Morning Musings:
10:00
a.m.: Back in the camper to look at 223 pictures on the card. 223 pictures...yahoo!
Last night at 6:10 the meaty bones were
still there and I threw out two bananas.
Today the meat is gone, banana disturbed so there was action between 6
p.m. last night and 9:30 this morning...and we’ve got 223 pictures on the card.
What will we see?
I’m going to cut to the chase here: This
morning all bones are gone, one of the bananas is disturbed but no pictures
beyond 6:10 last night. Plenty of
battery, plenty of card space...no obvious reason for why the camera stopped
taking pictures. It missed all the
important nighttime activity!! Aghhhh!! What is going on!?
All told there were about 15 pictures of a vulture and
us...the rest were triggered by a moving weed (thought we had all the weeds
cleared away). Checked the website and
Google to see what’s up with the camera simply stopping. A firmware and reset are suggested so that’s
what we’re doing right now. So maybe,
just maybe we aren’t so horrible at this after all...maybe all the previous
issues that we experienced (bones all gone but no pictures) were the result of
the camera malfunctioning.
The camera is a Moultrie so the reputation
is good. Took an hour to figure out how
to do a firmware update and a ‘hard reset’.
Reformatted the card in the camera...did all the things the website says
to do to have the camera perform like it
should. Time will tell, I guess.
In the meantime the story we’re telling
ourselves is that the coyotes did come in
last night to grab the bones and there
was a discerning javelina lured in by the smell of the banana. No way to prove it but no way to refute it
either. 😏
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Evening edition:
After lunch we started out on the ride that
we had planned for yesterday. We started
earlier today to avoid sun issues. It
was my suggestion to ride to an overlook that’s on the way to Tortilla Flat
which is snuggled somewhere down in the Superstition Mountains. Three years ago we were on a bike ride to
Tortilla Flat but turned around at the Canyon Lake Overlook. The road up to that point was so bumpy that
we had to consider whether this trip was worth destroying a bike. Last year or the year before we rode up there
in the truck...road had been repaved and was smooth sailing. Well, except for all the switchbacks and
hairpin turns but otherwise very nice.
Yesterday we were going to ride as far as
the overlook then head back. I didn’t
feel any need to revisit Tortilla Flat as it’s got only 4 or 5 businesses all
of a touristy nature that were not special enough to make me want to revisit and
definitely not my kind of bike road. I can ride twisties if I have to...I just have
to ride ‘em my way which is slower than most.
So not as far as Tortilla Flat today, only as far as the overlook.
Sooo...what
I remembered about the road up to the overlook was the bumpiness, what I forgot
about the road as far as the overlook was the 8 miles of mountainous
guardrail-less hairpin turns that got us to that point. Ugh! Picture this: Coming out of a 15 mph hairpin turn the road continues up an incline
with a mountain to the right and a drop off to the left and a sign tells you
that the road curves to the right up ahead around an outcropping of rock. However, because you’re on an incline, you
can’t see the curve yet, you can only see space with a mountain top rising up
beyond the road’s end. No guardrail...no visible road at that point. You know the road has to be there but you
can’t see it. Remember, Karen, you
can do hard things. There was
absolutely no place to do a U-turn so I just had to deal with it.
I obey the speed limit in those situations...if
a sign says take a curve at 15 mph that’s what I’m going to do. I figure the speed limits are there for a
reason. Not all drivers take that
approach however; maybe driving a bit faster is part of the thrill of driving
that road for some people but not for me.
As such it’s not uncommon for traffic to back up behind me. Thankfully there were pull-offs at several
curves so I could let traffic pass me. Then
got back on the road to ride my ride.
Leaving the overlook we pulled in behind a
line of cars whose speed was held in check by two rather large commercial
trucks. I was grateful for that...traffic
was backing up but I wasn’t the reason
for it. Yay!
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Pulled into Weaver’s Needle Vista
Viewpoint...there are two prominent rocks formations and I’m not sure which is Weaver’s
Needle. Neither looks like a needle...in
fact, one resembles Michigan’s Lower Peninsula a.k.a. The Mitten. The other is striking in its prominence but
doesn’t particularly look like a needle either. The plaques at the viewpoint indicate that the
Mitten shaped rock is Weaver’s Needle and information online shows Weaver’s
Needle as the jutting up rock formation across the road. Maybe it’s not worth thinking about since I
don’t intend to hike to it. Both are
striking landscape features
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Saw two dead rattlesnakes on our way to
Canyon Lake overlook. That just means
that these warm days are bringing the snakes out also. Beware!!
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Kim did not image tonight due to
clouds.
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Bike
miles today: 148
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