Enchantment Times Two

As colder temperatures descended upon Colorado in November, I began to get restless.  It felt unnatural to stay in one place as the season changed after years of full-time RVing had taught me to migrate to warmer weather like the birds.

My mind drifted back to my happy place-- Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico, the Land of Enchantment.  I missed the sights and sounds of those magnificent sandhill cranes, and missed my volunteer and staff friends there.

Arizona to Amarillo

In early April, after leaving my fabulous boondock at Saddle Mountain, I wisely time my drive through downtown Phoenix for a low-traffic Sunday morning. Soon, I have Scottsdale in the rear view mirror as I climb up to the cooling pines of the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest.  I've never been to this area before, and look forward to some crisp pine scented air and evergreen vistas after months of brown desert scrub.

Bidding Farewell to Bosque

Fellow volunteer friends reported last week that the cranes have now left Bosque del Apache for the season to head north.  What a great winter we had together!

Hidden Secrets of the Bosque

Drive around the tour loops at Bosque del Apache NWR (or any National Wildlife Refuge for that matter) and you're likely see a few side roads with little blue and white "Area Closed" signs.  What's being hidden back there?  Well, come along and find out!

Bosque's Winter Birds

One of my major duties at Bosque del Apache NWR this winter season was to drive a tour van for the 4 free Refuge tours each weekend.  Surprisingly, not a single one of them was dedicated to the Sandhill Cranes that most visitors come wanting to see.

As magnificent and thrilling as the cranes are, let’s face it, they’re big and rather slow-moving, predictable birds.  Pretty easy to spot, sit and watch for hours at a time—no binoculars or bird guide books required!  So, the tours aimed to focus on all the other birds of the Refuge.  The ones that might take a bit more help to spot and identify.

White Christmases

After returning from my quick trip to Florida in mid-December to become a Floridian, I headed up to Colorado for an early Christmas with my brother and his family in the Vail valley.  As I approached the New Mexico/Colorado border, I caught a glimpse of my first snowy peak:

15 Favorite Images of 2015

As we paddled out onto the crystal clear waters of Baja's Bahia de Concepcion last January, little did Millie or I know what monumental changes were in store for us in 2015.

Cancer took Millie just 2 months later, and a month after that, I got my own cancer diagnosis.  Life is very different now at the end of 2015 than it was at the beginning-- not in a significantly better or worse way necessarily, just forever changed.

My photography took a bit of a back seat to the more urgent matters of life this year.  Not as much time and energy for tripods, dragging out the best (heavy) lenses and cameras, or enduring long waits or long hikes to get "the shot."

Yet, looking back over all of my 2015 images, I did manage to experience some pretty diverse scenes this year-- so without further adieu, here are my 15 favorites from 2015.  Enjoy!

Merry Christmas from New Mexico

Tonight as I drove back home through New Mexico from Colorado (an early Christmas celebration this week with my brother and his family), I was delighted by the hundreds of luminarias lining the streets of the many little New Mexican towns I drove through.

This New Mexico Christmas Eve tradition began hundreds of years ago with the belief that these pathways of light would help guide the spirit of the Christ child to one's home or church.

5 Tips for a Cozy Winter RV Home (plus the conclusion of my electrical saga!)

As darkness descends on the Chihuahuan desert at our 4500-foot elevation, it can get pretty cold here on a winter night in central New Mexico…especially if the winds are blowing. 

Sunny mornings are now starting to show the evidence—frost on my skylight!

Even though I’ve experienced a couple cold nights while traveling (rapidly) from Chicago to warmer destinations in previous years, I’ve never spent an entire winter season in a location that gets below freezing nearly every night.  So, I’ve recently had a lot to learn about making my RV comfortable for winter living. Fortunately, fellow volunteers here at the Refuge have provided some excellent tips!

If you might be RVing in some cold and remote places this winter, here are 5 ways to keep your RV home comfy and cozy:

Festival of the Cranes

Whew!  What a week it’s been!  Over 6,000 visitors, 15,000 birds, and dozens of tired staff members and volunteers who are now thankful for a mini-Thanksgiving break.  But, oh what a fun time we all had at the 28th Annual Festival of the Cranes!

Busy Days on the Refuge & a New Job

Since the 18 new volunteers arrived 2 weeks ago, it’s been a flurry of activity here at Bosque del Apache NWR.  Between training sessions, pot lucks, and preparing for the big Festival of the Cranes (that starts this Tuesday), it’s been an exceptionally busy time.  Add to that, a new job for me here on the Refuge, lots of new major personal legal/financial changes to plan (as a result of the new 2016 ACA Healthcare plans), and a little episode of nearly burning down my RV last week….and I’ve felt rather scattered in 101 directions this month!

