South Migration

 I'm in Gurrero Negro Now, just south of the 28th parralel, and just into Baja California Sur (The southern half).  I started out driving over to Montana, to Bozeman, to collect Lindsey, and we together made our way through Yellowstone and Utah and then into California and Baja.  In Yellowstone we found some Trumpeter Swans, and I am reminded of E.B. White's "The Trumpet of the Swan" that I read when I was a boy, about a young boy who meets a swan (named Lewis) who can't talk and they need to communicate through writing and eventually through playing the trumpet.  He woos a lady swan with the song "Beautiful Dreamer" played in the morning sunrise.  Anyways, I've always liked the trumpeters and this one is stretching a leg out and a wing looking at me like I am a crazy tourist.  But the Bison steal the show in Yellowstone, and so the swans don't get too much attention.  From Yellowstone we worked our way to Flaming Gorge and found some cool little critters.

 A few Praire Dogs popped up and looked at us, and some Pronghorns batted their eyelashes. 

Here's a shot of the Flaming Gorge cliffs.

 As we went into Dinosaur National Monument, we found some Sandhill Cranes, and a great firework display of trees.

  We worked our way down the Green River

 and into Utah and got to Arches

 and Canyonlands

and the Needles area

, and also found a spot overlooking the Goosenecks area of the San Juan River.

 The Valley of the Gods.

  Then we headed over to Natural Bridges and then to a slot canyon that we visited last time I was here. 

As we headed west, we found some new spots but I can't remember the names of them all.  We went up to Bryce Canyon, but it was very cold up there and then down to a very tricky place called Red Canyon, and it was super sand duney to get in, we had to use all our 4x4-ness and another guy who showed up said, "Well that was some Butt-Puckering Sand!"

We spent the night at that slot canyon, and then as dusk was falling a family group on atvs came and went and then the little girl of the group came back and said she lost her family.  So we stayed with her and eventually walked up the hill to find some cell service and called her parents and they came back, very eventually.  I was puzzled that they didn't come back to the last place they had all been together sooner, but it took about 3 hours to get everyone together.  We went back in the dark and played with some fire

 in the slot canyon until it was late and then went to bed, only to be woken by thunderstorms during the night.  We were not in the bottom of the canyon, but 10 feet up, and there was a choke point uphill of us, so we weren't scared of getting washed away, but what if getting out was impossible and we were stuck for a few days?  So the next morning it was still dry in the wash and we zipped on out and made it through the sand again, and watched a huge thunderstorm come and pour down rain and hail and probably fill that canyon with some water, but we were gone. 

Then we went through Zion and found some Bighorn Sheep and then down to the Salton Sea and found some Owls and a bunch of Snowgeese. 

Since crossing the border into Mexico, we went to a Hot spring near Ensenada and then down to the coast to surf.  We've found a few spots to play in the water and I haven't been taking many pictures because its salty and so I keep the camera put away.  There is one spot where we just were that I really like, called Santa Rosalitillia, and it has a paved road to it and is a nice sandy point break with a very slow rolling long wave that is fun to play on but always super tiny.  On the longboard it is kind of fun, but Lindsey has been making great strides in improving her surfing technique there, so we stayed two days and then I went over to a beach I call Narco's beach (we saw what might have been drugs being delivered there) and surfed this very fast and fun point that has a bunch of rocks to dodge, and I got a little bit of a barrel on one wave.  It combed my hair on one side of my head, so I didn't get low enough, but it was really fun.  Now we are going to head out and south, along the west side of the big penninsula that angles over towards Cedros Island.  I don't think we'll make it to the end, but then along the SW side until we find Bahia San Ignacio, and then we'll explore that.  Lindsey will be leading gray whale watching trips there in February, so we will go check it out early to get familiar.