Well friends, I got my revenge. In 2011, I did another bike tour in which I came up from Bridgeport and rode up Monitor Pass in a day that was hellish, brutal, but absolutely beautiful. I had such a difficult time with that climb that I had a hard time appreciating how beautiful Alpine County really is. Fortunately, just a few days ago, I camped near Markleeville (near the base of Monitor), and made it up without too much trouble. It was beautiful up there too. I got my sweet revenge on the other side of the pass, where I let myself have a bit of fun going down. 43mph of fun! Kind of stupid, but I had to do it. Don't worry Mom I make it a habit of going much slower down mountains usually. This was a special situation.
The past couple of days, I've hung out around the Bridgeport area, mostly just recovering from some hard riding. Once I made it down Monitor, I had a pretty strong headwind. It got me down for about an hour, but I eventually snapped out of it. Ah, the journey!
Birding has been really nice here lately. I camped out in the Pinyon Pine/Juniper last night. This morning I started the day with a PRAIRIE FALCON flying right by camp at about 6:30 this morning. Actually, I really started the day with a PLUMBEOUS VIREO singing outside of my tent (Thanks Peter!). I took some time this morning to look and listen to the difference between them and Cassin's Vireos. Plumbeous song seems to be a bit more slurred. At least that was just my impression this morning.
At last I found a JUNIPER TITMOUSE. I tried to find one in 2011, but missed them. This morning I finally found a small group of them. I had been searching for them up the hill above my campsite until I realized that I was getting into more Pinyon and less Juniper. I decided to go lower, and found more Junipers, and that's where those buggers were.
One more cool find this morning was a BLUE-GRAY GNATCATCHER nest. Very nice morning.
Well, I'm off to Lundy Canyon this afternoon, then Mono Lake for a couple of days after that.
More when I can...
This is the only way I have to reach you so I hope this is appropriate here... In thinking about things we chatted about at the field campus and this great adventure that you are up to, I kept thinking about this kid Andrew who walked across the country "listening". Here is his blog. I passed by him one day while he was walking and I was driving in the Sierra. Made me stop and think. You rock. Have fun! http://walkingtolisten.com/
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