Hi folks, are you up for a night of frights? In the last post I covered some of the prep that goes into bringing our haunted trail to life. It is definitely hard to express just how much work is required to pull this off year after year, but one thing is for sure – I have no idea how we were able to do this while I was still working!! All those years leading up to retirement, I was thinking how much easier the Halloween event was going to be with all those extra hours. I have NO idea where those supposed “extra” hours went as once again we were scrambling right up to the start to get everything in place an operational. The only thing that really matters though is through the invaluable help of amazing people…we got’er done.
Our friend in haunt, Paul, did make our annual teaser video. Feel free to watch that walkthrough and then we’ll take a more static look at the trail after the jump.
We are beginning to believe that Arizona must be cursed in some form. As I’ve commented on previous posts, we were supposed to start our migration south right after Christmas. Sorry to say that didn’t happen. Two years in a row we’ve tried to make it there and for an equal amount of times – stymied. Fingers crossed this is only temporary this year and we’ll be on our way soon – last year we had to outright cancel our December trip out there. Decided to use the unexpected time to do a little tidying up around the Intrigued Headquarters. When the staff is away, the boss gets to play ha. The office is quiet, no spreadsheets that need filling out, no requisition approvals, the performance reviews are all wrapped up and thankfully no post holiday party legal issues to smooth over. Figured it was a perfect time to for a little after Christmas haunting.
Yes, it is time to finally get the Haunted Trail 2023 recap out of the way. These are mega posts and although the trail is the highlight of the year, I dread the work that goes into getting all the pictures ready for the post. Clear your browser image cache ‘cuz we are gonna fill it up again. Hit the jump to see all the work behind the scenes that is needed to put this event on every year.
Everyone here in the Intrigued family would like to extend a hearty Merry Christmas to each and all! We have had a wonderful year here and that is entirely due to all our wonderful readers.
We are nearly to Christmas, the stores are bustling, the roads are jamming and the last minute shoppers are starting to panic. It also means we’ll soon be shutting down Intrigued headquarters so our staff can spend time with their family and friends. Brad is going take us along on another one of his birding adventures today, our traditional Christmas Day post and then we will probably call it a year to enjoy the festivities and play with all our new toys. Maybe another one while Linda and I are migrating south, but we’ll play that by ear. Before Brad takes it away, wanted to extend congratulations to my brother Ron who reached the 300 unique species annual goal today towards our Average Year (link here). He scored a +1 lifer to put the proverbial cherry on top – if you recall last year, we both fell short of the goal (link here). Quite fitting as today’s post features a +1 for Brad as well!
Now you can take it away Brad…
When we left Hill City, SD it was relatively early morning for the kids, but mid-morning for Jan and I. By mid-afternoon, we had already been to two National Parks (Black Hills and Devils Tower) in the same day mind you. Why not try for a third? By the time we arrived at The Badlands, we had already travelled 300 miles that Saturday morning. After we flashed our National Parks Annual Pass at the gate, we followed the winding path to the depths of the park. Gotta love the Annual Park Pass! What, you don’t have one? Go get one right now . . . go ahead . . . you can catch up on the story in a minute. (No, Wildlife Intrigued doesn’t receive any commission from Annual Park Pass referrals. But hey, maybe that’s something productive our Legal department can work on.)
Just outside the car on the right-hand side was a small group of Bighorn Sheep, lounging and munching on the sparse early season grass. I slowed down to take a look since we rarely see them in the parks. But after rolling down the windows, the soundtrack I was hearing didn’t fit the scene. There was this solitary sweet song coming from across the road. At first, all I could see was dried prairie grass and reddish-brown dirt. But then something bright yellow moved in the grass. This little fellow was singing its heart out. As far as I could tell, no one else was around to appreciate the song: birds or humans. It was singing for the joy of singing.
Hit the jump to read more about this little yellow fellow!
Christmas (or other seasonal holiday event you happen to celebrate) cheers to everyone. Hopefully you are getting everything wrapped up for the year and guessing those that are not already retired will likely be getting a temporary break from the corporate grind. We have one more family event left and our own Christmas celebration before calling it a year and heading to warmer places. Admittedly, it hasn’t been that bad this winter. Today is the coldest it has been in a while (15F) which is nothing for us here in the Midwest. I’ve been working hard in getting the January Texas pictures processed adding a lot of new content for the blog queue. With the recent drop of new adventures from Brad, we are looking good for entertaining content well into next year. My last post on the Mangrove (Yellow) Warbler (link here) had some pretty soft images thanks to the dense habitat. Cannot use that excuse today as we had a clean shot at today’s Featured Feathered Friends.
Problem was the “distance”! It isn’t often that The Beast falls short on the reach, but this is one of those times I could have used bigger glass. For some reason I didn’t think of putting the 1.4 tele on – doubt that would have help much with the combination of horizontal distance along with the vertical elevation of the massive cell phone tower.
