Saturday, March 22…Walking In The Dark (Dottie West)

 

   The first thing on my agenda this morning was to drain the gray water tank so we could take showers. Stepped outside just before 8 a.m. to find that it was already ‘sit in the shade’ weather. Nothing cool about the air…it was silky smooth and warm. Which meant that as the sun rose higher in the sky, it was only going to get hotter.     

Today’s temperature was predicted to hit the high 80’s  and is supposed to be climbing into the 90’s for the next week. Didn’t walk today; decided it was a ride around in the truck day.

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   When I type on my laptop, the Fitbit on my wrist sits right at the edge of the keyboard, which is annoying and borders on painful. So, I take it off when I type and put it on the table. It also wakes up with any movement of my wrist and in the darkness of sleep, that sudden light can seem like lightning to my brain. Easy fix for that: don’t wear it to bed.   Last night (Friday) when I was getting ready to head to bed, I realized my watch wasn’t on the table or my wrist.   Ding Dang!! 

   Now, it’s not that the Fitbit is special in any way, it’s just that I have worn a watch for years and the thought of being without one doesn’t sit well in my brain. Since I knew I had it on during the bike ride, 5:30 p.m. was the last time I could say for certain where it was. After that, I really didn’t think about it.  So, the discovery at 10:45 p.m. that it wasn’t where it should be set off a chain of events that started with searching and double searching the camper (including the waste basket) and ended at 11:30 p.m., with retracing the walk to Tammy’s site that we had taken during daylight hours.  And let me say that nothing says ‘loud’ like walking on gravel through a dark, silent campground…the sound of every single step seems magnified in the dark.

   Didn’t find the watch on our late hour search, so this morning I checked in the office to see if anyone turned in a watch. Nope! So, now I’m faced with a decision…spend the money for a new watch or suck it up. 

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   I try to check-in on the live cams of the two eagle nests at least once a day. The two eaglets in Big Bear Lake are doing well as of this morning, noticeably growing since hatching about 10 days ago. Shadow continues to bring in food for Jackie, but according to comments, he seems a little unsure about this dad gig. I don’t watch it close enough to know if the eaglets are feeding themselves or if they’re still relying on Jackie and Shadow to feed them.

   Over in Shenandoah Valley, one of Bella and Scout’s eggs hatched yesterday and another one today! It’s estimated that the other one will hatch within days. Scout continues to amaze me with how meticulous he is about arranging the nest.

   I honestly don’t listen to the audio of either of these webcams because there’s so much wind noise, but people are commenting on both pages that they think they can hear the chicks chirping after they hatch. Better hearing than mine.

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   Cell cameras have been coming up empty since the night we saw the javelinas.  Well, we did have a crow show up the next day, but crows don’t count and there is that one video we couldn’t download.  But no notifications since Wednesday night.  Hmmm….

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   Instead of sitting around camp, either inside or outside, we decided to go to the Sky Rider restaurant over by the Marana airport for lunch and then drive up Mt. Lemmon.  Figured with an elevation of over 9,100 feet, it had to be cooler than anywhere in the desert. But after lunch, Kim first wanted to see if we could find a burrowing owl since we were so close.

   We headed over to Luckett Road in Marana; for years, it’s been our tried-and-true spot to find the owls along the canals.  However, this year, we haven’t had any luck. Did they forget to migrate back? Did Greg and his merry band of owl relocators kidnap them and put them over in the nearby owl sanctuary?  Even though there’s been no owl action, we feel compelled to drive Luckett Rd whenever we’re nearby.  Never can tell when an owl may appear.

   Today, we were talking giving up when a bird with coloring and size I didn’t recognize flew in front

of us.  Thinking it was a kestrel, I asked Kim to back up, which he did. Goodness, gracious! It wasn’t a kestrel, it was a burrowing owl, nervously standing on the canal wall! I say nervous because his head kept swiveling from side to side, like he was looking for an escape route…maybe forgetting that he has wings to fly. What a delight to see this little bundle of feathers with the penetrating gaze! Especially since it was the heat of the day, and they’re usually sighted in the early morning or early evening. Continued to the end of the road but by the time we turned around to see if we could find it again, it was gone. But we saw it…I have photographic proof. 😎  Now we just need to see Sam Elliott and the Traveling Sheep to call it all good.

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   By the time we got done with the burrowing owl detour, we were an hour and 45 minutes, 68 miles, from Mt. Lemmon.  Decided to forego that ride today and headed over to Saguaro National Park instead. As we drove through the park, I reminisced about how amazing it was the first time we drove out to the park and saw so many saguaros in one place; I decided that it’s still an amazing to visit. Seeing saguaros never gets old. Stopped in at the Visitor’s Center, then checked on a nearby crested saguaro before continuing our drive.

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   As we drove, we discussed the Fitbit/watch issue. While we were talking, Kim mentioned that last year, he factory reset my old Fitbit and thought he put it in the leather pouch with all his cords, etc. And as luck would have it, it was still in there along with the charging cord. So, I put it on the charger to see if it could be brought back to life and put into service. Waiting for it to charge and then see if I can pair it to my phone. In the meantime, my Fitbit app indicated that my lost Fitbit had walked 2059 steps today. Now that’s a puzzler! 

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    The Rosette Nebula, which Kim imaged last night with the camera mounted sideways, turned out good. No dark areas.  So, it’s in the imaging chain. He brought the scope inside to clean it. He’s targeting Dolphin Head again to see if he can get a cleaner image. Of course, that’s going to take several nights of data gathering, so it’ll be a waiting game on that one.

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