Up at 5:30, on the Road by 6!

I took an Aleve PM last night and slept fairly well. Only woke up twice and had an abbreviated coughing spell at 4 am. Throat greatly improved but nasal congestion is a first. Nevertheless, got up at 5:30, pulled on yesterday's clothes, ate breakfast and on the road by 6 to get to the Bosque as the sun rose. This is one of my favorite things to do--but I forgot it is Saturday so we didn't have the place to ourselves as we usually do. 24 degrees and still a bunch of guys with their five foot tripods and 3 foot lenses were in clusters shooting who knows what. Still, they were basically in only one area and so the rest was ours. Don't know if it was too early or cold but the hawks were not very plentiful this morning. Bill and I call today Skunk Morning! Saw at least six in various places using their little paws to excavate grubs for breakfast. All of them at one point or another stopped what they were doing to look directly at us and then, almost noticeably, shrug their shoulders as if to say, just some of those nutty humans --out in the cold and not even digging up something to eat! At the very end of the south loop we saw three beautiful deer out together--the buck rather alert to our presence and watching his girls carefully. Lots of ducks of all sorts. A heron who just wouldn't focus the white of his chest and reflection more than my camera could take. The snow geese moved this morning off the beach and up into the farm fields for their morning meal, joined as always by the Canada geese. No javelinas anywhere today or yesterday. Lots of songbirds today, especially red-winged blackbirds. Just a beautiful misty morning with the sun turning from scarlet red to golden yellow and the moon hanging low in the sky. Returned to the motel and ate another mini breakfast. Then up to our room to shower and change clothes and work on the pictures. Snapfish has changed since yesterday--could not do a manual slideshow nor could I get the full screen picture without a miniature inset. Don't like the new arrangement. We decided this morning to stay another day and the place is full, so we had to check out of our room at noon and wait until 2 to check back in to a different room. Not sure why we couldn't keep the one we had but the poor girl on the desk is going mad with this wrestling tournament and the kids and coaches. The breakfast room girl told us it was a madhouse here by 730--glad we were off by then. BTW, don't know why the date stamp on the pix are at 9:15--we were taking pix by 615-630 and there is only a 2 hour difference and their are showing three. Just take 3 off the hour and that is when we were wandering the Bosque. Feeling tired but infinitely better than yesterday. Two hours in nature will do that for you! Now, I'm going to grab a yogurt and make lists for my visit to Perry Null. Have a lovely week-end all. The Valley Vagabonds KandB