I'd encountered no snakes, and the sounds of birds woke me up in the morning -- along with the fantastic view to the west, looking up Cave Creek Canyon; I never got tired of this view --
This was taken on Saturday April 19, just before I left the Chiricahuas. A storm was coming through, so I dodged raindrops as I hitched up Discovery to Tundra, muttering a few oaths of the "Godfrey Daniels!" variety as the rain fell harder. (I heard from a friend afterward that it hailed in Portal that afternoon.) The evening before I had a barbecued rib dinner with Helen Snyder, my real estate agent and new friend, along with her husband Noel and their circle of friends, at the Portal Store, while a country music band played outside. And just before that I spent an hour at Maya Decker's house just down the road from the boondocking spot. Maya used to live in southern California and was active in Orange County's Sea and Sage Audubon chapter; she subsequently moved to Portal and bought a converted hotel, a rambling structure that she lovingly restored and added to. Her garden is well-known for its birds, particularly hummingbirds, and in this part of SE Arizona that means Lucifer's and Magnificents; here's the latter --
She also has Orioles as regular visitors, such as this male Hooded Oriole in "red hot poker" plants --
But back to Saturday and leaving the Chiricahuas...There's a house in the area that I'm interested in
buying. I'd visited it during my stay and had a "walkthrough" with Helen. I took one last look --
And placed my camera lens against the glass of the "Arizona Room", a long room in the back running the width of the house --
It's not an overstatement to say I fell in love with the Chiricahuas, Portal and the Black Hawk house, and its friendly and helpful residents. So it was with a twinge of regret that I headed back up Hwy 80 to Interstate 10 and started the drive west back to southern California. But I had one last look at the Chiricahua Mountains at Fort Bowie, where a thunderhead had formed over the northern end of the Chiricahuas --
In fact, thunderheads were popping up over the mountain ranges, and the wind was picking up. I stayed with my brother and his family overnight at Sierra Vista, then continued west on the I-10 then I-8, going through the saguaro desert that turned into the Mojave desert. I arrived at my day's destination, Salt Creek Campground on the north shore of the Salton Sea --
Salt Creek is a major bird "hangout"-- White and Brown Pelicans, Terns, Black-necked Stilts, Avocets, gulls of all types, and a "lifer" for me -- Red Knots, and in breeding plumage too --
I was thrilled when I saw my first one. Then I saw another, then another, then...I stopped counting at 30. OK, so they WEREN'T so special, at least at the Salton Sea...Flies were everywhere, and with the "Sea stench" and needle-sharp fish bones on the shoreline visiting the Sea can be a challenging experience, but the birds and landscape make it all worthwhile. The next day, the 21st, I start the drive into the Los Angeles basin, but stop off at the rest stop in Banning for a quick photo of Tundra and Discovery with Mount San Jacinto in the background --
and 4 hours later I'm at my RV spot in Long Beach, near the bike path and a marine reserve where Skimmers and Terns hang out --
It's time to see the family and friends, do chores -- and use the swimming pool so I can get my money's worth out of this expensive RV park...
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