Best 5K Hike of My Life

This was the best 5K hike I have ever been on. I am learning the tricks and trades of my roommates research work. She has been teaching me her fieldwork the past couple days, telemetry, veg plots, etc. Today she let me go out on my own to track a few of her birds. She is studying Sage Grouse, out in a little tincy tiny community called Grouse Creek, about as far North and West as you can get in Utah.

Today, I went to track some birds. I had always previously only gone with Steph and learned how to use the gear and everything. I had never come upon a bird that I didn’t flutter. I had a plan this time around though, I was going to make slowly smaller and smaller circles. After hiking for about an hour and a half, I started zeroing in on the bird we named ‘Juvie’ because its just a youngin. Steph also let me borrow her amazing, I mean amazingly incredible binoc’s. So I’m zeroing in on this bird after almost two hours tracking her. I start focusing on this bush, that I’m sure she is in. I am taking every precaution this time to not make her flutter. I’m walking like Robert Redford in the movie Sneakers, you know, that scene where he’s trying to steal the little black box back from Ben Kingsley, but he can only move in slow motion, that’s what I tried to recreate as I zeroed in on my bird. So I’m staring at the shrub, and I look down and to the right, and my eye catches the staring eye of Juvie!!! Right next to me! My heart jumped up into my throat.

Did I mention I saw a mountain lion the other day? Like from me to 1^st base close, I bring this up, because I had the same reaction, I froze. I caught that Grousse staring at me, hunched down in her shrub, and I froze. When I gathered my wits, I started moving slowly away, Redford slow. And then I watched her for twenty more minutes with those sick binocs. Such an amazing rush. Something I’ve never experienced before.

By that point it was nearly dusk, and I new I needed to head back before Steph started worrying that I was lost or eaten by a mountain lion. I luckily had the where with all to punch in my car’s location into the GPS before leaving for the bird, otherwise I still maybe trying to find my way back to the car. That’s another thing, I realized on the way, that I hadn’t eaten all day, and the only food I could find in my pack was a pulverized orange peanut butter cracker thing, and you know what, it’s amazing, but if you pore all those crumbs in your mouth, it tastes exactly the same as if the things weren’t all broken down.

Anyway, those last 2.5 km’s back to my car were the most gratifying I’ve had. I have never scene something like that out in nature before, and been able to spy on it. And I finally found a bird without making it fly away. So awesome.

I love it out here in the country. I had a flash forward to my future me, married to a cowboy and living on a small farm or ranch. I’m pretty excited about it. I’ll have a small pick-up truck with a stick shift, but really I’ll probably just ride around on the horses. Steph has been a great patient teacher out here. I feel like I can now finally talk to these fun amazing Natural Resources people and not feel like just a groupie.

I’ve been out in Utah now for almost 9 months. I just moved into a house, that I love, I cannot wait to get settled in there, and start having frequent jam sessions in the back yard. I’ve met some pretty amazing people out here in Utah, and I am in love with my school program, whoever’s out there looking out for me, I’m very greatful. Logan's a trippy little town, a culture shock for sure. But there is a great community of really fun kind hearted souls who enjoy the adventure that life is, my kind of people, it helps having that canyon as a backyard.

Yo Soy Nosotros

sign in parque juarez in san miguel

I had many possible titles for this blog post some of the rejected:

¿Quieres champiñones?
Who knew I´d have to travel to Mexico to fall in love with the Hollywood Classics!
Tourista fea soy yo
What do you mean what kind of frapacino do I want?
Of course we should break egg shells on our heads.
C´est la vie.

I ended up sticking with Yo soy nosotros. I just loved Reading that in the park the other day. To back up, I´ve been in Mexico visiting my dear tía Virginia in a city in the heart of Mexico called San Miguel de Allende. I arrived in Mexico through Puerto Vallarta on Friday and took an all night bus to Queretaro, and from there a bus to San Miguel Allende.

