas NM, when I slept in the back of my Volvo, which is why I own this model (as I fit).  A truck was in my primary spot, but I found a good secondary parking location and woke up at 0630.   I needed coffee to finished the last 100 miles, but shockingly, the McDonalds  is a good two miles off I-17 in Las Vegas, and they weren't open at 6:45, frustrated, and I don't really like Las Vegas NM, nothing good has ever happened to me in this town.  I even got food poisoning here from a Truck stop back in 1994.       I just took off and hoped something would be up the freeway, there is nothing between there and Maxwell.  One couldn't spend a dollar in Maxwell unless they wanted to by stamps.  At half-light, still on I-25, I saw something I have never seen on the road.  One of the classic road stories.  I have seen just about everything or so I thought.  I've seen bigfoot and UFOs, or maybe bigfoot and maybe an UFO. I'm not committing to anything.  I've seen crimes and deaths.  I've had everything come bouncing at me from loaded beer barrels to entire axels complete with wheels and tires.  I've seen naked drivers, and people doing things that lead in 9 months to more people being around.  I've had sightings of wildlife, from cougars, wolves, bobcats, moose, bears, people dressed as bears, a person dressed as a dinosaur, and well I even even seen things quite bizarre, so bizarre, it takes too much write about it.   Come to think of it, I've never seen a person dressed as bigfoot...    So, I was trying to get the sleep out of me and I saw this old dodge pickup ahead of me.  It was doing about 70 and I was at 80 and was looking at the tailgate thinking was if it was a 1980 model or exactly when they changed that body style when something caught my attention.  I pulled up to pass it and then my mind clicked.  Stuck in the gas cap was a gas nozzle and trailing 15 feet behind and bouncing all over was the hose.  The driver had driven off while pumping gas in Las Vegas.  I started to laugh.  I pulled up along side the guy and matched his speed.
   The older driver, who reminded me of Denver Pile in "Dukes of Hazzard,"  Maybe itt was the 1980s! Uncle Jesse Duke was driving next to me!  He looked at me and gave me the "what the F%^% are you looking at?" look.  He rubbed his beard and before was looking to give me the finger or possibly the hose would hit the side of my car, I drove on, wondering if the gas station would even know they were missing something.  How many times a day in America does that happen?  I've heard about it but never seen it.  Now....I have.    Seeing a plover was almost a secondary event.  Maxwell NWR had some Google map issues.  The direct route to the bird was blocked by a pipeline crew and then I got lost before driving 6 miles around to get to Lake 14, the site of the bird.  Someone was just leaving, said, "It is on the west shore."
      I stood up on the dike and surveyed.  The west shore was too far to even use my spotting scope.  I wasn't sure if I should circle the 40 acre lake or what.  The water level was down a lot so not knowing the rules I just walked out on the lake bottom.  I set up and began to scour the birds on the far side.  There were some dowitchers that were so far away, I couldn't ID them, I saw some killdeer, and every once in a while a flock of ducks spooked and left.  Then I saw the bird or I thought I had but a group of ducks in front spooked and I lost it.  I was about to start over when I saw a shorebirds fly right at me landing twenty yards in front of me.  I looked at it with my bins.  It was the golden plover.  Then it walked towards me.  Three other birders walked to me and asked me if I had seen it.  I pointed right in front of us.  I took pictures and the bird fed like we weren't there.
European golden-plover lifer #807
    I hung out for a while but there was nothing more to see and as one of the birders from Colorado Springs left, I did too.  I had 635 miles to get back to my RV and that was a long drive.  It showed us its underwing when asked.  It turned on all sides.  Now I had seen all three species of golden-plovers in North America.  I didn't have to go to Newfoundland to see this one.  I'm not sure how many lower-48 sightings of this bird there have been.  I heard of a couple in New Jersey on the coast but this was a great New Mexico bird....but...I don't keep a New Mexican list.   But a lifer bird none-the less...and those are about as rare as this bird.


