Ημερολόγιο της/του cliftonladd

In November 2002, Brenda and I went with some friends to Chinati Hot Springs (the name of the business operating at what is officially known as Ruidosa Hot Springs). On that trip, our friend Bill Corrigan proposed to Lucia Athens, and she said yes. So this November 2019 trip was kind of a return to the source. The source of the hot spring water and the source of Bill & Lucia's now 15-year marriage. May they have many more years!

To make the trip even more enjoyable, we ran into Myron Hess & Gail Rothe, who coincidentally arrived just after us on Sunday the 24th. Then by chance Janine Bergin & Bill Breaux came in on the next day with four of their friends, all from Austin. So we had a big gathering of Austin folks and a good time sharing the communal kitchen, hot springs, and campfire.

View of the Chinati Hot Springs oasis from the hill above.

We only put down a few birds, because we were doing lots of other things besides birding. The few that we saw on the trip and approximate numbers. (Posted on eBird at https://ebird.org/checklist/S62081550?share=true)
White-winged dove - 10
Killdeer - 2 in Hot Springs Creek
Ladder-backed woodpecker - 2
Ruby-crowned kinglet - 2
Canyon wren - 1
Northern mockingbird - 2
Lesser goldfinch - 25
Northern cardinal - 2
Pyrrhuloxia - 1

From here, Bill & Lucia and Brenda & I headed over to Big Bend Ranch State Park and camped in the Grassy Banks campground. https://www.inaturalist.org/journal/cliftonladd/29345-grassy-banks-campground-big-bend-ranch-state-park-presidio-county-tx-nov-26-27-2019

Three favorites: sunburst diving beetle (Thermonectus marmoratus), a short-wing katydid (Dichopetala sp.), and a potter wasp (Eumenes bollii).

(Notes 146: 14-21)

We came here after our two nights at Chinati Hot Springs, and we only stayed here one night, but it was a nice night. We found out after we got back to Austin that my friend and colleague John Williamson and his wife Rachel Thompson also camped there that night, but we didn't see them there that night.

At sunset we headed west on SH 170 to the Big Hill to try to get a good view of the sunset. This was the "high point" of the trip, because it was the tallest hill we went up and it was here that we met a new friend, Praveen Gunaseelan. Lucia tells the story here: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2851757394854674&set=a.102789809751460&type=3.

Engelmann's prickly pear (Opuntia engelmannii) on the Big Hill.