Exploring

Hi All,

Today we visited Avery Island and Spanish Lake, looking for birds and Tabasco sauce!

Avery Island is the home of the Jungle Gardens 

Camellias in bloom

More camellias 

Pagoda housing the 900 year old Budda

Statue looted from a Chinese temple, sent to New York for sale then purchased and given to Edward Avery McIlhenny as a gift.

Edmund McIlhenny invented Tabasco Sauce in 1865.

They now fill up to 700,000 bottles a day, all here on Avery Island

Spanish Lake offered hundreds of cormorants and a beautiful sunset.

Tomorrow we drive to Florida on the worst stretch of interstate highway on the country (I-10 in Louisiana).

Love,

Sandy & Carl 

Living & Traveling in our Motorhome

Volunteering across America

greenbaum2@gmail.com

www.livingourdream2011.blogspot.com

617-435-8502

Photographed and sent from Carl's iPhone

Lafayette Louisiana

Hi All,

We began the day in the Police Station getting fingerprinted. No, we didn't get arrested, we needed the prints for our Park Service background check. After 7,000 hours of volunteering they decided to check on us;-).

In the afternoon we visited Atchafalaya National Wildlife Refuge. Lots of nice birds as we walked a couple of short trails.

Next we went to Lake Martin, described as the second largest wading bird rookery in the country. We saw hundreds of nesting great egrets as well as little blue heron, roseate spoonbill, black crowned night-heron and hundreds of white ibis that flew too deep into the swamp to be seen on the nests.

In addition to the birds, we were treated to a fabulous sunset.

This is a view over the swampy end of the lake.

Little blue heron

Black crowned night heron

Nesting pair of great egrets. No, it's not a forest fire but the sunset

Here's a better view of the sunset

One more day before we drive to Florida.

Love,

Sandy & Carl 

Living & Traveling in our Motorhome

Volunteering across America

greenbaum2@gmail.com

www.livingourdream2011.blogspot.com

617-435-8502

Photographed and sent from Carl's iPhone

Davis Mountain State Park

Hi All,

Our next stop as we head east is this beautiful state park in west Texas

A pull through site with a great view

We hiked up this trail, above and around this rock outcrop.

The CCC built this lodge in the 30's. It's still used as a motel and restaurant.

Tomorrow we continue towards Florida.

Love,

Sandy & Carl 

Living & Traveling in our Motorhome

Volunteering across America

greenbaum2@gmail.com

www.livingourdream2011.blogspot.com

617-435-8502

Photographed and sent from Carl's iPhone

Carlsbad Caverns

Hi All,

We were last here in 1977! It's amazing how little we remembered. This time we went on a ranger led tour of the King's Palace then toured the Big Room on our own. We spent over three hours more than 750 feet below the surface.

This view across the Papoose Room give a look at several different speleothems (cave formations).

These columns are incredible

As is this drapery formation

In the Queens Room, Ranger Kenny told us about the discovery of the room. Then he shut the lights out. It is amazing to see the same thing with your eyes open or closed

.
The formations in the Queens Room are awesome.

The Big Room is 114 football fields big; too big for any photograph to convey the immense size. All along the walks are these beautiful formations

And these.

This formation is called the Chinese Temple.

It was a great tour them we drove the coach 165 miles south to Davis Mountain State Park in TX.

Love,

Sandy & Carl 

Living & Traveling in our Motorhome

Volunteering across America

greenbaum2@gmail.com

www.livingourdream2011.blogspot.com

617-435-8502

Photographed and sent from Carl's iPhone

Opportunities Lost

Hi All,

Today was planned as a direct drive to Carlsbad, NM hoping to arrive in time for the last cavern tour at 3:30.

Because of this time constraint, we drove past several interesting sites we might have otherwise stopped at:

Capitan, NM- burial site of Smokey Bear

Lincoln County- Billy the Kid sites

Roswell, NM- site of the famous UFO crash in July 1947 as well as friends we met at the Cradle of Forestry.

Still moving east towards Garrett & Wyatt.

Sandy & Carl 

Living & Traveling in our Motorhome

Volunteering across America

greenbaum2@gmail.com

www.livingourdream2011.blogspot.com

617-435-8502

Very Large Array

Hi All,

After a morning hiking and birding on the refuge we headed west to one of the biggest radio telescopes on earth. 

The VLA consists of 27 antennas, each 82 feet in diameter.

These antennas can be moved on tracks in a "Y" shaped configuration. Each leg is about 20 miles long.

The VLA is located here because it is FLAT, HIGH (7,000 ft) and far from the radio noise of cities.

With last year's processing and receiver upgrade, the Enhanced VLA has the resolution of the best earth based optical telescope.

The new signal correlator is so fast that it could process the previous 30 years of VLA data in 100 seconds!

Geeky but fascinating.

Love,

Sandy & Carl 

Living & Traveling in our Motorhome

Volunteering across America

greenbaum2@gmail.com

www.livingourdream2011.blogspot.com

617-435-8502

Photographed and sent from Carl's iPhone

Bosque de L'Apache

Hi All,

In previous visits, Bosque offered 50,000+ snow geese and 5,000+ Sandhill cranes. These birds usually stay until mid- February. There are still tens of thousands of snow geese but in the last two weeks the crane population shrank from 6,000 to 1,000 to 100.

We took an interesting volunteer led van tour and learned how they manage the water levels throughout the refuge.

A few hundred snow geese and a few Ross's geese

Wonderful contrast between the bare cottonwoods and clear blue sky

A few cranes flew in around sunset

But there weren't more than a dozen on this pond.