My first sighting of a European Golden-plover in Iceland 2004, in summer plumage.  My only other photo of one.
This wasn't a world lifer bird so my paltry number of 1503 remains where it is, but I am drinking a beer tonight for bird #807/860 in my ABA list, which isn't so paltry.  I-40 was a traffic disaster on the way home, and the only thing of note was the Popeyes in Holbrook, where I had some great chicken.  They were almost out and I was worried a riot of truckers was going to occur, but they found another package and I left before they had used up these.....that Popeyes chicken, addictive like crack cocaine, maybe there will end up being a law against it, guess it depends on who is elected next month.  I for one, yearn for an end of the campaign, if I see one more McSally versus Kelly ad....OMG, I just want it to stop, do these two campaigns have such little good to say and this is how they think they should campaign?  Two asshole candidates, that is all I hear.  I guess anything to get elected.  I fully expect to see one with a baseball bat on a commercial beating up the other in effigy.  This is what he or she wants to do with retirees, the other party, babies, minorities, the voters....sheez. What ever happened to great Americans being above the fray?  If Arizonans are this shallow, the state is doomed...IMHO, maybe we are all doomed.  I'm glad I don't vote here, I wouldn't vote for either.  I don't care what party they are in, I can't tell what they stand for because they spend all their effort telling me their opponent is the Devil personified.  Kevorkian has better PR.     Popeyes chicken, now there is an ad I yearn to see.  I'll vote a straight Popeyes ticket....but who is Pro-Popeyes?
Well, back to the ranch, I will have a book out shortly and then a second, a history book on my home town, and last year's adventures so stay tuned.  
and.... Sigh....Olaf couldn't have done a sequel, could he?  
COVID, well, I think we'll stay isolated due to being in the hospital but staying out IN the sun and hopefully, staying healthy, just avoiding potato salad.
Lollygagging?  Don't do it, get up to New Mexico and see this bird, it is a lot easier than going to Newfoundland. One wonders, did Olaf like his Popeyes so much, that maybe, just maybe, he too drove off with this gas nozzle in his Volvo, the hose trailing behind him on I-40?  No!  No? ...

RVing in the time of COVID 2: Some serious wood

So, we took off from Oklahoma, cruised down Route 66 into Edmund, swung through OKC and then headed west  on I-40.  We avoided pitfalls like stopping in Clinton, Oklahoma to visit the hometown of Toby Keith, my favorite C&W singer just as we had earlier avoided Checotah, the home of Carrie Underwood, because "She ain't in Checotah no more."  We sang Toby Keith's lyrics as we drove past

I ain't as good as I once was,
I got a few years on me now,
But there was a time,
Back in my prime,
When I could really lay it down,
If you need some love tonight,
Then I might have just enough,
I ain't as good once was,
But I'm as good once, as I ever was.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldQra...

Which is so true, I'm 54 and on the downhill side of fifty....life is short....

we then drove past the Punjabi truck stop in Sayre, avoiding RV damage and crazy Indian food, zipped past the leaning water tower in Britten Texas, avoiding road construction in Amarillo and camped in Tucumcari New Mexico

Pearl crescent in Tucumcari
The next day we got up early and crossed New Mexico ending near Holbrook Arizona, camping at a place that probably wasn't open and some squatters charged as a camping fee that they strangely took to the local truck stop and returned with beer.  It was a bit strange.  We stayed there last year. They only wanted cash.  No one else camped there, despite a huge volume of campers on the road.  The amount of people living on the road in RVs is staggering.  I think we'll try a new spot next time.  We should have been concerned when we dropped the car to go to Petrified Wood National Park. We haven't been here since 1991.  Back then I tried to trade an entrance ticket to someone in Utah for a Zion Park Ticket and well, it was like giving away a cow pie.

But it is a beautiful place, and a park organized in 1906.  It is well worth the $25.00 entrance fee.  It is a barren place and there are COVID paranoid people.  Many from California drove with masks on in their cars, which as a doctor, I am at lengths to think of what they are protecting themselves from.  You are more likely to get Coccidiomycosis from mold spores in the air on this desert than COVID on a sunny hot day, but whatever, if it makes them happy....it is the AC buildings that I hate to even go in, masked, PPE'd or whatever.  At least most everyone masked there....

Common Raven
We got to New River Arizona on the weekend, and I expected the place to be somewhat empty due to no Canadians but it was stuffed full.  
There are no masks here, but no cases ever in this community, either....maybe the heavy sun and outdoors, a lot of vitamin D in this community, maybe the highest in America. IDK.  Coincidence?  Not sure.
We got the spot right next to the pool so I can't photograph my rig here, but oh well.  It is still quite hot in the Phoenix area.  We made it and will be stopping here for a month before we decide our next movement.
I will finish off two books.  I got the proof for my spring and summer project delivered here, very proud of this effort.  Pictures turned out very nice. quite a nice book and finishing the proof for my other 2019 adventure missive. Brown boobies, hairy peckers, and great tits.....yes, a sequel.....I was busy in 2019.

So, we're still healthy and hanging in there....many here in New River have stories for the year, and COVID fatigue is high here....maybe denial, and maybe they have figured out a protective activity, too.  It is not like they are being careful.  Maybe it is the sun exposure?  I may be putting on my MD hat and looking at the numbers....maybe worth a scientific study.  I'm not sure anyone wants to know....I know six such communities, and no cases.....makes me wonder.

