A Day of Hiking Along Monocacy Creek

Yesterday was gorgeous outside! Despite feeling like we both were either getting colds, or possibly allergies, we headed for the great outdoors to get fresh air and sunshine! It was a perfect day!

Reflections on Monocacy Creek

 The water was flowing, if a bit lower than normal, and the sun was out in full force. It turned out to be warmer than we expected, but along the creek, there's a nice coolness to the air.

Patterns on the water

 I love how the water brings the fall-colored leaves to a point, and the ripples look like a woven pattern. There's so much to inspire out here in the woods!

 I love how the sunlight sets off the "fur" on this wild grass! Looks electric! There was other electricity to be found out in the woods today, too... check this plant out!

It had dark purple berries on it, too. I don't recommend eating them... but they sort of look like they'd be delicious, right? Or possibly hallucinogenic! Ha ha! There are still a lot of flowers blooming in Bethlehem right now. Here are a few more that I took pictures of because they were so pretty....

Hummingbirds like these!

These smelled lovely!

 There were butterflies fluttering by, and we even found a butterfly cocoon! It was well-camouflaged, but didn't escape my eye! Luckily, it was along the trail, or I would never have seen it. Check it out!

Butterfly cocoon

 Finding the cocoon was extremely exciting for me, because I have been looking for one for a while now, every time we'd go for a walk. Yesterday, along the creek, I happened to see this plant and said to Keith, "I think this is the type of plant that butterflies cocoon on..." and pointed almost directly at the cocoon!! It was almost unbelievably coincidental! I think I had help from the Universe, but who knows? It was amazing! We also saw some cool crickets... We also saw a hummingbird here, getting nectar from those orange flowers. It was after this leg of our day trip that we decided to head home to get water and change into shorts! The next part of the hike was on a different section of the Monocacy, which I will share with you, too!

Green cricket

Lost one of his back legs

A Day at Hawk Mountain

We have unanimously decided to keep using this blog for our travels...  and we plan to have a few more this year! So stay tuned for more photos and commentary on the places that we visit in the upcoming months! 

As a matter of fact, I want to share the last day hike that we took recently to Hawk Mountain, which is in the Appalachians... it was beautiful there! There were so many butterflies and bizarre looking mushrooms along the trail. We even crossed paths with a snake, although we didn't stick around to try to see it... the sound of it's rattling and hissing was enough to make us get our asses into high gear and book on outta there!

But check out some of these cool mushrooms!! There was a crazy variety of them all over the place! The shapes and colors as varied as the faces of people that we passed along the trail. It was pretty wild! We didn't see any hawks or falcons, for which the range was named, but the butterflies, dragonflies, flowers and mushrooms made up for the lack of raptors.

 If you're ever up in this area, I suggest checking out the trails. We took several, one of them had us scrabbling over giant boulders, and was pretty difficult. It was fun, but it was a knee-bender. The other trails were milder, and more relaxing. We did both, and it was perfect. The next time we go out, we're going to be visiting during the fall when the leaves have turned. I'll definitely post more pictures then!! That will be a novel thing for me, especially, as I'm used to evergreen forests. I'm really excited about seeing all the maples and dogwoods and birches and aspens all changing colors with the season! I imaging that we'll get to see more birds, too, as it won't be too hot anymore.

One thing I almost forgot about what I loved in these woods were all the little chipmunks! They are so small and cute, and don't seem to be too afraid of people along the trail. They are busy doing their thing, collecting food, burying it, cleaning themselves, that they barely notice you at all! It was fun to stop and watch them for a few minutes before returning to the trail. I love nature!

On the hike, we found some cool feathers, one that was either a hawk or falcon feather, and some pretty looking things that came from a tree, but looked like dried flowers. We also found pretty acorns and some strange bolls, which could've come from the oak trees in the woods. I'm not sure what they are, exactly. We were reprimanded for taking them out of the woods, which I don't understand, but then the volunteer lady changed her mind when more exciting things started happening that took her attention away. A hiker had fallen and gotten hurt, and a good Samaritan hiker had run all the way down the trail to meet up with the firemen who'd come in response to the emergency call. So we were able to leave with our goodies! Though I don't see what the big deal is about taking a leaf, some twigs, a couple acorns and some oak bolls!