Love,

Sandy & Carl 

Living & Traveling in our Motorhome

Volunteering across America

greenbaum2@gmail.com

www.livingourdream2011.blogspot.com

617-435-8502

Photographed and sent from Carl's iPhone

Last Patagonia Bird Walk

Hi All,

Today was our last Birdwalk here at Patagonia. We had a good group of 14 visitors and four other volunteers. The walk started slowly with the wind blowing hard, keeping the birds out of sight. Still, the group was very attentive.

And their attention was rewarded when this male Elegant Trogan was spotted.

By the end we saw 41 other species as well, a wonderful conclusion to a great volunteer assignment.

Grand kids, here we come!

Love,

Sandy & Carl 

Living & Traveling in our Motorhome

Volunteering across America

greenbaum2@gmail.com

www.livingourdream2011.blogspot.com

617-435-8502

Photographed and sent from Carl's iPhone

A Wonderful Collection

Hi 

We finished our last shift in the Visitor Center today and as we were putting our badges away, Carl took this picture of our name tag collection.

A wonderful collection of name tags and volunteer memories from two states and three federal agencies.

Love,

Sandy & Carl 

Living & Traveling in our Motorhome

Volunteering across America

greenbaum2@gmail.com

www.livingourdream2011.blogspot.com

617-435-8502

Last Day in Tucson

Hi All,

Earlier this week, Sandy realized there were some shops in Tucson she had not yet visited;-). Once it warmed up a bit, we headed north for our last day in Tucson.

The snow and ice still blanketed the trees and the snow covered cacti looked particularly incongruous.

After a successful day of shopping we were in the old part of town and tried to go to the Transportation Museum. Though it was closed, their 1900's era steam locomotive lives outside so Carl got to take some photos.

In the waiting room of the adjacent Amtrak station we found this train control station from the 50's

At a nearby market, the setting sun was backlighting this display of wine bottles.

We concluded our fun day in Tucson by having dinner with our friends Marilyn and Carrol from Salem OR. They have just concluded a driving trip down Baja to Cabo San Lucas. It was great to catch up with them.

We have two more days of work then lots of packing for our drive back east.

Love,

Sandy & Carl 

Living & Traveling in our Motorhome

Volunteering across America

greenbaum2@gmail.com

www.livingourdream2011.blogspot.com

617-435-8502

Photographed and sent from Carl's iPhone

Ten Miles from Mexico

Hi All,

We certainly do not expect any sympathy from family and friends in the northeast but here we are only ten miles from Mexico with snow on the prickly pear cactus.

We leave on Saturday and plan to arrive in St Augustine, FL on March 6th

Love,

Sandy & Carl 

Living & Traveling in our Motorhome

Volunteering across America

greenbaum2@gmail.com

www.livingourdream2011.blogspot.com

617-435-8502

ASARCO Copper Mine Tour

Hi All,

Today was the first day of the Tubac Arts & Crafts Festival. Sandy spent the day shopping ("I turned all my $20 bills into singles" ;-).

Carl went on a tour of the local ASARCO MISSION copper mine. This place is huge, an open pit nearly 1,500 feet deep ( right down to the water table) and hundreds of acres of tailing ponds and mountains of overburden (the 300 feet of dirt that has to be removed to get to the copper ore).

They use huge trucks here. This one has a capacity of 170 tons and was taken out of service as too small!

The new trucks like this one carry 320 tons of ore, cost $4 million each and have six, 11 foot tires that are replaced every six months at a cost of $60,000 each!

This panorama shows the deep mine pit.

This terraced landscape is overburden that is being removed. The gigantic shovels on the right fill the trucks with four scoops. The drills on the left are making holes for explosives to blast loose the overburden.

Haul Truck load of overburden on the way to add to the mountain. Note the size compared to the pickup truck.

South mill, one of two plants that convert basketball size rocks to talcum powder fine, 28% copper ore.

Part of the process is this Ball Mill that rolls ore with steel balls to break it down.

This concentrator pond collects the enriched ore. As a byproduct they collect enough gold to pay their $1.5 million monthly electric bill.

It was a fascinating tour and copper is very important even though this mammoth open pit mine is an incredible eyesore. If Arizona was a country, it would be the fourth largest copper producer in the world.

We are now in our last week at Sonoita Creek. Amazing how fast our time here has flown.

Love

Sandy & Carl 

Living & Traveling in our Motorhome

Volunteering across America

greenbaum2@gmail.com

www.livingourdream2011.blogspot.com

617-435-8502

Photographed and sent from Carl's iPhone

Guevavi & Calabasas

Hi All,

On Thursday we returned to Tumacacori for a tour of related ruins led by Jeremy Moss, the Chief of Resource Management at Tumacacori National Historic Park.

The nearby missions at Guavavi and Calabases became part of Tumacacori in the 90's. The sites are not usually open for visits but today was a special tour for Volunteers.

Guavavi was once the main mission in the area, the "Cabacera". The adobe walls of the mission church suffered centuries of neglect before the Park Service took over.

Preservation of these fragile remains is a great challenge.

The ruins at Calabases are protected by a roof structure. 

Here's Jeremy describing the plan to excavate artifacts from the ruins

This segment of wall is either part of the Sacristy or the Baptistry.

Jeremy also showed us pieces of pottery and arrowheads recovered from the site. It was a fascinating tour.

Love,

Sandy & Carl 

Living & Traveling in our Motorhome

Volunteering across America

greenbaum2@gmail.com

www.livingourdream2011.blogspot.com

617-435-8502

Photographed and sent from Carl's iPhone