So we'll get out and start hiking, I have Gamble's quail on my roof and a female Anna's hummer at my feeder as I write this, what could be better?

I got to go try to get a rock out of a wheel on my car

stay safe, get out in the sun, another Toby Keith song surmises the ranch where we now are, maybe do karaoke with word changes this weekend?  we've parked next to that too

We got winners, we got losers,
Chain smokers and boozers.
An' we got yuppies, we got bikers,
An' we got , thirsty hitchhikers.
And the girls next door dress up like movie stars.
Mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, I love this bar.
We got cowboys, we got truckers,
Broken hearted fools and suckers.
An' we got hustlers, we got fighters,
Early birds and all nighters.
And the veterans talk about their battle scars:
Mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, I love this bar.....(Ranch) I love this bar (Ranch),
It's my kind of place.
Just walk in through the front door,
Puts a big smile on my face.
It ain't too far, come as you are.
Mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, I love this bar (Ranch).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Fulz...

Cheers!

Olaf

 

RVing in the time of COVID 1: Sooner or later

1938 Cotton field in Oklahoma from my family collectionOklahoma!

My Grandmother went to Oklahoma most every summer as a young woman to visit her kinfolk, an aunt and her cousins.  She told stories for decades about the Dust Bowl, rattlesnakes, the red clay, and well, some oddities and quirks about the local laws. 

We have taken off with Big Bird  our RV and are back to our lives on the road.  I've been busily writing two books over the summer and now they are in proof stage so we winterized our lives and headed south to find warmth.  After a scheduled repair in Lincoln, two nights in Kansas south of Topeka, we made it to our annual spot off of Route 66 between Tulsa and Oklahoma City.

Our temporary Kansas home

For nearly a decade now, we've been making an annual trek into the Sooner state, not to see relatives, as sadly, these cousins had children, and they had children and all were eventually lost to us northern folk.  We come down now for the warmth of late September.  The butterflies are out. It is fun seeing some remaining scissortail flycatchers and we like to hike in the oaks.  I own some property around Gypsy in Creek County and west of Stroud in western Lincoln Counties and I like to see what is going on.  

To be honest, there is little going on in Creek County.  Depew's main street is pretty much vacant save for this sign.  Except for a rather outdated looking convenience store out on old Route 66, it would be hard to spend a $50 bill in this town of 562 people.  The school is fairly nice but the houses, everything have seen better decades.
Gypsy?  Their elementary school is still there but otherwise just a ghost town.  What was going on down there?  Spiders, large Oklahoma brown tarantulas crossing the road.  Nothing more, but tarantulas were cool.  About as much excitement as they get down here.
While driving around, I was reminded of a little obscure Sooner history. In 1976, Oklahoma's most bizarre Alcohol law, was reviewed in what became a famous Supreme Court case, Craig versus Deebo.  With Justice Ginsberg's death it is a solid reminder of her past. There are long lists of odd laws in the "Sooner State," I even violated one yesterday, as I made an ugly face at a dog, a small mixed breed thing, and I could have been fined or put in jail (per the law). They finally allowed tattoos in the state in 2006, not that I have one, but just saying.

Craig v. Deebo?  Well, since statehood, Oklahoma had a rather interesting drinking age (except during prohibition), men had to be 21 years old to buy 3.2% beer while women could buy it at age 18.  It was not illegal for 19 year olds of either sex to drink it, however, just buy it. It became quite common for young men to have your 18 year old girlfriend or a sister go and buy your beer.  My grandmother even told me about this law.  I'm not sure if she did it for her cousins or her brother.  It was the only state to have gender different drinking ages.

The law was challenged by a Oklahoma State Univ student and a drive through convenience store in Stillwater called the Honk and Holler, as you drove in the front door and honked and then hollered what you wanted.  Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote an amicus brief on it and was actually questioned about this case during open arguments about a second case which she was actually representing later the same day before the high court.  She was trying to say even though women were the beneficiaries, they were being discriminated against just by having a separate law just for them. The High Court threw out the old law. So, from 1976 until 1983, 18 year olds of both sexes could drink.  It was a racy and rowdy time in Oklahoma, as oil boomed. The drinking age was 18, the strip clubs could be all-nude during this period, and well, cash flowed.  When 1983 came about, the drinking age went up to 21, oil prices collapsed, and dancers were covered up. Oklahoma became the buckle of the Bible Belt again.  You still couldn't get a tattoo in the state nor own more than two cats in Bartlesville.

Well, despite COVID, I enjoyed Octoberfest down here yesterday, drinking strong beer and I didn't see any one under 21 drinking.  We ate our brats outside.  Masks are plus and minus here.  At a grocery store today they were strongly encouraged.  about 2/3 had them on.  A woman without a mask swiped her discount card so we could get the specials at the store.  We went to see Spiro Mounds near the Arkansas border.  Everyone had one there.  

