Petroglyphs

Continuing on the theme of things I haven't ever done in ABQ, we spent Sunday morning exploring the Petroglyph National Monument.

We wanted to go somewhere where we would have a chance of seeing some wildlife, but given the cooler weather, we weren't sure if anything would be out and about. We decided to check out the petroglyphs, so that we would be sure to see something cool even if the animals weren't out.

 The trail we were on goes up a valley rimmed with volcanic rocks. While we were scrambling over the rocks, a family down below found a large bull snake. TD went to see & caught it so they could see it.

 She was very calm.

 While TD was playing snake handler, look what I found - a western diamondback.

 Some of the glyphs were very elaborate like this warrior with a headdress.

 My favorite were the animal shapes like these birds, snakes & turtles

 Deer? Armadillo?

We saw another bull snake on our way out. The trail we did was a nice 1.5 miles out and back which took us about 2 hours poking along. And we were happy we didn't choose to ride the skyrail to Sandia Peak as the mountains were stormy all morning.

Adventures!

We had some fun travel & adventure last month - a wedding in NM, Brother's graduation, & fieldwork (for frogs & bears!).

We also experienced our first tropical storm here, which brought some much needed rain. Before we headed off on our trip, we had a nice sunset evening at the prairie with our pals J & K (who are now residing in Berkeley, sniff).

 We love the trees here - the spanish moss is amazing!

 We often see Cottonmouth's right on the trail. We were there this time at sunset and we could see why - tons of very cut, fat (and presumably tasty) Cotton Rats.

 The prairie is so dry right now!

 Gorgeous sunset over the prairie

 This sink is one of the only permanent water sources. The gators love it!

 Can you see them?

 We were watching great blue herons and other birds come in for the night.

Don't expect to see the Bison! They have been exterminated! 

(actually they did remove the males because the territory wasn't large enough & because of conflict with humans).

Corvallis OR

Neither TD nor I had ever been to Corvallis - though we thought we might end up living there as it was TD's first choice for a postdoc for a while. We had a great time visiting our friends T & J and their adorable toddler M. The weather was unseasonably cool and rainy (blame La Nina - its the same reason its been unseasonably hot and dry where we live) but was a nice change. It never really rained on us so we don't have much to complain about.

We went on a couple of short hikes.

 TD showed M and T how to look for animals under logs

 Baby M is a budding biologist! She was super interested in finding insects in the dirt.

 Banana slug!

 BIIIIIG trees. They don't make them like that around here!

 Banana slugs were out in full force...

 We even got to see a newt pond. Too late for the breeding aggregations, but there were still lots hanging out in the water.

 A rough skinned newt - Taricha granulosa

After the hike, we did a little wine tasting. We visited a winery in the beautiful Harris Valley. It was so picturesque - there was even a covered bridge!

The winery makes only dessert wines. Yum!

 TD caught a frog - Baby M was very impressed!

After a hard day of hiking and wine tasting J and Baby M made us a pizza. We had so much fun hanging out with these guys - I wish we didn't live on opposite corners of the country.

Backyard Inhabitants

We have a pair of green anoles  that live by the back door - the other day I caught this guy sunning himself on a stick that had fallen onto the jasmine. The same day I watched her boyfriend display his dewlap (red skin fold under his chin) out the study window. I love where we live!