April 9-11 -- A Monsoon-y Storm, First Results From My Canon 100-400 MK II Lens, And A Tucson Run

The weather pattern for Basin and Range topography seems to be rain on the west side of the mountains, dry on the east side. The Sierra Nevada is a good example of that, with a thickly-forested west slope, and a much drier eastern one. It seems like the Chiricahuas are no exception; rain has dropped on the west side recently, but at least in the Portal area it's been mostly some sound and no fury. In February and March we received about as close to zero percent precipitation as you can get without it actually being zero, and for the most part April has been shaping up the same way. Whatever happened to the massive El Nino that was supposed to have been one continuous soaking? Instead, we've had temperatures averaging in the mid-70s and sometimes accompanied by wind (hence my shingles coming off the roof). Take these last 2 days, for example. The days have begun with clouds, spectacular  ones; one would think "red sky in the morning, sailor take warning" -- if we weren't hundreds of miles away from the ocean -- 

That was taken with my new Canon 100-400 IS L f/4.5 MK II lens, but more on that in a moment. The cloud cover gained a pinkish hue, seen from my front yard looking northeast -- 

Evidence that SOMEthing was happening "up there" was in abundance, spectacularly so --

THAT was taken from Faranuf's back yard. (Sorry, I don't mean to sound like I'm rubbing it in, but I'm still blown away by the vistas from my property.).

I've had my Canon 100-400 f/5.6 lens for at least 3 years now (and had another 100-400 before that, but I won't go into what happened to THAT one). It's a fine lens, if you can get past the fact that anything feels like too short of a reach if you have a 500mm too. And that the image quality just isn't the same, either -- but that's because the Canon 500 f/4 lens is a prime, so the IQ is pretty much unbeatable. So I was pleasantly surprised to see how much of an improvement the 100-400 Mark II was over the Mark I, especially in terms of image quality --

Curve-billed Thrasher

It's just about as good as the 500. Here's Mrs. Northern Cardinal; it seems like the Mr and Mrs are taking up at least temporary residence on my property -- and there's also another male Cardinal who's an occasional visitor --

But there are those fleeting occasions when the action happens so fast that all you can do is watch...The backyard birds seem to have a signal among each other to fly to protection and cover every so often. One second they're at the feeders or on the ground, then the next second they fly off all at the same time and hide. "Practice" like that holds them in good stead when, say, Zone-tailed Hawk decides to see if he can get a bird-to-go, which is exactly what happened in my back yard the other day. I saw this bird on the ground, seeing if he could pick something up, and you usually don't see Zone-taileds unless they're way up in the air. So I can put that on my Yard Bird list -- or any other bird I can view from my property. But it just goes to show that there is a chance you can see anything here...

As mentioned above, the weather lately has been more sound than fury. In fact, the report came in that we had pretty much zero precipitation during the entire month of March. Same with February, too. But we have had some spectacular cloudscapes --

And on Sunday evening a partial rainbow formed into a immense one, and even a bit of a double which you can barely make out on the left in the photo below. And I just read that someone saw a  rare triple rainbow around the same time. The rainbow was so long that I decided to try taking 2 overlapping photos and turn them into a panorama. It's a challenge, with the constantly shifting clouds and light which changes the rainbow's intensity, but it worked -- 

Taken from my front yard..Again, I'm blown away by my views... 

On Monday the 11th it was time to do a run to Tucson, a drive of about 160 miles to the west. I had a new set of tires to pick up. The way I ordered them was another example of how the Internet has made it so much easier to live out here, where conveniences are limited. I went online, ordered the tires on tirerack.com, selected where I wanted them delivered and installed, called to make an appointment -- and voila, I have 5 (4 plus the spare) new Michelin tires for the trips to High Island and up to Alaska beginning in July. Except I have to make the long drive to Tucson to get them, but that's ok as I can do other errands while I'm there. The early start to my travel day began with ground fog from a little spritzing we received overnight, and a nice predawn scene, taken with my new 100-400 MK II -- 

If you want to stick to paved roads, the drive to get to Interstate 10 is 7 miles to the east into New Mexico on Portal Road,  then 30 miles north to the I-10, when you head back into Arizona heading west. The scenery was high-desert spectacle on the way up to the interstate --

The ground fog lifting over the Peloncillos -- 

Looking to the west with one of my favorite views, Hwy 80 seemingly heading straight into Cave Creek Canyon -- 

It seems like there is constant road work being done on the stretch of interstate between Benson and Tucson, but thankfully it's a breeze, and I get to Tucson around 9am. When you make a long drive such as this, you want to take advantage of the conveniences of a big city, so I drop off a package at the UPS store (my first shipment of a 100-400 MK II from Amazon; seems like they tried to give me a replacement instead of a new one, as there was no instruction manual or tripod collar included), pick up bikes that my friends Mark and Lori had ordered, go to Costco to get supplies for myself and other Portalites (you ask folks back home if they need anything from the big city), then get the tires that I'd ordered online. (Interestingly, at the Goodyear tire place I chat with the employee helping me; he said he spent some time in Palmer, Alaska which "has a population of 100,000 but that's including the vast surrounding area "-- the actual town is infinitesimally smaller. I told him the population of Portal is 60, and if you throw in the surrounding area it's 300. Let's see Palmer, AK beat THAT!) The result is I leave the tire store with 5 spanking-new Michelins, an ice chest full of refrigerated supplies, and 2 bikes in the back. And as a treat for a job well done, I spy an In-and-Out on the way back to the I-10, and suddenly get a craving for a Double Double with cheese and a chocolate shake. (Well, it's not as if I can have that every day living out where I do.) I head back, stop off at a feed store in Wilcox, 75 road miles from Portal, to get some bird seed (again, for a friend), get some bananas at the Willcox Safeway (again, for a friend), see some spectacular scenery at Granite Gap on the final homebound section of road -- 

And I'm back at Faranuf, about 10 hours after I've started. Such is living out in a rural area, but I don't consider it to be an inconvenience at all. OK, if the gas prices weren't $2.09 and cheaper, then it might be, but until then -- it's fun, and no, I'm not a macochist... :o)