The Adventurous Falconer: The Adventure Begins

My husband and I are being stationed in Anchorage, AK and have begun our cross-country road trip that will take us there. The first night we stayed at Cherry Creek State Park. This state park is located near Denver, CO and boasts spectacular views. As we step out of the car, we are greeted with a reprieve from the heat with a breezy what felt like 75° day. I hail from Oklahoma, where our “mountains” are composed of red rock and reach the altitude of 2464 feet. As you can see from the picture below, the mountains in Colorado rival those of Oklahoma, and have achieved a height that makes the Wichitas in Oklahoma look like an anthill. Admittedly, I will miss the outdoor climbing and wildlife the Wichitas offered and I’m sure to come back to them someday. There were also several signs of wildlife to see at Cherry Creek including a Mule Deer (Odocoileus sp.) -probably belonging to the Rocky Mountain subspecies, and several bird species. I don't claim to be an ornithologist so if my captions don't contain a species name... I probably gave up or didn't have my field manual handy to make an identification. My dog Nala, a German Wirehaired Pointer, experienced her first running water at an off-leash dog park. Although hesitant at first, she ended up bounding off the rock barrier after balls and sticks. Adam and I had planned to leave that morning around 7 AM to make it to our next stop near Ogden, UT with daylight to spare; what we hadn’t planned was for their to be bright light outside at 3 AM. So, after lying awake for some time we hesitantly arose at 5:58 AM and were on the road within an hour.

Nala on point

Nala loving her play time

Dinner- rice, broccoli, and chicken

Nala enjoying her time in the H2O

Mule Deer (Odocoileus sp.)

Campsite nestled in trees

The second day we crossed through Wyoming, it was a long, arduous drive. At around the sixth hour driving through mostly desolate landscape, I decided to relive my childhood by pumping my arm causing a trucker to pull his horn. This act caused Adam to flush a bright red and cajole me. I must say it was just as fun as I remember and as we drove by the smile on the trucker’s face was priceless. We arrived at Willard Bay State Park in the late afternoon on Tuesday the 10^th of July 2012. Much to our dismay as we step out of the car it is just about as hot as it was back in Oklahoma, what feels like a searing 100 degrees. Again, as with Colorado, Utah also has mountains to boast about and I’ve taken some photos to share with you below. Pulling into our campsite a covey of Quail starts to flush and cross the road, and once they were separated from each other, they became panicked and began to loudly call out to one another. All together, the group comprised of four adults and at least 10 chicks. Also saw several LBB's (Little Brown Birds), Kingbirds (Tyrannus sp.), Tree Swallows (Tachycineta bicolor), and Bank Swallows (Riparia riparia). The campsite sat nestled in trees with an open view looking out onto the lake and beyond that, the mountains.