Travelling to Arizona

New Mexico landscape

Travelling to Arizona was simply longer than we expected.  No, we expected it; experiencing it was different.  We drove for hours wondering if we will ever arrive.

New energy features in South Texas

Going through Texas was a mixed experience feeling.  You had the vast expansion of landscape that was different from the east coast, then the signs of new energy with the wind farms, but the old and ugly energy vestiges were inescapable.

The scenes of old Texas with the industrialized side of the energy sector were only a few hours of the trip but it seemed interminable.  At least that's how Debbie remembers it.  And I can understand that.

We broke the monotony and stopped at a park where we saw some strange ducks.  Those were not in any of my books or apps.  I'll call them "horned duck".  Don't look it up! I made it up.

New Mexico landscape

New Mexico certainly has a unique landscape.  Arid, but pretty arid.  Rocky mountains, wait! those are just big hills, no, mountains, hard to tell.  Then desert shrub expanses, and back to some greens, back to rocky, always changing.  Nice!

We traveled all day and never made it to Arizona.  Tired, we spent the night in a cozy hotel in Las Cruzes.  The bed was either very comfortable or we were very tired.  And I forgot the name of the hotel, so we must have been very tired.

We saw Ciudad Juàrez, a city in Mexico when we were going through El Paso. This was before reaching Las Cruces.  Lots of lights on both sides of the border.  Juàrez is big! We got messages from our cellular phones offering deals on using our phones in Mexico.  That's how close we were to Mexico.

We reached Arizona the next day.  As we pulled in to our campground we saw the Greater Roadrunner! A bird on our target list.  This promises to be good!

A visit to Dallas to see Leah

We finally made the trip we kept talking about to go see Leah in Texas.  It was all worth it!

Leah set up her apartment nicely.  She was happy to see us and we were happy to see and spend some time with her.

Time seemed to have passed pretty quickly.  We understand why she may feel a little isolated.  Texas is far!

We've arranged for the next rendez-vous!

An impromptu weekend vacation in Florida

We thought we heard the calls of the mountains to camp for a laid back weekend in nature. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, we could not find any camping spot in North Georgia State Parks.

 Thanks to Connie making reservations, we went to Horseshoe Beach in Florida instead.
The house we stayed in was right by the water with great views.  We were in the cove with water beside us, and we could see the ocean from our decks and the numerous windows from the house.

The birding was decent with many Swallow-tailed Kites in the area and a couple of birds we were seeing and hearing regularly that we don't see in our area.  I started really liking the calls of the White-winged Doves.

White-winged Dove

The Common Ground Doves were also regular visitors.

We've explored the area at a close by Wildlife Management Area, and spent most of one day at a nearby State Park, Fanning Springs SP.

We had a picnic at the park.  Was pleasant.

Back at the house, we've enjoyed some pretty sunsets.

We had great seafood dinners both nights. There was a good seafood restaurant in town. We called in our orders, picked them up, and ate at home very leisurely.  I brought my favorite bottle of wine.

Debbie took an impromptu picture of me the last day before we left.  She wanted the canal and the ocean in the background.  You really can't see the ocean.  Vacations are great.  Especially the short ones that make you think "time went by pretty fast".

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