Also, once you return from the trail, and are over by the visitor's center, there's a native plant garden where there's a pond with lily pads and cattails, and we saw a frog in the mud! Also, there's a bird-blind, if you want to sit quietly and watch for birds, or make out, or whatever. We didn't see many birds from the blind, though butterflies were all over the place! I had a hard time getting a good shot of the butterflies, however. They are quick and I wanted a close-up. This is the best close-up I was able to get. Check out the cool pond, though. It was especially beautiful with the sunshine coming down, the slight breeze rushing through the reeds and the numerous dragonflies, butterflies and song birds flying through.

 

Rather than recreate this blog...

I wrote a blog on Texas and Louisiana in my blog.... Shari's blog

We probably won't be writing any more blogs for the roadtrip on this site. You can always check back for other postings, though, as you never know!

Love to all... and happy travels!

Remember The Alamo?

Well, we left Tucson and continued to head east on I-10... which was a little of a relief for me, physically, as it was 113 degrees when we left, and humidity was climbing! Dave & Uppie's swamp cooler wasn't going to be working too well soon, so off we went! To The Alamo!

Well, sort of. We first stopped off in Fort Stockton, Texas, for the night, which was about a 5-6 hour drive. Not much of a town, but the hotel we stayed in was clean and quiet. Which was a far cry from the next hotel we stayed at in San Antonio: The Rodeway Inn. Or what I like to call "The Rode hard and put away wet Inn".

It was awful! And sort of hilarious, in a way.... the room we got stuck with was a smoking room, so the stench ended up permeating all the clothes exposed to the room. There were HUGE bugs and piles of garbage outside of the door to the hotel. The bed had springs in it that actually hurt you if you put any pressure on them! The one nice thing about the hotel is that it made us appreciate fully the previous and future places that we stayed. So we did our best to not be in the room at all. Thus, we headed for the Alamo!

In San Antonio, we parked by the Alamo and walked over to see it. The line to get into the building was about 30 feet long. It was about 105 outside, and sunny, sunny, sunny, and humid! So we dawdled around the grounds around the Alamo,under the shade of the large trees, and took pictures of koi fish in the ponds, and checked out the visitor center with the Bowie Knife display and history. It was actually pretty interesting, too. Afterwards, we headed for the Riverwalk to find some food, and to sit down in some cool air somewhere. We ate at Ibiza, and watched people with green strapped badges walk around. They were obviously there for some kind of convention, but we couldn't figure out for a long time what TYPE of convention. The people were from all walks of life, all countries, all states, and in all states of being.... it just didn't make sense that they were all there for a single convention, but they were. It was an AA convention! Mystery solved. :-)

The Riverwalk was nice, but the temperature and humidity made it difficult to stay outside for too long without sweating all your moisture out of your body. It was intense. We tried to keep cool by stepping into air-conditioned stores, which helped. We also stopped for some ice cream at Ben & Jerry's. However, by late afternoon, I was feeling woozy and weird, so we headed back to El Stinko Hotel. We had planned to have dinner on the Riverwalk, but it just didn't pan out that way. However, once I felt better, we found a cool Thai food restaurant that was just around the corner, and they had a buffet dinner. We really enjoyed ourselves at this little restaurant! The food was great, and the restaurant was cool inside, which helped my appetite. Keith was feeling better, too, and ate quite a lot of food! We were happy campers!

