2022: Year-In-Review

January

We spent the last few weeks of last year planning a lot of trips for this year.  By the time January arrived, we were ready to get going!

We were out and about every week birding close to our home. 

Mark had been talking about a trip to New Mexico to see three species of Rosy-Finches that we have never seen.  There is a special place called Sandia Crest house where all three can be found.  We kept checking e-bird and finally there were reports of the finches arriving. 

We didn’t take the RV for this trip but instead stayed in hotels.

We only saw one of the finches, but we had a great trip and saw plenty of snow and other birds.

Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch

February

On February 3^rd we got a little snow at our house. 

 

We were supposed to travel to Colombia two years ago, right before covid.  The trip had been re-scheduled three times, but we finally made it there in mid-February.

It was our first trip to Colombia.  We had a wonderful time.

We finished the Colombia photo wall:

March

March was a pretty quiet month for us. We spent many mornings birding our local hot spots.

The first day of Spring we were headed to South Llano State Park for our first outing of the year with our RV. 

I had 10 afghans to donate to Project Linus. 

          

I discovered the world of amigurumi (Japanese word meaning “small knitted or crocheted stuffed toys”).

          

April

We took the trailer down to Goose Island State Park and enjoyed several days of very windy birding.  As usual, the food was wonderful!

Later that month a severe hailstorm had us getting estimates for a new roof. 

 

May

Having a new roof installed due to last month’s hailstorm derailed most of our plans for Mark’s birthday this year. 

We did get to the Frio Bat Cave for the flight out (a repeat of last year). But we had to be home that same evening to meet the roofers the next day. 

I had seven afghans to take to Project Linus. 

June

We had been wanting to get up to Michigan for several years and this month was a great time to visit.

We had a wonderful time and hope to get back again. 

Kirtland's Warbler 

Pileated Woodpecker

July

For my birthday this year we went to Alaska. The trip didn't quite turn out as planned. 

Peak tourist season, warm weather, very little wildlife, heavy smoke from over 400 wildfires, and the grand finale – COVID. But we did get to see Denali several times, so...

Denali

August

We didn't take any trips this month. Most mornings we went birding around our favorite spots close to home.  We did manage to get the kayaks out a couple of times.

September

We took our first trip to Peru this month.  We got busy when we arrived back home and never did blog it.

We saw some great birds, including the unique Hoatzin, considered one of the most primitive of bird species. 

Hoatzin

Just a sampling of other beautiful birds are the White-throated Toucan and Rufous-crested Coquette (a tiny hummingbird). 

White-throated Toucan

Rufous-crested Coquette - male

We also saw a great variety of mammals, including these Black-capped Squirrel Monkeys next to a Tufted Capuchin (grumpy monkey!). 

October

The weather started getting cooler in October so we headed out in the travel trailer.  We went to S. Llano River State Park for a few days.

The park has four different birding blinds with feeders and water features, so we always see some good birds. 

Ladder-backed Woodpecker male

I finished 11 afghans and had fun making a few more amigarumi's.

 

               

November

Our November trip was out to Davis Mountains State Park.

Our site.

We visited some favorite birding spots like the Chihuahuan Desert Nature Center and Gardens where we watched a Cactus Wren building a nest in Cholla Cactus, but we also explored a couple of new areas. 

Cactus Wren nestbuilding

One new area was called Sandia Wetlands and was great for shorebirds. Another was the seldom visited "Primitive Area" of Davis Mountains State Park, which is located on the north side of State Highway 118.

Kildeer

December

We finished off the year with a trip to Goose Island State Park.  The weather turned very cold with a predicted low of 22 in the park and 11 at home so we left Goose a couple of days early.

We saw plenty of birds, including the stars of the area, the endangered Whooping Cranes. This is an adult pair with their colt, which is the term for juvenile cranes. 

I bought my last magnet of the year.

Alaska to Texas - Final Thoughts, and Souvenirs

We woke up the next morning feeling pretty rough. The hotel store had COVID tests and we bought a couple, and sure enough we both tested positive. 

The cruise portion of our trip wasn't scheduled to leave for a couple more days, so we contacted UnCruise and cancelled our cruise. We extended our hotel stay in Anchorage a few more days and stayed in the room (thank goodness for Uber Eats!). 

We flew Alaska Air back to Texas.  We had one stop in Seattle then straight through to San Antonio. It was a lot easier flying back to Texas than flying to Alaska. 

Final thoughts: 

Don’t go to Alaska in the middle of the summer!!!

