Saturday was forecast to be quite windy out of the south, so Barry planned out a bike route that would avoid riding too much in a southerly direction. Instead, we'd head to De Soto, Kansas, which is almost due west of Prairie Village. De Soto is a small town of approximately 6,000 people that lies along the Kansas River, and much to my surprise, is actually considered to be part of the Kansas City Metro area, although it is quite rural. There is even a branch of our Johnson County library there, again a surprise to me. Here's a map so you can get an idea of our starting and ending points (Prairie Village to De Soto and back) and the route we took. After a short ride up to the Overland Park farmer's market for some fresh greens, riding back and eating breakfast, we headed out. It would be a long ride, so we didn't want to dawdle. I don't know why I've been having more blurry photos lately with my little digital camera, but it is ancient. Either it's starting to get flaky, or the photographer is! Once we got into downtown, we saw a sign for the bridge over the Kansas River, so rode down to check it out. The views were great; unfortunately, there was not even a sign for the river. We were amazed by all the swallows flying around. Afterwards, I identified these as Cliff Swallows -- a new bird for our life lists! Seeing them definitely made our ride worthwhile. Cliff Swallows build their nests in large colonies, and I am sure the underside of the bridge was just covered with them. Wish we could have seen that! Click here to see what the nests look like. Cool, huh? Next, we headed into the small downtown area. It was very quiet on a Saturday. We stopped for a snack we'd brought along and to stretch our legs. I enjoyed half a baked sweet potato -- an excellent source of complex carbs when riding, and not too sweet. It matched my jersey too! On the way back, it seemed that the wind had taken on more of a southeasterly direction than pure south, so we suffered since we were now heading east. Between that and a couple of long, tough climbs, it was a doozy of a ride back. We stopped off to take a photo of this sign we saw going through Lenexa. We both worked at Perimeter Park in Morrisville, NC, for Nortel Networks for many years. We figured our old Nortel buddies would get a kick out of it. Although most of our route was on the road, we took bike trails for a couple of short legs, when one was in the right place. The new Clear Creek Trail in Shawnee has an excellent water station where we filled up our bottles with filtered cold water. Ahhhhh! This is a rare luxury when out cycling. What's more, there was even a drinking fountain for canine companions, and a bike tool and air station. Yay Shawnee! You're a rockin' community in our book! The trail is very nice, and there was even a train going by. Look close in this photo to see it off in the distance, beyond where Barry is riding. It's the grayish thing that looks like a lake! I tried to get a photo of Barry riding under the bridge with the train above, but I was too late...the train went by right before I could focus. As you might imagine, it was absolutely necessary to go by Sheridan's Frozen Custard when we passed through Overland Park on the way back for a couple of "wowieccino" iced coffee drinks. The caffeine really helped perk us up for the last miles, and on a hot day, they were cold and refreshing. Ahhhhhh.... We did a few extra miles so I could hit my target of 60 miles for my longest ride of the year, and actually for many years. I have been plagued by right-side lower back pain since a cycling accident in 2005, but this year, thanks to a different road bike modified with a stem extension, I've been able to ride with much, much less pain, which means I can ride more like I did prior to my accident in 2005. I'm slower now since I'm ten years older, but still steady! Of course, Barry being Barry, continued on and put in many extra miles so he'd get his longest ride of the year as well -- 101 miles! He's amazing!
