Tuesday, Dec. 16

Today was a condo day.  Did not accomplish much, though the tree is decorated, with Kate's help, and I figured out how to configure the living room to keep the twinsies from tumbling down the stairs or into the fireplace mantle.  Finally seem to have knocked this cold.  Took a cross country ski on the meadow in snow flurries.

The rest of the day yesterday was productive.  I even got a nice Douglas fir Christmas tree for $35; the balsam firs cost $145, and in my opinion they were too dense for ornaments.  I haven't decorated it yet.

With a prediction of snow for today, I decided to strap on the boards and make it a ski day.  I haven't been able to run as much as usual this fall due to plantar fasciitis, so I wasn't sure I'd be in shape for it, but I did OK in a shortened day on the slopes:

Didn't want to over-do it on day 1.  The snow flurries were just beginning in the afternoon, but they picked up a bit toward closing time.  I'm not sure whether the snow is going to actually pick up, but it sure did look Christmasy outside as dusk set in.  As you can see by the picture below, they need snow!

This picture was taken under the Challenger chair.  It is often windblown under there, but I've never seen it like this.  Moonlight trail was actually nice, but the traverse into it was a rocky horror picture show.

But tonight this scene is beginning to fill up with snow...

Weekend of skiing

Sunday was much nicer with 2 - 5" of fluff.  Skied that in the morning, followed by watching my fantasy football team go down in flames Sunday afternoon and evening.  :(

Woke up to a pretty view from the living room window!

Today, I'm doing some little repairs, etc around the condo, and maybe I'll get those Christmas tree lights on!

Big Sky Holiday

It's been a busy fall semester, culminating in submission of 3 papers for publication.  Need some R&R.  No better place to do that than Big Sky. This year will be different.  We'll be missing Trevor and Meghan, as they visit Meghan's family for the holiday.  But Ian's family will be showing up in force, with Ming's brother Michael joining the crew of Liya, Reiya, Ian and Ming.  Kate is here, but she'll be working a lot, so we're not sure how much we'll see of her.  She has a job at Lone Mountain Ranch, doing a bit of everything.

The trip here was interesting this time.  Parked at Quality Inn (Sleep & Fly deal; 30 days 'free' parking for 1 nt stay!), then took a shuttle in.  While I was checking in, I rec'd a text from Delta that my flight had been rescheduled FOR FRIDAY!  Holy smokes - really?  Just delay my trip a day!  Turns out the flight out of PIT had been delayed 25 minutes, which would make my connection in Minn too tight, so they delayed the entire trip a day, which was the best solution (???).   Anyway, the resolution was I went to Minn, and waited for the next flight to BZN, which necessitated hanging out in the Minneapolis airport for 4 hours or so.  They gave a $20 meal voucher, so it was not a huge deal, and I met a nice co-ed junior from U. of MT returning from Spain for the holidays and we chatted about her experiences and my research and a wide variety of stuff for a long time, which made the time pass.

This week, I'm at the condo mostly by myself (I think).  Getting ready for everyone to arrive.  Job #1 done: Replaced the float valve on the downstairs toilet, which has been leaking for at least a year unless turned off manually.  Water here is loaded with minerals, which get deposited on things (dishwashers, coffeemakers, toilets, showerheads) and clog up the works.  But I think the mineral rich waters are one of the reasons these are such great trout streams, so I'm not complaining.

This is the first year sans Kevin's family at the condo, so it will be different.  Kevin and Laurie decided the crowd here, particularly at the holidays, was getting to be too much, so they purchased a place up the hill a short ways, while we purchased their half of the condo.  They will be missed on a daily basis around here, and the closeness that was fostered and enjoyed for almost 10 years may be no longer, at least on a daily basis.  But we will certainly visit each others' places, meet up at Moonlight Lodge, and ski together (xc and downhill), so it will still be good.  And we will have more room.  Some parts of the walls are bare now though, as they took their artwork; more opportunity!

We've just added a half bath in the middle floor of the laundry room, which should further decrease the feeling of crowding, especially as people are getting going in the morning.  We're excited to see how this helps.  I ordered some nice wrought iron pieces for the new bath including towel rack, robe hook and toilet paper holder; Ian Eddy - can be found online - check it out!

Here is a picture of the bathroom (wrought iron and mirror not up):

The weather has been fairly dry, sunny, and warm here lately.  While there is snow on the meadow, you can tell it has been melting.  Supposed to snow some tomorrow I believe.

I may or may not ski today; will definitely get up to the mountain and get my Season Pass, though!  This is my first year with one of those, and I am really looking forward to the freedom it will give me.  ttfn; off to ACE to see if I can find some black screws to put up the new hangers, etc.

Christmas in Big Sky

For the second year in a row, our whole family spent Christmas in Big Sky, Montana, our home away from home. This won't be a day by day journal, but rather a quick summary. My goal was to squeeze in as much skiing as possible, particularly before Christmas, because I had purchased Bigger Sky passes that allowed Ann and me to ski free prior to Dec. 26. I think I squeezed in 6 days before Christmas. What was great about those passes is that if it wasn't a powder day, there was no feeling of guilt about arriving at the mountain at 10 AM or quitting at 3:30 to save the legs for another day. When you pay the regular price of $79 per day, it's important to get your money's worth.