Hit the jump and I’ll bring you in a bit closer so you can see these rather rare Falcons.
Shockingly December is ticking off faster than the previous month. In this case, it is a good thing since it puts us closer to warmer weather – Linda and I head south soon after jolly St. Nick squeezes down our chimney. It is getting a bit stressful as another Average Year effort (link here) is also coming to a close. Currently sitting at 337 and Ron has added two since I updated the stats putting him at 299 – just one under our pre-kickoff 300 species goal. You may recall, we both missed it by a feather last year (link here). Carrying on the sub-species theme from my last post, Brad is going to bring us another adventure from his Colorado trip. Unfortunately Brad, no extra partial count credit for sub-species ha.
Take it away Brad…
I’m one that always like to take a new road to see where it goes. However, I’m not always successful and sometimes have to do a fair bit of backtracking. Jan and I had just returned from a whirlwind tour to Devils Tower, the Badlands, Mount Rushmore, and Wind Cave (see here). The kids had to work that Monday morning. Jan and I had the entire day to explore the Front Range of the Rockies near Denver. I know, I know, a very big task for only a day.
This is really part two of a trip to Golden Gate Canyon State Park (GGCSP) in Colorado. We had succeeded in getting to the park before many other visitors. In fact, thus far we had seen ZERO other visitors. After leaving the Mountain Bluebirds behind (link here), I found a wandering, spaghetti-like curved road.
Hit the jump to learn about what was “eyed” at the end of this Colorado adventure.
I had hoped to be full time on the new computer by now, but what has probably been the case since KENBAK-1, upgrading/migrating is a total pain in the ass. I lived IT day in and day out for over 31 years – you’d think this would be a walk in the park, especially now in the digital age of 2023. Nope! Now have purged most of the ghosts in the machine (“if it’s something we can’t buy, there must be another way”). Fingers crossed the final bits will fall into place in the coming week – too many January Texas pictures left to process before we head south! In the meantime, thought I would go with a featured feathered friend I was working on before the new computer showed up.
Here at Intrigued our motto has always been “Story First, Images Support”. This post is a perfect example of that philosophy as I’ll admit right up front, these shots are not technically sharp. Don’t get me wrong, we strive to bring you the best images we possibly can. In the case of this colorful specimen – this constitutes the best I could deliver given the circumstances (over the last three years!).
Hit the jump to learn about our brightly colored Warbler.
Welcome to December everyone! A little less than a month and we’ll be tearing up checks accidentally written out with a ‘2023’ date. Note, as I do not handle the day to day billing, I have to admit I do not even know if the concept of writing a “physical” check still exists. The sand is definitely a blur as it moves through the hourglass and I still have a lot to get done before heading to warmer temps in the south. One of those pressing to-dos is to get converted over to a new computer. My current workhouse was growing long in the tooth. New versions of Lightroom and Photoshop were strangling every last CPU cycle, the Halloween prop related software was starting to complain about old drivers and maybe not related, but the WordPress issues over the last couple of months has been infuriating. The new behemoth has arrived and is a wonder to behold – the lights dim in the house and the local power company has to switch to auxiliary power on ignition (i9 24 core with a graphics card that cost more than my first car). Now the “mountain” of work to migrate all the system configurations, apps, preferences and data. While I’m out of commission bit fiddling, Brad is going to bring you another one of his adventures – this time from the state of “Nil sine Numine”.
Take it away Brad…
One day in late April, Jan and I were in Colorado with a bit of free time on our hands. We had just returned from the whirlwind tour to Devils Tower, the Badlands, Mount Rushmore, and Wind Cave (see here). The kids were at work and we had an entire day to explore the mountains outside Denver. I know, I can hear it through the screen, “There are too many mountains to see in just one day.” We weren’t trying to see all of them. Our selection was sort of a virtual dart throw at “stuff” that was close to Denver.
After finishing breakfast at the hotel, Jan and I started driving early. We wanted to enjoy Golden Gate Canyon State Park (GGCSP) without many visitors. The road from Golden, CO to the park was paved, but it was by no means straight. To call it “curvy” might be an understatement. This first road sign might be an indication of what to expect on the way to the park.
I mean, it’s not even in a straight line — it goes sideways! You’d think drivers would exercise caution on a road like that. But NO! We were passed by more than a few vehicles on the way up the mountain, even a “school bus” passed us at one point. By the time we reached the Visitor Center, I really needed to get out of the car to stop the constant motion for a few minutes. I can still get motion sick, even when I’m driving, on these very curvy roads. Think Spirograph on steroids. (Kids go ask your parents what a Spirograph is.)
Hit the jump to find out what lies ahead on Spirograph road.
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