When your mind draws a BLANK…
I was thinking all day while driving through the rain that I would write on my blog this evening. But what was it that I was going to share with you? The number of dead coyotes seen on the side of the road? The number of big rigs passing our rig – pickup and 24 foot travel trailer? THANK A TRUCK DRIVER that the food and supplies get delivered to your local store!! And in all kinds of weather – rain, wind at least up to a point, then they pull off into a truck parking area.
Truck parking areas – we use them as turn around spaces, or driver change spaces. We have also used movie theatre parking lots during this COVID CRISIS since they are EMPTY. We have driven the “pickup lanes” (pun intended!) at elementary schools as turn arounds. Pulling a 24 foot travel trailer more or less eliminates Uturns, and no single lane dirt roads either! While a LOT of WalMart parking lots no longer allow overnight parking, they usually have plenty of space for a quick shopping trip, bathroom break, and even a light lunch in the dinette we tow behind our pickup!! The parking lots are great for people watching, almost as fascinating as Airports, Bus and Train stations.
The birds that hang out in large parking lots are the same nationwide – sparrows and starlings. The roads on the other hand are great for birding in the raptor category – hawks, vultures, and crows. The LARGE reservoirs built by the Army Corp of Engineers will yield a variety of ducks, the ever-present and obnoxious Canada GEESE, and something we had never seen before a gaggle of snowy egrets!! First on the Truman Reservoir in MO, and then in Kansas as well, there were hundreds of snowy egrets. They were tightly grouped together with a couple of “outriggers” or sentries keeping guard. I guess that perhaps we are hitting the annual migration for this species.
Speaking of migration – we have discovered WHY the “snow birds” – the RVers from the northern states and even Canada - time their trips SOUTH to winter quarters in September / October. By November you are taking your chances with weather and freezing temperatures. Being in the LATE GROUP, since we were following the autumn leaf changes through ten states, we have been unhooking the water hose, and adding an additional heat source to our furnace, covering windows at night with foil SUN SCREENS or towels hung from the curtain rods! Fortunately, this is not our “first rodeo” as we lived at 9600 feet in the Front Range in CO for 3 or 4 years when the boys were small and Kathleen was just a baby. We know COLD and WIND. But the weather does interrupt the best laid plans, so we just learn patience, as if we hadn’t had that lesson on several occasions in our 60 years of marriage. Check the weather and proceed accordingly!!
Yesterday was BONUS DAY for hawks, and even a golden eagle, maybe!! Of Course, Kansas does NOT have trees right up to the side of the highway like Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi! Lots of big yellow wrapped bales of COTTON, but trees not so much! The Flint Hills break up the monotony of fields and pastures and the soil in this part of Kansas is BLACK and must be really fertile considering the number of wrapped hay bales and in multiple colors of wrapping – white, yellow, clear, blue, and purple!! It has been an interesting six months of travel, and I am sure we will continue to enjoy the changes in geology traveling the “roads less traveled” as much as possible and waiting to hear where we are supposed to PUT DOWN roots, and WHEN.