We saw some butterflies, emperors were all over, and some birds but nothing was photographable.

Hackberry emperor Sadly the Spiro mounds had been looted back in the Thirties, and so the mounds are just piles of dirt, disturbed and what is there is speculated about and it is mostly conjecture and opinions and not fact.  We hiked two miles and it was good to get out.

It is easy to see how the Okies had to pull up stakes as the Dust Bowl came.  Trying to till this sandy soil looks tough in a good year and even now, much of the state looks like Depew and Gypsy.  

It is hard to even see where all the old fields were, like this 1940 picture from my grandmother, where undoubtedly oaks have now grown up.

But interestingly, we like Oklahoma and Kansas, it isn't what you expect, the hills, the ridges, and the trees...

We had a front come through today and it will cool off 20 degrees and but I think 75 is in the offering for Tuesday and we have four more nights here.

The Packers even won so everything is Okay in OK...

Olaf

Owls, ski jumps, and a butcher block...even chickadees in the shower

Its been a slow period, up here in the north.  Seems all I'm doing is waiting for regal fritillaries to go extinct, but I keep seeing them.  I guess, I'm essentially waiting for the world to go back to normal, or death, or so it seems.  There was a story of an 102 year old man marrying a young 19 year old, they went off to their honeymoon driving a late model Ford that someone painted a "Just Married!" sign on the bumper but a couple days later the new bride was seen driving the car around town and the "married" had been changed to "Buried."  
Kidding aside, we've painted the house and I dug a preemptive dog grave at our cabin, I think the one-way trip to the Vet is going to be Tuesday, poor pup, Brighid is like this summer, quickly fading away.
we went up and worked on the family house in Wisconsin, stayed in the RV, filled up a dumpster, everyone got fed up with each other and I broke a glass cupboard door, it was not a good time by the end.  Before that, I pulled out some 40 year old muskrat trapping stakes, like why didn't we do this in 1990, 2000, 2010....sigh.  They were so neat and wrapped up, it was somehow hard to even carry them up and pitch them in the dumpster.
We figured out how many people it took to get a very heavy 1930 butcher block out of the basement, and why was it put in the basement in 1974?  It was one of those auction items my grandparents could resist.....a deal too good to be true.... So now it is in the dining room, and now what?  Anybody looking for one?  It is solid!It seems too nice to burn as campfire wood...
We went camping this weekend.  Had to make an emergency bird consultation a few sites over and found a photogenic Barred owl in the backyard.   Then that night was serenaded by between 3 and 6 of them for a long period, two either on or above our RV.  I then went and interviewed a ski jumper in Grantsburg, as back in the day, ski jumping was a thing where I was from, our first large ski jump was built in 1936, learned a little and picked up my grandfather clock.

Then back camping, spotted an Eastern Comma butterfly on a wall....lit a fire, drank a little...
We are camping "petless." This morning had to go back in to change shoes to play pickle ball and zipped in and out, apparently when Silja returned from a walk we had an intruder
A black capped chickadee in my shower
So my wife had to corral a scared little bird and get him out of "Big Bird."  I came back from pickle ball to get the look...."hey you left the door open."
Yea, me bad, I'm always bad.
Well, Olaf and Silja are still alive, and I guess so is the dog, well for a brief while I fear.  It is going to be a sad week.
Olaf

Chapter 20: Exact Postage Required

EXCERPT from:  GRANTSBURG:  THE GOLDEN YEARS
to be published, 
Chapter 20:
AFTER LOOKING AT two people who overcame personal health issues to succeed in life.  We now turn to something totally different.  We go from the serious to the sublime.  We now turn to Arthur Birnstengel.  Author Olaf Danielson of this missive once mentioned the name Birnstengel to his Grandmother Lucille and the response was an eye roll, a simple utterance, “Birnstengel,” followed by a long sigh.  Yes, that about sums it up but not in the judgmental sense of a grandmother who thinks she has seen a thing or two, but why did this lonely man living in the Barrens of Anderson Township become somewhat of a sensation?             It all started in July 1945.  Arthur Birnstengel, then a 44 year old farmer on 610 acres, living down near County Highway O sent a letter to Grantsburg’s congressman, Alvin O’Konski.  There is another name from the past in which I also remember my Grandmother Lucille having a reply to.  In this case it was more of head shake and a smirk and Grandmother was a rather conservative republican.  Alvin O’Konski had represented Grantsburg for 30 years from 1943 until 1972 in Wisconsin’s 10th Congressional district at the time even though he had just moved to Mercer, and seemed to live in Kewaunee. One would think that a Congressman who represented an area for 30 years would be known for something, but Representative O’Konski was something else.  It is hard to think he was known for anything except a quote:most lawmakers "are bought, sold, signed, sealed, and delivered."            Besides being known as a pro-Polish and staunch anti-communist member of the House of Representatives, it isn’t very clear what O’Konski accomplished in Washington.  He could have been even more anti-communist than McCarthy and he tried to replace Joe McCarthy in the Senate when McCarthy died, but he lost.  He was known for bluster and saying things that were so preposterous that even if he was caught in saying something like he had visited the Soviet Union, when he hadn’t, he say things like he had gone under a group passport and left no record, when nothing like that even existed.  The district had been redistricted out of existence in 1972 and he lost to Rep. David Obey in a wild and crazy campaign.20-4

