California
So I had to leave Ohio on the 23 of July for work, and to meet my mom and switch vehicles.
This is the view from the hotel we stayed at in San Clemente. I like the location a little better than the hotel we used to stay at in Oceanside but the hotel itself is not that great. The internet didn't work and there was no breakfast, and it's expensive, like $150/night. I'm glad the company is paying for it because I would be sleeping in my car and bathing in the ocean every night. Or I guess I might just drive back to Loma Linda for the evenings. One night at like 3 in the morning, the fire alarm went off. I thought there was a fire until I went out my door and ours was the only one going off. Turns out some people upstairs were getting a little crazy in the hot tub and it leeked into our room.
I wasn't to good about taking pictures this time. Since I had killed my last camera in the canal getting the fike nets out. I did take some pictures of the San Clemente nuclear plant and of the Camp Pendleton countryside. But I'm a little nervous just admitting that I took those pictures. I don't know that sort if of thing is legal or not. It probably is. You can be a terrorist for anything these days. Don't wear any heavy coats or parkas, I know that.
On the right are some red eared pond sliders. As I may have mentioned in previous posts, our mission is to remove all the exotic species from the Santa Margarita Estuary. These are exotic turtles are exotic but I guess since there is no protocol for killing turtles humanely we often end up throwing them into the weeds and hoping they die, or live depending on your point of view. I didn't want to kill them so I took them. Another action of questionable legality on my part. I do have a California fishing license though so I think I'm covered. Those fike nets will catch all sorts of animals and most of the drown before we get to them. Which I am glad about. We have caught 3 beavers. Imagine trying to get a live, squirming, thrashing, biting beaver out of a net while your in the water. They are exotic, too. The whole project is kind of dumb, but whatever. It's fun. We are never going to get all the crayfish out of the river with minnow traps. And we are never going to get the exotic fish out of the river if we keep throwing them back in the lake. I'm not going to explain the whole thing to your right now. I think we go one more time this summer and we are done.
Sierra National Forest
After a week of fishing and getting paid for it I went to meet my ma at Sierra NF just east of Fresno. We got there late the first night and camped way up this winding road at a free campground.
The next night we went to the ranger station for maps and a campfire/camping permit. We decided to head up towards a grove of Sequoias called the McKinely Grove. I guess it wasn't as impressive as the groves in Sequoia National Park because I didn't take any pictures of them. They are still big trees though. We stayed up there and camped just off the main road and then fished in Dinky creek for about two days. It was nice and relaxing.
This is the fishing whole I used. This stream is "planted" with fish every week but I couldn't catch any.
This was the view from our second night.
Below, Agatha is playing with a crayfish I we had bought for the turtles. The liked the fish better so I had to dispatch the crayfish with Agathas help.
I had hoped to have a video of Agatha and the crayfish but the place I am hosting it won't release it yet.
Quick ecology note. There are some native crayfish to California but many have been replaced by species from the genus Procambarus because they are sold for bait and thrown into the water live.
The pond sliders are also introduced by people that buy them in pet stores and put them in there garden ponds. Both animals are from the south around Louisianna, Texas, Arkansas, and Mississippi area. Pond sliders will eat fish, crayfish, and small native turtles. I haven't mentioned bullfrogs yet but they are another invasive species. They are from the midwest and south as well. Bullfrogs will eat anything, even snakes, fish and birds. They are partly responsible for the decline of the native arroyo toad in southern Califronia. If you have one of these things for a pet and you do not live in part of there native range. Please do not let them out.
So the second night we drove up this trail a bit to get away from the road. I have to show a couple pictures here of the road.
Check out my car following the jeep right up this mountain.
You see Ceri? Escorts are cool.
Ok, Ceri doesn't believe me. She has a car just like mine and hates it. Although, she does like it better now that I got it to run better and get better gas milage.
1 august (my birthday)
Backwoods Sleeplessness
On the last night I was with my mom in the forest we had a pretty good adventure. We decided to take a beginners off road trail in the jeep to test out it's new engine. It went back to lake a secluded lake with some good fishing. So, we left the turtles and the wagon at the trailhead, loaded up the jeep with camping gear and took off down the road.
It was a good one for beginners just like the pamplet said. Ma started out driving but was scared so I took over. By the time we were headed back out Ma was getting a better idea of what the jeep can do and she drove most of the way back out. These are all pictures from the way out but whatever, its the same trail both ways.