Sorta like these snow geese.  One day they’re enjoying a nice relaxing sunny afternoon resting in one of the ponds…

and the next day they’re buzzing over the tourists’ cars fleeing for their lives!

The Masses Are Arriving…with 1 Rare Bird

It’s been a busy week at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in central New Mexico!  Not only have our first big flocks of Greater Sandhill Cranes arrived, but a full crop of volunteers rolled into the RV village this week too!

As the first flock of 400 Sandhills rested off the Flight Deck during their first afternoon here, we quickly spotted one bird that had become the “Rock Star of the Refuge” last winter.  Can you spot “Lucy”?

Feathers, Foliage, Pies & Skies

That about sums up my first month here at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in central New Mexico.  When I arrived in late September, the sunflowers were still in bloom as daytime highs still hovered around 90 degrees.  One month later, Autumn is now in full swing as we begin to welcome back our famous winter residents.

Fun at the Fiesta

With so much uncertainty to my travel schedule this year, I had just about written off any hope of attending my first Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque.  I’d always heard you had to book reservations months in advance, especially if wanting to stay at the park in an RV.  I also had always thought it was ridiculously expensive.

But after seeing a few posts on the Xscapers Facebook Group that suggested otherwise, and reading the Balloon Fiesta’s FAQ document that mentioned short-term, non-reservation, “Drive-In” camping as being virtually unlimited at their massive Standard RV Parking lot ($30/night boondocking), I decided to pack up the Winnie and head up to Albuquerque to give it a shot.

Back to Bosque via Great Sand Dunes

I decided to spend my last night and morning in Colorado at a place I’ve wanted to see for a long time but had never managed to get to—Great Sand Dunes National Park near Alamosa.  As I descended down from Poncha Springs into the vast San Luis Valley, the storm clouds started building.

From One Refuge To Another

I had just over a week between my last work day at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge (at the end of April), and the start of my medical appointments in Chicago.  After carefully checking Weather.com to ensure no Springtime tornados would be ripping through Kansas for a few days, I decided to take a direct but leisurely drive back to Illinois from New Mexico, and stop in Kansas and Missouri to visit a few National Wildlife Refuges (NWRs) along the way.

The clouds started gathering as I stopped for one last photo at the Bosque entrance sign--

Bosque in April

With medical issues now settling into boring old recovery mode (yeah!), it’s now time to catch the blog up on my final month at Bosque del Apache NWR this past April.

As I looked out my RV window one evening at the beginning of April, a brilliant rainbow filled the big New Mexico sky.

The month was off to a great start!

A Very Different Memorial Day

This Monday in May honors all the brave American Armed Forces men and women who sacrificed their lives to provide the freedoms we currently enjoy.  A good day to also share my visit to a very thought-provoking military national landmark in central New Mexico this past April.

I began the morning of April 4th at around 5:30 a.m. in the pitch black darkness before sunrise.  It was time to witness another burst of orange in the sky-- a lunar eclipse (a.k.a. “blood moon”).

While still somewhat brisk, this New Mexico morning was not as nearly cold as photographing the eclipse a year ago from my snowy backyard in Chicago in the middle of the night!  With that “astro-geek” mission accomplished, I returned to the RV for breakfast and to prepare for the real event of the day—a visit to the Trinity Site.

Bosque Wildlife – early Spring

Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge is well-known for its large migratory flocks of Sandhill Cranes, Snow Geese, and ducks that call Bosque “home” from mid October to mid February.  At peak, there can be over 50,000 of these birds snuggled together on the Refuge, and it is a top destination for photographers, birders, and crane-lovers.

I originally visited Bosque twice during those winter months (take a look here and here) and came away with some nice photos of the signature flocks.  But what would there be to see and photograph during a non-prime season at Bosque, specifically in March?

I would soon find out!

The Life of a Bosque Volunteer

While I wait here in Chicago for my medical fun to begin (June 1st is my new surgery date), I thought I’d start catching the blog up on my time spent in New Mexico volunteering earlier this Spring.

When I arrived to Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in mid-March, Spring had yet to arrive to central New Mexico’s elevation of 4,500 feet…and I had yet to learn whether this volunteer RVing lifestyle would be all I had hoped it would be.   Would it feel like a J-O-B?  Would I get bored?  Would I fit in with others working the Refuge? Would I learn the vast amount of necessary information quickly enough to become an effective resource to visitors?  Would I want to continue doing volunteer gigs like this in the future?

It didn’t take long for Spring to “spring” or for me to get the answers to all of these burning questions!