Heading North

I did finally get into the main camp I worked at. It had changed a lot. The new owners have put a lot of money into it, and the place was crawling with people, so it didn't spark so many memories for me.


I got this shot at Deep Creek as approached from the "main camp". It had changed quite a bit but not so much that I couldn't recognise it. It just had far fewer trees. Almost all the trees in this photo are less that 20 years old so they wouldn't have been there when I was. It's amazing how much difference that makes.


This is the work of Acorn Woodpeckers. A group of them will fill a tree with all these little holes and them stuff acorns in them to eat later.


That night I camped out along a forest service road near the camp. A fire had gone through there a couple years ago so there were a lot of dead trees and young vegetation like these ferns...


and these Iris'.


It wasn't really a beautiful site but it did give me a nice view of the sunset.


From there I went to Roy's. I didn't do a lot of photography there but we did do some snorkeling, kayaking and fishing. One afternoon I set up my camper just to show Roy and it turned into sort of a neighborhood event! Roy called his neighbor over and then his kids showed up and some people passing by... Even Roy's next door neighbor, who has a part on the TV show "Numbers", stopped by. He's a real nice guy. Roy called him Ali but that's not his full name. He's a bald black guy. Have you seen him? I'm not sure I've ever see the show myself.


The kids loved the camper. I think they were in it more than an hour. Here Roy is holding on to His Daughter Lilly who is having fun with his neighbors kids Jack and Madison. I think the knee next to Roy belongs to his wife Claudia. She came out with a fresh diaper for Lilly. I never thought I would have someone change a diaper in my camper. I guess you never know. She was 8.999 months pregnant at the time so by now they could be the parents of two. Roy better hurry with that new kids room.


I went up the coast from there. Aside from a little detour here or there I stayed right on the PCH. That's the Pacific Coast Highway. I found a lot of sea animals like these harbor seals...


And these Elephant Seals. These are all female and maybe some young males. They shed a layer of skin this time of year and that makes them very sensitive to cold so they have to get out of the water.

Flippers are great for swimming but bad for wiping your nose.


By the time I got to where the big males were the good light was gone so I didn't get many shots of them. This shot does show a male with his big floppy nose.


There aren't a lot of cheap places to camp along the PCH, but some of the parks are beautiful. This was taken at Limekiln State Park.


I think they call this Limekiln Falls.


They are currently trying to reestablish California Condors in six areas around the Southwest. One of those is near Big Sur along the PCH. The vast majority of the birds in the wild today were captive bred. Here however, they had three birds hatch successfully in the wild. They have a long way to go but that's a start. At this spot I saw these three, and three others, at one time!




These two shots were taken just north of Big Sur.



This scene is from Pinnacles National Monument. It's another spot for Condors.

I'm at a Panera Bread in San Jose. After this I'm going to head up to San Rafael to stop in on Chad. He's the guy who bought me the 500th bird pin down in Texas. We're going to try to get out and do some birding. He Promised me a Tricolored Blackbird. Didn't you Chad? OK, you can't really make promises when it comes to birds but a Tricolored Blackbird would be nice.

After that I plan to get moving on up north. I want to have plenty of time to explore in Oregon and Washington before I go on to Alaska.

Thanks for looking and thanks for your comments. It's good to know that I haven't been forgotten. Until next time...

Steve