This is the rock pile near the end. It was a little tricky but no real danger. (Something more tricky than this is trying to get all these pictures to line up right. )
Here is ma looking good behind the wheel.
We got to the lake around noon. So we spent the rest of the afternoon lazying around. Ma went swimming while I was fishing. The lake was warm, not like cold glacier feed lakes in Colorado. Fish were jumping everywhere. I guess they were eating dragonflies that day and not salmon eggs. I didn't catch any fish the whole trip.
This is Brewer Lake. Really nice.
This tree fell down and took a couple with it. This is where we parked the jeep and made our kitchen. We couldn't eat near the lake because of bears. It was a little bit of a hike to the lake from here but the trail got really difficult. I like that we could close are food in the jeep at night instead of hanging our food.
I don't know what any of these flowers are called.
Here is a nice place to take a bath.
Ok, so that was a nice relaxing afternoon. We had some weird nacho hamberger helper thing for supper and got into the tent around 6pm. We still had two or three hours to darkness but we knew the mosquitoes would be terrible. I read a few short dective stories from ma book since I had finished my own book the night before. The Invisible Man really wasn't a very good story. When the sun left us behind a mountain I turned on my headlamp and read a while longer. I kind of had to pee but I didn't want to get out in the mosquitoes. Ma had already gone out to walk Agatha and had let some bugs in. I figured I could wait until sometime in the middle of the night when the bugs weren't as bad, or else just wait until morning. So I drifted off and fell blissfully asleep, which I am not convinced is the only way to sleep in the backcountry.
I must have started sleeping around 9 and I sleep pretty well in a tent. Around 9:30 I here my mom scream. I jumped up and she was yelling at Agatha.
"Be quiet, Agatha lay down. Agatha be quiet. Agatha lay down."
Agatha was staring out the window ignoring my mom. I didn't know what was going on but I was starting to get scared already. Then ma told me there was a cat outside the tent.
"A what? A mountain lion?" I asked.
" I don't know. A cat I think." She said. I couldn't hear anything but my mom talking to Agatha and Agatha licking her butt. Then I herd this noise from somewhere over by the creek. It sounded like a skreetching scream to me.
"Was it that?" I asked. My mom didn't hear it. Awhile later I heard it again. Meanwhile, Agatha was still licking her butt and I couldn't hear what my mom was pointing at by the side of the tent. Finally, everything else was quite and I heard a russle and and meowish noise. I couldn't see anything outside and I didn't want to turn on my light in case it was a mountain lion.
I layed myself back down and stared at the roof of the tent thinking about what it could be. It didn't sound big so I wasn't to scared about that. But what was the noise I had heard. I had never heard a puma before but I know they scream like old women. Then I started analyzing the noise. It did sound more like a skreetch than a scream. I don't know. And what was the thing outside the tent. Agatha didn't seem to care anymore but I was wide awake. And I had to pee. I was just hoping I could make it until daylight.
About three hours later I couldn't take it anymore. I told ma I had to pee and asked her what time it was. It was 12:30. There was no way I was going to make it until morning. So I put on my shoes and headlamp. Unzipped the door and stood up. Ma yelled, "Your letting the mosquitoes in." So I had to clear the door and face the night. I took a few steps and shined the flashlight all around. There were no signs of life which was a relief. I relieved myself and jumped back in the tent.
For the rest of the night every noise had to be analyzed. Cracking branches, chirps, knocks across the lake, and fish splashing around.
In the morning there were no tracks, scraps or anything to help us solve this mistery. All I had was the sound I had heard. We packed everything up pretty early and headed back out. Taking the pictures you've already seen of the jeep on the trail along the way.
We ate some breakfast back at the trailhead, switched cars and drove down out of the mountains. Ma headed north through Yosemite and I headed south to Loma Linda. When I got back I surfed the internet for the sound clip I linked to. That sounds really similar to what I heard. That combined with the meow and the smaller sounding animal outside the tent leads me to believe that it might have been a lynx.
Anywho, sorry that was so long. Now I am caught up with the present. I am back in Loma Linda and bored even though I should be measuring more birds in the lab.
Now that I've been keeping up with posting I'll try to continue so keep checking back.
1 comments:
peeing out the tent and butt licking...can this post get any better??!!
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