Congressman Alvin O’Konski at his desk, possibly even responding to Birnstengel’s letterCourtesy Library of Congress Collection
Birnstengel’s letter, which became infamous, has been lost to history but by per reports was short and sweet and asked the congressman to please get him another wife.  O’Konski responded that he was short on wives but was long on advice and told the farmer, “make sure she is honest.”20-6  For reason’s unknown, O’Konski passed the letter along to Washington newspapers in a press release dated July 21, 1945, and, despite a war going on, they printed it. Shortly afterwards, even though O’Konski didn’t release his name, Birnstengel came forward.20-5  From the Beatrice Daily Sun, Beatrice, NE July 21, 1945
Many newspapers also contacted the farmer and he began to place ads. Birnstengel began with some stipulations:20-61)     Be between 30 and 42 years of age2)     Not weigh more than 195 pounds3)     Be between 5’ and 5’8”4)     Be truthful (O’Konski said so)5)     Not smoke or drink6)     Be healthy7)     Be friendly8)     Not be a gold-digger9)     Have a sense of humor10)  Be able to take good care of Arne, his six year old son11)  Be willing to help milk 14 cows
Letters poured into his mailbox outside of Grantsburg from all corners of the America and even some from France and Canada and at times even overwhelming his mailbox.  Newspapers called and interviewed him.  Famous Time/Life Photographer Wallace Kirkland made the trek out to rural Wisconsin in the winter of 1946 and published a photo essay of Birnstengel on March 25, 1946 that was seen around the world.20-1  Even more letters poured in. The world seemingly could not get enough of the lonely farmer from Grantsburg.Arthur Birnstengel had been divorced twice.  He reported both women had bailed on living in Anderson Township due to the loneliness of living miles from the next house, and he had gotten divorced.  Arthur was left in the care of his son, Arne, after his mother left. He had a son, lived in isolation, one needed to work hard to exist on the farm, but on a good note, Birnstengel reported to the world that he had no bad habits.20-1

