My Happy Places

Patrick posed a question to me once, "What are your top 5 happy places?" These are the places that overwhelm you; that stretch the corners of your lips from ear to ear in a grin so unstoppable you couldn't force a grimace if you tried. I thought for a moment about this, the top two places coming to me easily, but the other three were impossible to narrow down. I simply couldn't be restricted to 5 places alone. I began rattling off a series of places, some specific, some broad, some relating to actions or events more than the places themselves. Since that day, I have modified the list slightly. Only in that my top places have become very specific spots that were recently discovered within my broader happy places. The goal of this post is to share some of my happy places with you, and vainly attempt to describe their affect on me in words, though I don't expect my verbiage to adequately capture the essence of these spots.
My number 1, 2, and 3 are all so close it's pretty much a three-way tie. Not surprisingly, all three are in Utah and all three are canyons (one spans both Utah and Arizona to be fair).

1) Having been a frequent visitor to Zion National Park, I foolishly assumed I was familiar will all her treasures. I was proved wrong when taken to Kolob into the Southern fork of Taylor creek. This is one of those scenes that is so indescribable, so painfully beautiful that it makes your heart ache: immense, vertical sandstone cliffs surround this desert paradise- we're talking a lush green forest, thick mats of wildflowers contrasted with the rich, sugary, rust-red sand and crisp blue Utah sky. The intensity of these colors nearly blinded me, filled me with uncontrolled glee. I could not stop myself from giggling, the sensation was too much. I could live there, I want to live there. Revert back to a primal world and let the canyon sustain me. If I ever go missing, this is the first place you should look...but please, take your time finding me.

2) I will bestow my number two spot to Escalante National Monument. This encompasses quite a bit of land so let me sum up what this place has to offer: isolated, rugged, red canyon country whose inner depths must be penetrated and pondered before grasping the true beauty of the place. Escalante must be experienced up-close for most of its secrets lie within the canyons- some so narrow even I have a hard time shuffling my way through. This is where I go to experience real solitude, and view the most awe-inspiring starry night sky these brown eyes have seen.

3) I think I may have mentioned before how I loathe turning around. No place tests my logical mind more than Paria canyon in Vermillion Cliffs National Monument. By this I mean, even though I know there is a great distance behind me that must be traveled, I find myself pressing on despite the reasonable voice in my head saying it is time to go back. The next bend lures me in with its siren song, and I submit only to discover another with equally irresistible offerings. A place like that can be wonderfully dangerous.

4) The High Sierra Music Festival is not about location but atmosphere. Although, I find myself imagining that this small "town" never really disappears after those four glorious days, but remains unchanged until you return the next year. As much as I dislike crowded places, the large numbers of festivaling faces- the costumed, the dread-locked, the tattooed- gathered in the often blazing hot sun of the sierra foothills for the common purpose of letting music fill and move us, are a comfort and a joy to me. It is a place where you can encounter self expression in more forms that you initially thought possible, and dance until the world melts away.

5)Aside from Chicago, there is only one other place I have lived for a significant amount of time- Mendocino county. Despite having little wildlife work available to me, I found this place so unlike any other place I have ever been, that I could not tear myself away easily. The Anderson Valley and Mendocino coast are very difficult to adequately describe. I found myself immersed in rolling green hills dotted with gnarly oak trees, bountiful orchards, bleating baby sheep, and the tell-tale rows of vineyards; mist-shrouded coastal redwoods whose canopy encloses a wonderland of delicious-smelling, rotting earth, secretive salamanders, and the most varied mushrooms of all forms and colors; stark, jagged cliffs overlooking the chilling Pacific, showcasing heart wrenching sunsets almost daily; epicurean delights: wines, cheeses, foods masterfully prepared by good friends, fresh produce from my yard, meats from animals raised and slaughtered down the road, a back-to-the-land mentality. This is where I honed my domestic side, and I will always to some degree ache for this place.

