Silhouette of Salwa looking down from Indian Bread Rocks.
Ok, we went wee in many odd places along the way, not really the most interesting part of the story I hope.
Our winter trip took a bit of a turn to the east so that we could go to a boat show in Florida, after some fixes to the trailer in east Texas we made a beeline to Miami spent a week there and then quickly again started to head back west. I did manage to get some birding in and a few other shots along the coast in South Carolina, you can see a few of them below.
The trip back was pretty accelerated with a short stay in South Carolina to see old friends from when we lived in Greenville. We began to slow down again when we got back to the desert states and finally started to find BLM land to camp on. Not being always in State or National Parks was a treat in terms of finding locations where we were mostly on our own and had some unique and interesting landscapes.
The first of these was Indian Bread Rocks Rec Area in Arizona, a great stop a little south of Highway 10 near Bowie. This felt a lot like the recreation areas we have in British Columbia. Just a few camping spots well spread out, a pit toilet and plenty of space to wander about. Our spot was at the foot of a large rock formation with plenty of boulders all around us.
This area is also available for cows to graze so we did have to watch our step in case we stepped on a cow patty. After a couple of weeks of mostly driving and city life it was really relaxing to just enjoy our time around the trailer, hiking into the rocks and waiting for the right light for a few interesting shots.
Next stop was near a pretty fantastic birding location called Madera Canyon. Although there is camping in the park, just before you get to the park there is some BLM land with some beautiful campsites. These ones don’t have toilets but it is a relatively short drive/long walk to the park entrance which did have facilities.
Much like the last spot, the free part of the camping was nice but not really the reason we liked BLM camping. It was the ability again to be mostly on our own, in this case there were a couple of others camping but not close enough to really even notice most of the time, ok, except for the one that let their dog free and it decided to chase after some cows nearby. That was a bit annoying!
This was the first time in a while that I plunked myself down at a set of bird feeders in the park to just get to see a few birds that I have never seen before and to grab a few shots. This was quite relaxing, and there was even a coffee shop and nice seats to make this a fun afternoon of not really in nature-nature photography.
We didn’t stay long in Arizona this time around, moving on to Southern California and a highlight of the trip for me. There are only a few types of owls in North America that I haven’t been able to get shots in the wild, and the burrowing owl has been one that I haven’t been lucky enough to find before in the south west or in Florida…and I have made specific day trips just to see them multiple times, all of which were unsuccessful. So, driving down a farm road on our way to a bird sanctuary and just seeing them on the side of the road was amazing. Not sure what people driving by thought of me laying on the side of the road with a big lens shooting into the gutter but it was really a fantastic time for me. The fact that I managed to get some portfolio shots from that location is a big bonus. This was definitely a highlight for the area as we were at the wrong time of year to see much else around the Sonny Bono Salton Sea Wildlife refuge.
Burrowing Owl in flight along a farm road in California.
Moving on back to the coast for that long wet trip back north and the fun task of finding a new place to live when we got there, we headed for Morro Bay, some good sushi and a little time with sea otters and their young. Could have stayed and watched them all day and we pretty much did.
There was an area around the docks in town where about 20 or so otters congregated, a bunch of them had babies that stayed on their bellies and pretty much just looked cute. If you want to be able to see sea otters up close this is definitely the town to do so. That was mostly it for California this time, other than a stop at Elk Meadow in Redwood National Park to see….well elk of course, and some redwoods.
A little practice sparring for these bull elk.
We didn’t have much time left before I had to start a new contract and go back to work like as a normal person, so we started up the coast staying just a day or two in any given location. We were back to either State Parks or city campgrounds along the coast which at least had running water and hookups so although we were no longer alone in the wild we were pretty comfortable even in the rain.
We did manage to spend a bit more time on the beautiful Oregon coast, this time in and around Coos Bay where the coastline is absolutely breathtaking. This is a location we will need to come back to for the fall storms and King tides so that we can get some of those epic wave shots.
For now, the seascapes and rock formations will do quite nicely.
Two more seascape stops at Yaquina Head and Cape Lookout showed us some more amazing locations and our last sunsets on the beach that would have to hold us over as we headed back to Canada through central Washington, into the Kootenays and our stopping point (at least at that time) in Nelson, BC.
A hole in the rock
This was our first really long road trip, with our new trailer camper and plenty of time to just travel. It was kind of a sampler tour, we never stayed long in any one spot. We didn’t really plan much when it came to our photography, just took advantage of what was there at the time. I think we learned a lot about this type of travel, we now know many places that we would like to go back to and spend more time hopefully choosing the right time of year for some special shots or for birds and animals to be more likely to be around. We also learned a lot about our comfort level with different types of camping, we definitely prefer the open spaces and BLM lands when we can. It will be fun now that we know the capabilities of our truck and trailer to go further into the unknown, but we also now know our own limitations. I do think that many of the places further into these BLM lands and onto off-road trails means making sure we are not alone. Getting stuck on your own out there can have grave consequences, even if you are relatively competent.
Now that we are back in Canada, we have a new set of adventures ahead as we finally found a place to settle down on Vancouver Island and we can start exploring the coast, the mountains and all the surrounding small islands. Plenty of new landscapes to view, so many birds and animals to photograph and maybe we can start to do some of it from a boat?!