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Patagonia, Arizona attracts bird lovers from all over the state of Arizona and beyond to see the large variety of birds that are either year-round residents or that migrate through this area rich in riparian habitat. There are some species that venture only as far north in the United States as the Sonoran desert, like the Gray Hawk, which is known to nest in Patagonia. Other species only found in the very far south of Arizona in the US are the Violet-Crowned Hummingbird and Elegant Trogan. So, unless you plan to travel south of the border, Patagonia is a perfect place to see these special birds. Spending the month of March in town, we were on the early side for peak northward migration, but there was certainly some spring migration occurring. We visited the Patagonia-Sonoita Creek Preserve a couple of times and Paton's Hummingbird Haven several times, as it was just a short walk down the road from where we were staying. We discussed both these lovely places in a previous blog post, so I won't repeat the details here. We also saw birds around town, at the Patagonia Lake State Park, on the Train Track Trail, and on our many bike rides. We gathered most of the bird photos Barry took over the course of the month in this post. So without further ado, here are some of our best bird sightings in Patagonia. Wish we could have gotten photos of every species we saw, but that's always an impossibility! A very LARGE flock of Black Vultures came to roost nightly in the Cottonwood trees along Sonoita Creek back behind the house we were staying in towards the end of our visit. Although vultures are certainly not pretty nor my favorite birds, it was quite a dramatic sight to see them all come in for their nightly roost, high in the treetops. Barry got so many great shots of the lovely jewel-toned Broad-Billed Hummingbirds that I had to include an assortment; it was impossible to select just one. I especially love the action shots! And yes, just in case you were wondering, we did get to see the famed Gray Hawk -- more than once! What a regal creature it is, and worthy of more than one photo for sure. We were fortunate enough to see another of the birds very rarely seen in the US as Violet-crowned Hummingbirds only venture into the southernmost part of Arizona. We saw these beauties on our first visit to Paton's Hummingbird Heaven, but not on subsequent visits. We were so very lucky! Note that Barry's photo of the Violet-Crowned Hummingbird in flight (below) was chosen by Tripadvisor to be used as the photo for Paton's Hummingbird Haven, as there was only a generic image up on the site. I wrote a review of Paton's and uploaded several photos Barry had taken there along with it, and a week or so later got a notice that the photo below was chosen to represent Paton's. Certainly nothing we expected but is now Barry's claim to fame! And last but not least, one of our favorite "yellow birds" we saw so frequently in Belize... But alas, we never did see an Elegant Trogan. We will have to look for that on a future visit or south of the US border.
Earlier in the month, we rode our bikes down the very hilly road to the entrance to Patagonia Lake State Park (see photo above), but did not go in. This Wednesday, we drove down to the park from town and paid the $10/car fee to enter. The forecast was for a very windy day, so riding our bikes there would not have been fun and might have been dangerous with the wind gusts. And frankly, I couldn't face hills like this again! While not a good day for cycling, it was a fine day for checking out the park and escaping at least some of the wind on the long Sonoita Creek birding trail hidden among the green trees. Upon arriving at the park, we headed directly for the Sonoita Creek Trail, knowing that the birds would be most active in the morning. We could check out the lake later. When we first started out, the trail was busy with other birders, but once we got farther down the trail, it thinned out, and we saw very few other people. At the beginning of the trail, we were at the eastern edge of the lake and got to see some ducks and shorebirds. After checking out the shorebirds, we made our way on down the trail. The riparian environment near the creek was absolutely gorgeous -- green and lush. I couldn't get over how different it was from the typical southern Arizona Sonoran desert landscape. Since it is now migration season, there were many birds singing in the trees. This was no fitness hike as we had to stop many times to check out birds. Right before we turned around to head back on the trail, we came to the most fun creek crossing. I made it across in both directions with no wet feet! We did see quite a few birds on our hike, but we'll save those for a later blog post on Patagonia birds to keep this one to a reasonable length. After coming back on the trail, we walked around looking at the rest of the park. Patagonia Lake is a 265-acre man-made lake. It would be a great place to kayak or canoe since only low-power motorboats are allowed (and no jet-skis -- yay!) The lake is also very popular for fishing. There are two campgrounds that were pretty full, though the folks in RVs were faring much better than those in tents on this blustery day. We saw a couple of tents that were just about to take flight with the migrating birds! Wish we'd snapped a photo.... There's a highly arched pedestrian bridge over part of the lake. Perhaps they built it so high to let small sailboats pass under (just a guess). Walking across this bridge was a good workout with the steep slope on each side. On the other side of the bridge is a day-use picnic area. I took the shot below from the top of the bridge. The folks in the canoe were really fighting the wind but finally got the boat back to shore. I don't think I would have been out there paddling today! Despite the wind, we had a great day visiting the park. We hope to come back for another visit one day!
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Emily & BarryWe're a long-married, early-retired couple who are currently traveling as nomads with no fixed home base. After years of living in North Carolina (Emily's home state), we spent 18 months living oceanfront on Ambergris Caye, Belize, a year road-tripping the US in a Honda CR-V, a year in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, and are now roaming North America in our 32' motorhome, Pearl, following warm weather whenever possible. Archives
July 2019
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