The next day was Independence Day, and it was our plan to find a nice BBQ place to eat for dinner, and not worry about finding the place where the fireworks were going to be. We just wanted some good barbecue! We checked out an article online that talked about San Antonio's best BBQ, and started off on our search. The first place was Jailhouse BBQ, which was quite a drive away. However, when we got there, it was CLOSED! Boarded up. No longer owned and operated by anyone! Ugh! So we drove 20 minutes to get to the next one, Auggie's Barbecue, and it was CLOSED. (Apparently they assume everyone would want to do their OWN BBQ's.) We were getting REALLY hungry now! By this time, we decided that barbecue wasn't the biggest deal, that eating something was more important. So we looked on our phones for another option and found that there was a restaurant not too far from Auggie's, which we then headed for. THAT one was totally inaccessible, as the road itself was closed! Egad! We were both getting a little cranky because we were hot and starving... we were trying to "keep our cool" but it was difficult with the temperatures hovering around 100 degrees, even at night... we tried one more place, out of desperation, really.... and on our way there, we saw a place open still that was packed with people. It was called Good Time Charlie's, and it was smelling good from outside. So we headed in there, and we were finally rewarded with some yummy, down-home cooking! I got some cornmeal crusted catfish and Keith got catfish and shrimp... we were both happy with our food, our beer, and with each other. It was a very good meal with juke box selections playing that we approved of. We felt that our food mission was accomplished!! After dinner, we headed back for one last night in the smoky hotel room, and the next day we were happy to be leaving Texas and going to Nawlins!!

Day and Night in Tucson... continued

You’d never know it though, if you just focused in on the verdant trees, the yellow columbine, Indian paintbrush and other wildflowers that grew along the trail. Dave found a cool hawk feather, we spotted an Allen’s hummingbird, and we also saw some butterflies (for which the trail was named) flying around above our heads. At one point, we’d lost the feather and were on a hunt to find it. I found a large dandelion puff, which we were about to blow out over the cliff’s edge to ask for some wishful help, when suddenly, we all spotted the elusive hawk feather right as we turned around! Very serendipitous and cool… so the wishes were made for other, mysterious things….

                It started to rain some very large drops, so we headed back down the trail and back into the steaming town. Tucson was like a sauna… leaving the relatively cooler climate of Sky Island wasn’t the easiest thing to do. But our tummies were rumbling, and we wanted to get back so we could get Uppie and go get some delicious shrimp fajitas at Dave & Uppie’s favorite restaurant, El Sur. The food there was as delicious as described, and cheap!! We made room for the delicious flan, though… and actually ordered a second one because four people sharing one flan is just silliness! Also, it was the best damn flan we’d ever had! (Tummy grumbles now…) Service was friendly and awesome. One word of advice: if you ever go, and choose to eat one of their roasted jalapeno peppers, beware! They are sometimes VERY hot/spicy! A few of us veteran spicy-food-eaters were surprised by the heat from one of these little guys! And that was WITHOUT the seeds!  Whew! Hot stuff!

 

                After dinner, we all walked along Fourth Street, and stopped into a couple of bars. At the first - Sky Bar, we ordered an El Chavito signature drink: Banderas! We explained to the bartender how to make them, and I was surprised at the amount of tequila and tomato juice/hot sauce that he poured into the glasses. However, we all did our best to down those glasses and they tasted as good as ever! The bar itself was really loud, though, with an experimental band playing, so we headed down to Plush, Dave & Uppie’s favorite evening hangout. It was funky and velvety and had a normal decibel sound level, so we stayed there and talked into the night. It was really wonderful, and just what the doctor ordered!

Our Day in Tucson

Tucson was hot. Really, really hot. We started our morning with some eggs and coffee and headed into town for a tour of Fourth Street, the happening street in Tucson. Luckily, it was just a short walk from Dave and Uppie’s place, and we were there in no time. Our walk was accompanied by the symphonic and eventually incessant buzzing of cicada. I am accustomed to hearing them, but this was on a whole new level; perhaps just a notch under the vuvuzela infestation that has plagued the World Cup this year. Okay, they weren’t that bad, but man, were they loud!

Fourth Street was a nice stretch with some cool shops, including an everything-you-could-want-that-might-remind-you-of-the-desert-region store and a nice book store where we picked up some material for the rest of our journey. We also passed several bars, some of which we would return to later that night. One interesting observation was the number of tattoo parlors that were scattered along our little walk. Each one sounded as if business were going really well, until we realized that the buzzing wasn’t coming from inside, but from all around us – the cicadas!