Catch up

I have a lot of catching up to do. Luckily, I have been writing in my personal journal so I think I'll share a few of those entries to get you up to speed on the latest. Just when I was all set to spend a summer in the Midwest (Iowa to be precise), I received an interview call for a job that could not be turned down- tortoise research in the Mojave. So here I am in Henderson, NV. My schedule is insane, I never know where I'll be or for how long. I've worked 10, 12, 14 hour days with next to no compensation. I complain quite a bit, but the truth is I'll put up with a lot of BS to be in the desert. It's charms have not lessened since my last visit. Here's a few snippets of my adventures thus far:

3/23/10
I cannot resist a trail that doesn't end. I was going to take it easy today after yesterday's 1800ft ascent to turtlehead peak. The pine creek canyon trail: 3 miles round-trip sounded like a minuscule thing, perfect for a mild jaunt. I should have anticipated that beyond the managed trail lay a path deep into the canyon, and I just could not turn away. How could I stop? Who knows what lies around the next corner? Those seductive little cairnes beckoning me further- it is them I blame, and their creator who also could not turn back but left behind a sign that there is further to go. And how can I let this phantom one-up me? I must continue. Oh how I hate to turn around!

3/26/10 (camping in red rocks NCA)
The wind is violent, persistent. I watch my tent shake and rattle with unnerving force. I half-expect to wake up in Oz.

4/4/10
Boyscout canyon hike in black rock canyon NRA. Several zebra-tailed and side-blotched lizards on the sand/gravel wash bottom. Chuckwalla spotted on large rock but entered crevice and would not be persuaded to emerge.

4/5/10
Tortoise tracking outside of Barstow-
The Calico hills: a multi-colored talus playground. Walked a wash through a canyon of every rock hue imaginable to tricky ascent up steep canyon side to lone tortoise burrow. Incredibly rewarding day.

4/18/10
Spring in the desert. This is the most dazzling spring I've witnessed in the arid Southwest. There is so much blooming that a constant fragrance lingers in the air- fills all the empty desert space with a sweet scent. Color blankets the ground- yellows and whites dominate with splashes of purples, pinks, and reds. The indigo bush has begun to show its deeply hued flowers. Desert lilies stand solitary and regal- an elegant flower. So much life on display in this harsh environment. Lizards and snakes are now being spotted, active in the mild spring sun. Blister beetles hustle and bustle among the annuals, a comical chiggedy-chiggedy sound accompanies their frenzied movements. The small things make a day of plant picking bearable. The sight of a patch-nosed snake is enough to brighten my mood and make my hunched "gardening" more worthwhile.

Life is good

I have been a happy person as of late. I feel more focused, more healthy, more energetic. Without the daily emotional ups and downs brought on by unwanted factors being introduced into my life, I find that life is much less stressful. Being back in the field, having time to exercise daily, spending time cooking great food for myself, and even getting out and socializing on my own have all contributed to my cheerful demeanor. I've developed an overwhelming optimism about this year: experiencing new places, my brother's upcoming marriage, the possibility of interesting jobs, and the prospect of graduate school, all have me giddy for the upcoming months.