From Life Magazine March 24, 1946
A woman applying for this position was not going into the lap of luxury.  The Birnstengel farm located in the sand barrens near Highway O didn’t have power and the only water was a hand pump at the kitchen sink.  Birnstengel has some interesting quotes back in Life Magazine.  “If my wife wants electricity, she is going to have to work for it first.”20-1A Springfield, IL widow who was 37 wrote:  “I don’t want no blue ribbons, but my friends all say I’m a good cook.”20-6             A Toledo, Ohio woman wrote:  “I like cows and children.  But if you have any pictures of your former wives around, destroy them.  I don’t like the idea of old faces around.”  The farmer thought she was too jealous and turned her down.20-6            An 18-year-old woman from Texas wrote: “Oh, yes Arthur!  But I need to run away to get married, so please send money.”20-6  Mr. Birnstengel had decided he wasn’t sending any train tickets either just in case the woman was trying to take advantage of him as they could be cashed in.20-1 Some women seeing his picture gave him things to do like loosing weight and furnish a financial statement.20-6With all the responses, he was elated but shortly overwhelmed. With the response, he took stock in himself, realizing that after the war a man shortage had made him a much more important item than he thought  Early on, he even hired a private investigator to look at some likely prospects but in one case his man found out that what the woman had written him was a lie, so she got crossed off.20-6Optimistic, he reported he’d have a prospect selected within a year, but apparently, it appears all the choices made him hyper critical,20-1 much like going to restaurant with too many choices.  He made notes on the letters.  One in which the woman sent him a risqué picture, he wrote “ankles too thin.”20-1  He also stated that he had tried to send an ad to the local newspaper in Grantsburg, but they had rejected it.20-2The letters kept coming in via waves and in most the farmer found a flaw.  It almost seemed to many of the interviewers that he didn’t need a wife anymore.  He had thousands of letters to keep him company.  Wallace Kirkland stated, the correspondents may have defeated their own purpose.”  He also surmised that all the man-hunger, unrest, and lonesomeness of American women was startling.20-1 In fact, in looking back at it, it is still startling, and depressing. What is even more depressing is that the farmer could not ever choose anyone.Every once in while, Birnstengel’s seemingly never-ending quest would resurface in a newspaper or two and then the story would go away. He appeared in the Lubbock, Tx  newspaper in October 22, 1960.20-7   By 1960, the 58-year old at the time reported he had received letter from 8500 women seeking his potential companionship and was still getting three or four a week over the summer.  He related at the time that he had replied to over a thousand but usually the correspondence ended after the third or fourth letter if it even got that far.  He had changed some of his requirements by then, but he was still picky, or so it seemed. He had not found the correct woman as of that time, but …he was still looking.20-7In all, the seemingly human-interest story appeared in hundreds and hundreds of newspapers, possibly even them all from 1945-to at least 1961.  After while the plight of one man’s eternal quest for something gets too depressing.  It appears the stories are meant to be comical, but they aren’t.  Besides magazines, the Stars and Stripes, we remember him appearing on a television show in the Seventies but we could not track down the date.             
Birnstengel Farm, From Life Magazine, March 25, 1946
It is rather curious that America became so enthralled in the plight of a single farmer living on the edge. Historically, advertisements for wives and marrying people one had only met through the mail was quite common, especially out on the frontier. Letters were the only means of courtship between potential mates separated by thousands of miles. According to one bride, the Pony Express "took about four weeks to go from east to west," and letters "often came in bundles." Language was a means of persuasion. Illiterate men could dictate their letters to typists who, for a fee, would doctor their sentiments on Remington Standards. Dishonesty was a risk. Men and women could easily misrepresent their physical attributes, their station, or finances. A homesteader who sent his betrothed a train ticket might find that she had turned it in for cash. A 1911 Wahpeton Times article tells of a New York girl for whom, upon arrival in Buford, North Dakota, "the spell was immediately broken" when she saw the face of her intended.20-3The railroad also played an important role in the western diaspora of single women. In 1882 businessman Fred Harvey sought young rural women "of good character, attractive and intelligent" as waitresses in whistle stop cafés along the AT&SF rail line. Harvey required that they remain single for a year, live in chaperoned dormitories, and entertain callers in "courting parlors." By the turn of the century, he had married off nearly 5,000 so-called Harvey Girls20-3.Apparently by 1946, thoughts had changed.Over the years many authors have included Mr. Birnstengel in larger issues like the forever quest or the psychological issues and how it could relate to Freud and Kierkegaard.20-2  Many have surmised as to what really were his true motives and also about his indecision.  Why did he never try to marry any?            Arthur Birnstengel died single on January 31, 1986 in Boyceville, WI where Arnie had moved to and is buried at the cemetery at the Evangelical Free Church in Trade River.  His grave does not say husband and as far as can be told, he never found Mrs. Right.  Possibly if you are single, you could leave a letter at the tomb, but we can’t be certain that he’ll see it.  When we were there, there wasn’t any, but remember, you can’t have mail delivered to a grave, it has to be a personal visit.                       Photo property of the authors20-1  “farmer wants a wife.” Wallace Kirkland. Life Magazine, March 25, 1946. Vol. 20 No. 12 Pg 141-144.20-2 The Ego Is Always at the Wheel: Bagatelles Delmore Schwartz and Robert Phillips, New Directions, New York. Apr 17, 198720-3  "I Do!": Courtship, Love, and Marriage on the American Frontier: A Glimpse at America's Romantic Past through Photographs, Diaries, and Journals, 1715–1915. Luchetti, Cathy.  Crown Trade Paperbacks, New York: 1996. 
20-4  Raising Hell for Justice: The Washington Battles of a Heartland Progressive.  David Obey.  University of Wisconsin Press, Madison.  Sep 24, 200720-5 “The Farmer seeks a wife.”  John Stone.  The San Francisco Examiner.  San Francisco, CA June 30, 1946.  Pg 82-83. 20-6  “Advertising pays off.”  Linton Daily Citizen, Linton, Indiana, January 26, 194620-7  “Farmer would select wife.”  Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. Lubbock, TX Oct 22, 1960

The COVID Cannonball Chase

Lets start with the numbers, 3450 miles, 96 hours, 8 states, 1 virus, 2 crazy birders, 1 penguin, 2 tents, one too many rolls of toilet paper, and in the end two lifer birds, 805 total...and a big a$$ cat.  All in one great bird chase in the COVID Era...

So we went to Madison WI to celebrate our twins Allwin and Tyko's 25th birthday, and after arriving back at 11 PM I slept for 4 hours and headed out on a nutsy Cannonball style bird chase with fellow crazy-man, Don Harrington, the man with the biggest tripod in all of birding and headed south towards Arizona in search of unicorns and hopefully not COVID.