Having said that, we did get in one great powder day with 10 - 15" of fluff. And it snowed a few inches here or there a number of other times. Here was a nice shot of the mountain I took with my regular camera on the way up to the peak one day. It's my screensaver now!

Isn't it a pretty mountain? Kind of reminds me of a huge Whiteface, the difference being Lone Peak is at an elevation of over 11,000 ft at the summit, while Whiteface is 4,867.

I took a couple of skiing shots, but they weren't great. We were too busy skiing to stop for photos much.

One highlight of the trip was a morning excursion into the northwest corner of Yellowstone, about 20 miles down the road. I decided to just bring my iphone (actually I think my regular camera was broken at that point) and to see what I could do with my phone camera while Colin and Kevin used their big guns. I don't really want to do a direct comparison, because I'm sure their shots were far superior, but I'll share a few of these iphone shots and you can tell me what you think. The fun part was that the temperatures were well below zero (10 - 20 below, as I recall), so steam was rising and frost was forming, with interesting crystals everywhere. Not a lot of wildlife (other than a cute family of otters!), but the scene was crisp and bewitching!

Monday in South Texas

After another scrumptiliplumpticious breakfast, we decided to head south to the very tip of southern Texas and the Rio Grande river area. I had heard about this meccas for birders and wondered why all the fuss. It didn't take long to find out. First we went to a state park south of Mercedes, TX called Estero Llanos Grande State Park. This is part of the 'World Birding Center' which is south Texas: http://www.worldbirdingcenter.org/. This series of sites is catering to birders from the world over, and it quickly became clear why. At this first state park, we walked up to the entrance, and there was a deck overlooking a wetland area, a dry erase board with birds seen that day, a docent volunteer guide and park ranger to help you i.d. birds, and 2 very nice spotting scopes for anyone to use. The birds were indeed fantastic, and we took a few loop hikes through the park to see what we could see. A number of new life listers were added by both of us. Here are some pictures, taken with a point-and-shoot, so please forgive the limited quality...


A Pauraque


This is a Green Kingfisher; terrible picture, but my favorite new bird of the whole trip, so I had to include it!


White-faced cormorant (spreading its wings) and Anhinga (background)


Great Kiskadee


Vermilion flycatcher

So you get the idea, even if the photos are suboptimal. Some day, we'll invest in real photographic equipment, because Ann and I both love photography. In the meantime, we'll let the digital world evolve a bit further and eventually, get some optics that can do these birds justice.

Our second stop was at Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park, another birding center, but we were late, the border patrol was on patrol and we saw only a golden fronted ladder backed three toed woodsapsucker (jk) and heard some very strange sounds (true!) as we hiked and ran in the dusk back to the car.

We drove in the dark past ambulances and police cars to Laredo.

Triple T; Thanksgiving Trip to Texas

OK, it was really a pre-Thanksgiving trip, but this voyage has a history. About a year ago, Ann and I realized we were doing a lot of traveling, but very little with each other. So, I decided to tag along on one of Ann's professional trips to New Mexico. Bought a ticket and everything, when the parental world spiralled downward, beginning with Betty's fall at our house at Thanksgiving. Long story short, we cancelled that trip, but got vouchers for less $ to be used within a year on American Airlines. Hmmm...with time running out, we realized the only window left in our busy schedules was the patch of days before Thanksgiving. Since we were heading up and west for Christmas, and to the Little's for Thanksgiving, we decided to look southward for a dose of warm weather, and what? birding?

Then I remembered the wonderful time had at an ESA meeting in San Antonio years ago. And the flight out of Knoxville was just a hair over the value of our vouchers. Then Ann met a serious birder at a conference who had several recommendations for Texas birdwatching. Early Saturday morning at the crack of dawn, with the Larry Little taxi service, off we flew to San Antonio. Hopped in a rental car and headed for Corpus Christi and Padre Island National Seashore.

Above is where we stayed; the George Blucher house in Corpus Christi. The neighborhood is not the greatest, but we have nothing but good things to say about the proprietors and the B&B itself. Especially the second B! Breakfasts here were outrageously good and large. In fact, so large, I started referring to them as brudinner...breakfast, lunch and dinner, caloriewise. I wish we had more pictures of each dish for you, but they came in 3 courses; a fruit course of some kind (e.g., grilled pineapple drizzled with syrup and covered with almonds, with blueberries scattered around and nutmeg), a main course (e.g., egg and cheese souffle), followed by a dessert (e.g., bananas foster, or blackberry cobbler), accompanied by juice, coffee, and croissants. Is that enough for breakfast?

Sunday, it was off to Padre Island, where we enjoyed the shore birds, Ann more than I, as she tried to resolve lingering doubts about the differents between knots and have nots; least sandpipers and most sandpipers; herons and hair-offs (baldpates?); caracaras and white tailed hawks. On the way to Padre Island, we caught this nice view of an osprey, eating his own brunch...


Here are a couple of pictures at the beach.



That evening, after a full day of scrutinizing shorebirds, we were hungry (no lunch helped...) and stopped at Snoopy's (85% approval rating on UrbanSpoon) and had nice seafood in an even nicer location. A couple of pics to give you the flavor of the evening...

iPhone post

The plane has been gate waiting for 45 minutes! Argh. Layover long enough tho. Bye!

Here Goes - A Quick Video