Work on Fort Gordon has been going well. Some days we come up empty, but others are fraught with the thrill of finding tortoises. It can be challenging, depending on the burrow's structure. A few tortoises seem to feel the need to fortify themselves in their underground domains, creating little dunes and blockades along their sandy paths. Whether they do this on purpose, who's to say. But for the camera-wielder, it presents an obstacle to be overcome. Imagine, if you will, shoving a 3/4 inch tube with a baseball-sized camera at the end along the length of a sometimes, 10-12 foot tunnel. Fixed to your head is a set of what looks like virtual reality goggles, giving you that coveted view of the secret underground world. Suddenly, you feel like James Bond, possibly even humming the familiar theme song as you snake the camera further down, anticipating what your high-tech spy equipment might reveal. Though, this process isn't always so smooth. There is often a push and tug battle, a flipping, shoving, twisting of the camera as you come to a pile of sand, or a shrinking of the cave's opening. Your hands feel raw as you fight for just an inch or two more. You refuse to stop until you've reach the burrow's definitive end! And then you see in the shadows, what looks like a large, smooth bolder...except, this bolder seems to have thick, elephantine legs sprouting from it. You slowly creep the camera closer, and there is an ancient-looking face, whose cracked surface is caked with damp sand. The eyelids are often shut tight, peaceful in the knowledge that this subterranean chamber is safe from the cruel dangers of the outside world. Safe from everything except humans that is. Much to our dismay, we've encountered burrows smashed beyond recognition by the tank-like machines used to thin the pine stands on Fort Gordon. Ironically, this thinning is performed for the benefit of the tortoise, maintaining suitable habitat for the future. Unfortunately, suitable habitat isn't going to be of much use if they crush or trap all of the tortoises in the process! So goes the plight of the tortoise.

Phinizy Swamp

After a day of unceasing rain, Sunday morning looked sunny and promising. I made my way to Phinizy swamp, a local nature preserve Southeast of town. The place was deserted, just how I like it and bird calls filled the air. With binoculars in hand, I walked the boardwalk crossing over baldcypress swamp and was overwhelmed by the number of bird species flying, swimming, and wading about. This was a place I could spend hours in, reacquainting myself with Eastern birds and taking in the Southern, moss-covered charm of the scene. After crossing the swamp, a series of trails and roads surround a patchwork of open ponds and canals. On one of these land bridges stood a great blue heron with a mouthful: a huge freshly caught fish for breakfast. I anticipated turtles and was not disappointed - an adult pond slider basked on a patch of flattened cattails at the pond edge. Another leathery face popped in and out of the water nearby. Though I would have liked to continue this meandering through wetlands full of activity, the rain returned in heavy streams. I took my time getting back regardless and was rewarded with a red-shouldered hawk fly-by and close-up views of an Eastern bluebird and yellow-bellied sapsucker. I was at least grateful I had left my camera in the car which would have been soaked, but next time I will capture the essence of the place.

The Phantom Tortoise

Let me give you an idea of what is going on here in Georgia:
We leave in the morning for Fort Gordon where each day we wait in a ridiculous line to enter the base. That is, we enter the base after they make us get out of our truck, brandish ID's and allow them to engage in a laughable search of our vehicle (laughable becase we have in the back seat three large black Pelican cases of equipment which doesn't seem to attract their attention whatsoever and have never asked us to open them...but you better have the hood up for engine inspection!). Next, we head to range control to make sure the training areas we plan on working in are closed so as to avoid any unwanted gunfire and the like. Then we commence with the searching. Unfortunately our high-tech gps equipment has been malfunctioning from the get-go, so that means line-transects the old fashioned way. See what happens when you depend on the latest and greatest technology? Surveying on Fort Gordon is like a walk in the park: Flat, generally non-brushy land with long-leaf pine stands, sunny skies and helicopters?...we came across a random helicopter in the middle of the woods today, which I will say was a first for me. The only problem, and it's kind of a big one- no tortoises! We've come across one occupied burrow and a handful of unoccupieds during our pilot surveys. Depending on the goal of the project, low turn-out can be expected, but seeing as our goal was to use line-distance theory to estimate tortoise population size on the base the lack of tortoises means no data with which to calculate an estimate. The calculations simply don't work with a small sample size. Time for a new plan...we're going to concentrate our efforts on the historically active areas of the base next week and see what we can come up with. If we get more no shows, no more project. Eeek, sounds scary, but not so much. This would mean a relocation to the Jones Center in Newton, GA where I would help out with any other projects they currently have going. Could mean some amphibian work which is something I would LOVE to get experience with. I'll find out more next week after we searh our little hearts out for the phantom gopher tortoise.