Cathedral and main square where the egg mayhem went down

It´s only been a few days, but I cannot believe all I have seen and done in that amount of time. I knew this trip was going to be a good one as I waited in the Phoenix Airport for my connecting flight to Puerto Vallarta. I was really hot, and decided to go grab a Frapacino from Starbucks, I had never ordered one, but my sister loves them. So I go up and scan the menú, and find Frappacino, it says I have to decide what kind of milk, coffee, and whether I want whip cream or not. So feeling all prepared I go up to the counter and ask for a frappacino with skim milk and regular coffee. Then the lady at the counter asks me, what kind? And I´m like, oh no, I forgot tos ay the whip cream part. So I repeat myself, and she repeats herself, what kind? At this point i´m red in the face and so confused. I was like, what do you mean what kind? And she says, what kind of frapacino? Eventually we got to the point to her walking over to the menú and pointing out to me the plethora of frap options, oh dios mio! And this is before i had entered the foreign country!

Mi tia and her first family she stayed with, lovely people!! Como no?

San Miguel is a beautiful town about 3 or 4 hours northwest of Mexico City in the state of Guanajuato. It is full of retired expatriates. The buildings are beautiful, and this is by far the best climate I have ever experienced. Everyday its about 70 degrees, sunny, dry and no bugs. We are staying with the cutest couple ever, Miguel and coincidentally Virginia. They are a retired couple in their 70´s. They rent out the three apartments they have, but only to people who find them through Word of mouth, they do not advertise. We have a cute Little kitchen and a terraza to have our breakfast and dinner.

All the wonderful food from the market

Ginny has brought me around to meet some of her new friends, including to older women who work a stand in the market. We bought the most delicious fruit and vegetables from them the other day, and for so cheap!! Ginny is particularly fond of the woman in the picture, and i´ll have to get her name the next time i am in. We also bought a few things from the woman a few stands down. I was talking with her a Little bit in spanish. She asked if we wanted champiñones (mushrooms), so i turned to my tia Ginny to ask her. My question was greeted with a familiar blank stare that left me wondering if she Heard me (my aunt has a Little hearing impairment). So I asked her again a little louder to no avail. I started thinking to myself, wtf ginny, do you want mushrooms or not, and at that momento i realized i was asking her in Spanish. The three of us laughed and laughed over the momento, as we were all confused.

I made Ginny some lunch

This has been a great trip so far. It is carnaval right now in San Miguel. After having a siesta of Margaritas and totopos (chips) we came out in the main square to kids running and screaming. Women were selling bags of eggshells 10 pesos for 10 eggsshells or about 1$. We bought a bag and walked through the square, which apparently was declaring ourselves part of the ensuing battle. Kids of all ages and we three gringos (Ginny´s travel companion Rose was also with us) were going crazy smashing these eggshells on each others heads. This craziness will continue until Tuesday night and the end of carnaval. The best thing was watching these toddlers walking up to each other, one would smash an egg on the others head, then would stand and wait to get an egg smashed on their head. So adorable.

Last night Ginny and I went to this really cute movie theatre and watched ´Dark Victory´ a black and white hollywood movie starring Bette Davis, so good! and it came with a drink and popcorn. The lead actor looked just like Zac Efron, and the supporting cast, Humphrey Bogart and Ron Reagan, not too shabby:)

I love being back in the Spanish speaking world. The people i have met so far have such a wonderful spirit. Ginny has been a hard worker making friendships and trying hard to use the spanish she is learning, i´m very proud and impressed with her progress.

The craziest thing happened the other day at the bus stop. I noticed this man sitting next to me speaking French, and there was another Mexican there. This woman walked up to the bus stop wearing a skirt, and she tripped!! And the French man said, ´C´est la vie´ and the Mexican said, ´yo tambien´

Thanks to my new friend Lee who told me thatJ (I have a way with men in their 60´s for some reason, it affirms my compatibility with Joe Biden I think)