We had thought about flying, but a good portion of flights to Phoenix get cancelled and by the time one fools around, you'd be halfway there, even if the posted $415 round trip price looked okay.  Portal Arizona is not that close to Phoenix either, and are airplanes really safe?

We targeted our victim, the elusive Crescent chested warbler, but then as the weekend came around a great bird, an eared quetzal  was found in the same mountain range, my favorite sky island the Chiricahuas, it was gone, and then refound,  So we headed south with the quetzal being our primary target, leaving home at 4 AM Monday, and in Clear Lake, SD, I hooked up with Don Harrington.  We headed southwest like madmen.

We blew down Nebraska, Kansas, supplied up at Garden City, Kansas
We momentarily slowed for a photo at Guymon, Oklahoma as we cut the panhandle, cutting two counties in the Okie state, we learned Guymon has got games and it also has "stream power" even if the casino was closed and the city doesn't have a river,

We sped past Goodwell, Oklahoma, the home of one of my favorite named schools, Oklahoma Panhandle State University, the Alabama in Men's Rodeo, but shockingly the school only has a 23% graduation rate, and this is as low as it gets.  University of Oklahoma, a notorious party and football school graduates 65%, so is it being out in the middle of nowhere.  Western International University in Phoenix has a scary bad graduation rate of 2.4% but is a rather suspicious looking online school.  A raft of community colleges have between 2.5 and 10 percent, but the worst looking 4 year schools in America are Southern University of New Orleans (a historical black college and Texas College of Tyler, both around 12%.  Why Southern is so abysmal when Grambling also in Louisiana and a historical black college has a 65% rate is unknown, and Texas College....a "private" historically black college loses half of its freshman class in a year.  Lowest Freshman retention rate in the country.  There is an essay here about this problem but this is for another person.  What is that Private tuition fees getting you?  Oklahoma Panhandle may be suspect academically, but you can bring your horse to school AND you are greeted by a gun-toting cowboy on the front gate.

So we got through the former Cimarron Territory or No-Man's Land and into Texas, and then New Mexico reach Tucumcari at dark, but we still had over 500 miles to go.  We sped through the state and then at 2:00 AM in Lordsburg, we filled gas and tried a Denny's, no dice closed, so I took over the wheel and we headed on.  Closed restaurants, rest areas, stores with limited access are the norm now, travel is NOT easy, and as we would learn later, in New Mexico and Arizona especially so.

Now I had a lucky break, as after Albuquerque, I couldn't sleep in the car, so I tried using my phone as a hotspot to check on intel for the quetzal.  It was not seen, then a birder I know found it somewhat miraculously, 10 miles away on the other side of the range, in the Pinery Canyon, no doubt he had found it so I demurred...should I go there?  The computer struggled for bandwidth, as to why in America we want 5G and we can't even get 3G on a major interstate is beyond me.  Then I saw one post before my power died, quetzal seen back in Cave Creek area near dark, really?  the bird is flying that much?   Wow.  It sounded like they had put the bird to bed so since an easier place to go we continued on as scheduled.

As I crept into the Cave Creek area we noticed all the National Forest Campgrounds were closed, I'd heard the bit on no bathrooms but didn't check on the ones at trailheads I've seen before as they were out of our way.  We turned up the road where the quetzal was last seen, patrolled the road in the dark, deciding that the campground was too tight to arrive in the night so I found a wide place and we parked the Jeep.

It took 30 minutes for the birds to wake up and then I swore I heard a quetzal, and a robin, I listened closely as anticipation stirred me, and even Don came too, then as the sky lightened up, I could see a guy parked near the entrance of the campground in a old black pickup stir, using my bins I could see he was readying a tripod.  We started to get organized too.  I needed boots and a sweat shirt the only warm items I brought with.

Don was taking forever getting his tripod, camera, etc organized and so I wandered down to the campground and soon learned a concerted coordinated effort was being hatched to check on the roost tree when it was possible to see the birds, Don was still not ready so....I followed and then there it was....my first eared quetzal, it was too dark to photo the bird, I had to tell Don and then....it flew twenty yards and behold the bird landed in the tree next to our Jeep and as Don would later say, "the birds come to me."  It had and so, leaning against a fortuitously parked Jeep we watched the unicorn ghost bird of the the Southwest for 30 minutes snapping pictures.

I got some really great shots despite the early morning light
Eared quetzal
It was a nice bird, people were coming and well, there was another good bird to find, the crescent chested warbler.  We'd both seen a berylline hummingbird before so that didn't interest us, so off we went to climb up and over Onion Saddle and make our way to the Turkey Creek area on the other side, some 35 miles away.

