We relax for a bit on this lovely day in Alex's apartment in the Hayes Valley neighborhood of San Francisco.  The boy is bicycling with friends about this hilly town.  We met him early this morning, and he took us on a trolly (not the trolly) to the Ferry Building Farmers' Market.  Returning to this neighborhood he brought us to sample a fine coffee and treats at a delicatessen.  These made a fine lunch. 

So, we found the California Gnatcatcher, an irritating little bird that has caused southern California developers nightmares.  A little gray bird with a cute mew of a call, it inhabits the coastal scrub habitat of the California coast from near the tip of the Baja Peninsula to just north of Los Angeles.  It's "critical habitat" is on the coastal hillsides that make such fine property for building one's twenty million dollar house.  Oh we

The problem with the climate here is that it is so good that people notice imperfections in the weather.  They complain, "It was 62 degrees at dawn instead of 65." or "There was a mist over the harbor in the morning obscuring the veiw of the island." or "It rained almost too much this month for the cacti in the garden."  Too many such problems might endanger the view that the climate here is too perfect.  As an outsider, I must concede that the climate is not too perfect, it is only perfect.

Chuck and Anne have recently recently asked questions about the blog which I thought I would answer on the blog in case the information was useful to others. 

Formatting

Greetings all.  Posting this blog live will avoid creating the giberish text that seems always to show up when I paste from MS Word.  Here we have Internet, at least at the RV Park office.  We arrived here within sight of Las Vegas yesterday after a two-day drive from Albuquerque.  Yesterday morning we awoke in a park just outside Winslow AZ.  We woke up early on Mountain Daylight Time, but Arizona does not use Daylight time, so we were on the road while most of Arizona slept.  Coming through town we had to stop at the "Standing on the Corner" Park.

We are more precisely about five miles east of the town made famous by popular music at the park next to the reservoir.  Camping here is literally dry.  There is no potable water, but there are about a dozen paved sites with picnic tables and grills.  There is a restroom, but a notice states that the water is not potable.  The fee is zero dollars.  This fee and the lovely view of the high desert and the red rock lined lake belo

Weather forecasted for Colorado having changed our plans, we steered southwest from Elkhart KS yesterday across the Oklahoma panhandle and a corner of Texas before reaching the state of New Mexico.  Along the way we saw our first Chihuahuan Ravens of the year.  The strong wind that fought us all the way served to expose the white base of one of these black bird’s feathers, confirming the identification.  Otherwise, except for their voice, they are scarcely different from the Common Raven.&n

This afternoon I sit wearing a T-shirt and watch and feel a warm breeze sweep through the open windows of our camper.  What a change even from this morning when we left in the dark dressed in long underwear and heavy jackets.  Dawn found us sitting in a creaky metal blind on the Cimarron National Grasslands.  The first sound, not our own, was of a Western Meadowlark prematurely greeting the day. 

Noon finds us in the Newton library.  We were up before dawn to find a foggy drippy morning.  We went to Prairie Ridge State Preserve anyway to find it equally gloomy.  Still, when we approached the Greater Prairie Chicken viewing area we heard the eerie calls coming from the booming ground.  We stayed until 9 a.m. when the birds became silent.  Only later did the warm sunshine clear the air and sky.

This late afternoon we have settled in at Sam Parr State Park in southern Illinois after a successful two days of travel in our Winnebago Minnie motorhome, or “Harley” as we call this vehicle.