It is the peak of tourist season and the towns and popular parks are packed. The weather is warm and it is pretty much daylight 24 hours.  

We had a wonderful group of people on our tour but it reminded us that we really like being able to go at our own pace.  We prefer to get up early and avoid the crowds. 

While UnCruise does an excellent job of creating a unique small-boat cruise experience which is much different than the larger cruise lines, their land tour package was pretty typical. 

This trip also reminded us that National Parks have become some of the worst places to find either solitude or nature. While the adjacent Denali State Park was delightful, Denali National Park was a zoo. 

Finally, we learned that Alaska in July 2022 was a great place to catch COVID. With tens of thousands of people arriving from all over the world, crowding into airports, buses, trains and restaurants, there was a lot of COVID being transmitted. We learned that 19 of 65 people on the cruise that we missed ended up with COVID. We've also talked to a couple of folks back in Texas with friends that went to Alaska and contracted COVID this summer either on cruises or land tours. 

Souvenirs:

We bought t-shirts when we kayaked.  I bought a hat because I only brought warm hats and I certainly didn’t need them!  The little pin in the shape of Alaska was given to everyone from Andrew (our driver).

We had tried this syrup made from birch.  It's good (not as good as maple syrup from Maine) but we enjoyed it.

I bought a few magnets:

On the train I bought this magnet:

People that see Denali are said to be in the 30% club.  Since we saw Denali several different days, we joked that we were in the 10% club.

I mistakenly bought 2 of these magnets! One just says Denali National Park but the image is the same.

I really liked this one. We saw everything on this magnet.

This little stuffed bear has magnets in his feet.

A very wiggly moose. I like the action type magnets.

It was a nice birthday trip even though it didn't turn out quite like we expected. Alaska is a beautiful state. 

We have a credit for the cruise portion of our trip, and we'll plan to take it early next year, in the off-season!!

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Alaska – Denali to Anchorage

After being in Denali for 3 days it was time to start back to Anchorage.  We woke up to a rainy day and it rained gently all day. Since we were going to be on the bus most of the day, it was really quite enjoyable to see the rain. 

We had a quick breakfast on our own then we were on the bus at 7:30. 

Shortly after setting out Andrew saw a couple of cars pulled over and knew that usually meant an animal of some sort. Sure enough, a moose was walking alongside the highway.  

We continued on to Palmer where we stopped for lunch. 

After lunch we had a couple of hours to walk around Palmer.  I don’t think there is really anything special about Palmer, it was just a good place to have lunch. 

Palmer is the 9^th largest city in Alaska (pop. 7,400).  The Alaska State Fair is held here and it’s about 40 miles from Anchorage.

We all had lunch together then walked down to the visitor center.  There were some beautiful gardens to walk through.  They had several displays about the enormous vegetables that are grown in Alaska during the summer. Twenty-plus hours of sunshine makes a difference! The rain had let up and it was very pleasant.

Click to enlarge.

We walked around the museum/visitor center for a while.

We were back on the bus by 2:00.  Since there were only 17 people on our trip, we each could have our own seat, if we wanted.

We were in Anchorage by 2:30 and drove straight to the Anchorage Native Heritage Center. 

We had a little time to walk around before the demonstration started.  There were some folks set up with tables with hand made items for sale.  There were very nice displays. 

A very talented group of young people entertained us. 

We got back to the hotel (Hilton) about 4:30. That is when the trouble started.  

Annie started handing out room keys and breakfast vouchers.  She discovered that she had given the wrong keys to a couple and while we were waiting for that couple to come back down to the lobby other people started coming back saying they didn’t have luggage in their room or they had someone else’s luggage, or it was a mixture of their luggage and someone else’s.

We didn’t have a room. Nor did we have any luggage.  When you travel with the kind of camera equipment we do, it is very worrisome when you are told that your luggage isn’t where it’s supposed to be.  We always have our binoculars and one camera and one or two lenses with us, but there is a whole suitcase full of other gear.

Annie soon figured out that her list of rooms was completely different from the list the front desk had given to the luggage handlers.  Besides us not having a room at all, another couple had two rooms.  We found the luggage handlers and they remembered our luggage and which room they had put them in. 

Annie eventually got everything straightened out, everyone met back up to walk to a restaurant for our final meal together.

We said goodbye to everyone and we were back in our room by 7:30 and ready to be finished with the day. We were feeling run-down and a little under the weather. We thought maybe it was from the smoky air that we'd been breathing. 

Next time:  The flight home, final thoughts, and souvenir magnets.