As it looked we missed the warbler by a few minutes, the warblers had mixed into a feeding flock, and were all over the valley and despite being at the stakeout the rest of the day and seeing a good portion of the flock, we never saw the crescent chested warbler, but we saw some olive warblers and Grace's and red-faced warblers are not commonly seen birds by me so it was fun.
Arizona woodpecker Grace's warbler Mexican Chickadee

Northern pygmy owl my first ever photo of this bird, it had just taken a junco
Painted redstart
Red-faced warblerSo it was a long day and then, we went back to the campsite to set up for the evening
first I had a little problem with the tent

and then a little problem with the lifer beer

The next morning I woke up refreshed, made cowboy coffee and then realized I had a French press with and then, it was off to the birding stakeout
This was when Don had a toilet paper moment, proving YES, YOU CAN HAVE TOO MUCH TOILET PAPER WITH...as he decided that as we were walking up the trail, maybe he should bring some with...just in case.  being prepared can be a good thing, but alas, not this time.... So off he went to the car, I walked around the corner another thirty feet and then to my left, there was a warbler in a bush.  I looked at it thinking it was a Grace's and then.....no wing bars, and it stopped and looked at me, S$%%t!!!
Crescent chested warbler..........."Don!"  I yelled.
then remembering my camera, I tried to get it into the view finder but I was not set for the light so I adjusted that and then could not find it in the view finder as it flit.  "DON!"  I yelled again, then three more times before, unable to get it photographed, i got blurry leaves, it flew off, just as Don skipped around the corner all TPed up.  I just looked at him
"So you thought you needed toilet paper....."  I said and then told him what had happened.

So we worked the area and about 20 minutes later a couple came through and as they were leaving a red-faced warbler and another bird came into a oak above us, I looked at the one in the leaves and then....there it was again, I yelled for the couple and they ca,me back, but it flew out the back end...no one else saw it, Don just saw yellow in leaves and of course he had a good supply of toilet paper in his pocket that he never used.  I never got a photo but I got a bird, and sometimes that is all you get

I did get some butterfly photos
Arizona sister
Mourning cloak
Nabakov's satyr
We bugged out at noon...I had lifers 804 and 805, a double, and that was a good thing, and seeing a pygmy owl is a good thing as I've seen more other species of pygmy owls than the most common one, the northern.  ..needing to drive hard, we took the Fort Bowie shortcut, saving us an hour, and were surprised that this road wasn't that bad.  Here was where Leroy wanted to go look for relatives because he thought that there was a good water here, meant that there was beach front property in Arizona, I had to rescue him...again....that dang penguin

We made camp at Jemez Falls Campground in the Santa Fe National Forest, it had just opened and was quite cautious about no water, no fires, no touching, and the campground host had some serious issues with signs, hazard tape, and closed roads.  This was better than the Jemez Pueblo below which is where I got my last speeding ticket in 2016, which was closed, all the roads were blocked by earthworks and concrete barriers and signs told us to keep out!  It was like a dystopian scene.
our goal.....daybreak black swifts, but alas, up at 5 am and on stakeout at 0530, in shorts no jacket in Crocs in 40 degree morning left us dipping of swifts.
Don on stakeout before frostbite set in we did see a dipper
so were we late, had they not arrived yet?  I don't know, I hope they weren't all destroyed down south in the winter.
We waited too long to find them and then headed off to home
it was 1100 mile day, and despite having to show IDs in Los Alamos, and run the COVID gauntlet at rest areas and McDonald's for coffee we got through New Mexico, it shouldn't take a mile of hazard tape to go to the bathroom
Colorado gave way to Kansas, I got a nice burrowing owl photo in Kansas
Kansas gave way to Nebraska and then at 1 am I saw the creature of the trip, 25 miles north of Norfolk, a cougar, an impressive beast stood on the side of the road looking at me, but it didn't register for a moment of the importance of what i was looking at before it was gone and Don was asleep....sigh....I am the worst guide, but at least I saw it, and the warbler and we both saw the quetzal a great ABA bird in anyone's list
but it was a long and fast trip a 10 day trip, we did in 4, and that quetzal disappeared two days after we saw it so, good thing I hustled down there

Birding in COVID days?
Brave brave thing.
most of the birders had masks on even on the trails, I learned it is hard to push it up hill with a mask on....in a Dollar Store, seems like a good idea, out on the trail.....I don't know.....closed bathroom across the state?  Well you got to go somewhere, and a bathroom is a better place than behind a tree...I think some people aren't thinking........I think being outside is always good, closing all the restaurants, well, one can make food on the road, and by the looks of it, people are desperate to get outside and do something.....it beats an apartment building

stay safe wherever you are....