Some cool BikeArt

Now, it was hot as blazes when we rolled into town the night before. Or so we thought, as we had not yet had the chance to experience what it felt like to be in Arizona when the sun was actually out. It was truly all-encompassing. Like being embraced by the heat, to paraphrase a friend of Dave’s who he told us about. To cool off, we set off for Sky Island – the aptly named peak just outside of Tucson. It turned out to be a cool, refreshing oasis with as diverse an ecosystem as what we experienced driving from California to Arizona. Before we headed up, though, we made a couple stops – one to pick up Dave’s new glasses and another to grab some grub for our little hike. The burritos we picked up at Paco’s were cheap, filling, and scrumptious.

We set off for our outdoor adventure with full bellies and hopes that Dave’s promises of a cooler climate would hold true in our near future. Climbing the mountain was a real trip – to see the expansive emptiness of the sprawling desert, with saguaro cacti being the dominant life form for as far as the eye could see. It was a completely unique experience for me to look out over the vastness while Shari expertly navigated the Mini along the road winding up to our first destination. Sure enough, the thermometer readout declined as we climbed the mountain, settling into the 80s as we pulled into a parking spot at Windy Point.

The view from Windy Point was phenomenal. Drastic desert cliffs and eroded landscape and forms were bountiful. Scrambling up rocks and mountain-goating around seemed the best way to get some of the greatest views at first. Some sights were right under our noses, however, as an array of colors of various lichens covered many sides of rocks, if such a small word can be used to describe such big pieces of… rock. Quick eyeballs spotted quick lizards, who were mostly able to escape our camera lenses. Some were captured, but those buggers sure were aware of us, and made an effort to stay clear. Dave had the surreal experience of wearing glasses for the first time in this intense landscape, and kept having to take them off to make sure of distances that he wasn’t too sure of with the new lenses! Scary!

Windy Point, panorama-style

From the sprawling desert scenery of Windy Point, we drove further along to the Butterfly Trail, where we found ourselves hiking through lush and vividly alive terrain along a path lined with wildflowers, grasses, and other plants. This clearly was what was meant by Sky Island. The remnants of burnt forest in the midst of early stages of succession provided the only reminder that we were indeed in a hot and dry part of the world.

LA to Tucson

After an exhausting couple of days packing, cleaning, and otherwise preparing to leave Los Angeles on The Great Roadtrip to Bethlehem, we had just one more thing to pack – our belongings that were coming with us in the Mini. It was a bit like a 3-dimensional version of Tetris involving some pretty unique shapes, including a guitar and several plants. We filled everything behind the front seats neatly and tightly and left for Tucson, where we would be staying with some close friends.

A packed Mini Cooper.

The drive out of LA was typically slowed by freeway traffic, but this time with a tinge of sentimentality. Once we hit the open road, Nature’s beauty was given its chance to begin dazzling us. From the surrounding hills to the increasingly open terrain, the sights were just the beginning of what was coming our way to stimulate and thrill our visual cortices. As our altitude fluctuated, the temperature gauge steadily rose. Upon entering Arizona, we were greeted by a nice, cool evening temperature of 108 degrees. From the distant hills to the increasing amount and variation of cacti and other desert plant-life, it was evident that we weren’t in LA anymore, Dorothy. The West Coast bid us a fond farewell of its own with a beautiful, glowing sunset behind us.

Arriving in Tucson was a relief - physically in the sense that we got to stand, and mentally in the sense that the first destination on our journey had been reached. It was a true joy to be greeted by Dave and Uppie, the kind of friends who you can share the feeling with that no matter how long it has been since you’ve last talked or seen each other, you’re able to pick right back up, accompanied by a familiar comfort. It’s as though the welcoming embrace is somehow connected to that last goodbye hug, and the time between has, at that moment, melted away. Introductions were made and we were given a tour of their awesome desert home, once owned by one of the Earps. We spent the rest of the night chatting and munching on some delicious LA treats before retiring to bed in the Cowboy Room.