Great Basin: Pretty Great Actually
Yesterday we went to, but not into, Lehman Caves. The caves are in Great Basin National Park just over the Nevada border, almost exactly 200 miles away from my doorstep. We didn't get to do any of the things we wanted to, got to do a lot of things we didn't expect, and had a pretty great time.
Of course, all this travel is spurred by having The Camera on hand. As I mentioned over on InsectPOD, my mother recently received a Canon EOS 5D Mark II camera as a gift from a friend who told her "Learn how to use this so you can teach me how to use mine." Very shortly thereafter she handed it to me and said "Learn how to use this so you can teach me so I can teach him how to use his." Anyway, this is a many-thousands-of-dollars camera that, coupled with many-more-thousands-of-dollars worth of macro lenses, has enabled me to get such incredible bug pictures that I have restarted InsectPOD. As a result of this, and the fact that Liz' favorite hobby is going for long drives, our weekends have been spent road tripping to photograph bugs. In the past 2 weekends we've been to Thanksgiving Point, Tracy Aviary, Antelope Island, and now, Great Basin National Park.
Liz and I had intended to get out around 10am, but somebody (who shall remain nameless to protect their innocence, Liz is already pretty pissed at this person as it is) slept in and couldn't get moving in the morning, and we ended up getting on the road a little after noon. We were worried that we wouldn't make it on time; Liz remembered as a girl going to the caves and being turned away because they got there at 4:05pm and the last tour was at 4:00. 200 miles is not a problem in four hours, but remember this is on highway 6, not on a freeway. I am happy to report that HWY 6 was largely uninhabited-and thus unpatrolled-yesterday, and we made pretty good time. We hit the border around 4pm, which happily rolled the clock back to 3pm as we entered the Pacific Time Zone.
Along the way we stopped for a few minutes by a sunflower patch. These would normally be covered in spiders and dragonflies back home, but we were in the middle of the desert and dragons do not venture far from fresh water. The sunflowers were covered in ladybugs and annoying little flies; they were being nectared not by bees but by these huge, weird wasps with black and blue stripes.
Also along the way, we discovered a cheese factory desperately on the run from its own reputation. That's a long story, though, and I'll tell it later. To sum it up: we bought some cheese that probably does not have any fly poison or glass shards in it.
At the park, we stopped at the GBNP Visitor's Center and gawked at the shockingly high prices. We did buy some water bottles, however; $12 a pop was pretty steep but we'd been looking for that particular style of wide-mouth liter bottle for a few years now. I photographed three species of ant in the parking lot. I noticed that every harvester ant I saw was carrying dead insects instead of seeds. Creepy!
Once we were done resting at our rest stop, we headed up to the caves to discover that, although the tours now ran through 4:30 and we were an hour ahead of that time, all the tours were full. A guide suggested we take the scenic drive (it's a small park; they only have the one) and maybe hike to the glacier lakes. Yes, there are glacier lakes in the middle of the Nevada desert. That's sort of why this little mountain in the middle of nowhere is a National Park. I did not check to see if there was an actual glacier, but there was still snow on the north face of the mountain.
The scenic drive was, for lack of a better word, scenic. By the time we got out to hike, we were losing light so I didn't get too many pictures. I did photograph a 2-point buck eating an aspen sapling from 10 feet away, though. I mean I was 10 feet away from the buck, not that the buck was 10 feet away from the sapling. Though that would have made for some more interesting pictures.
Nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom
On the way home, every quarter mile or so there was some tiny critter sunning itself on the road. I also nearly ran over two rattlesnakes and an iguana (or one HUGE horned toad, not sure how big they get but this guy was easily a foot long). I apologize for missing the rattlesnakes. I couldn't quite see the tiny critters zipping past them at freeway speeds, and I finally thought "if those are scorpions, I want a picture of one for InsectPOD!" At the next one, I stopped and got out.
It was a horned toad:
The terror of Highway 6
The little guy's eyes were slitted shut and he didn't react to us approaching at all. He didn't seem to be breathing, and at first we thought he was dead. But then I noted that his appearance was completely lacking in the squished and/or flattened department. I nudged him with the lens and he startled awake! He waddled a few inches... and then promptly fell back asleep. I picked him up and held him up for the photo above. His behavior was so odd, I figured he must have wandered onto the asphalt to warm himself for the evening, and gotten more asphalt heat than he bargained for and gone into a heat torpor. We set him down by the side of the road-close enough that he could zip back out onto the asphalt if he wanted, or duck into the grass and hide otherwise. We jumped back in the car and headed home.
So... yeah. We didn't get to see the caves, and I didn't get any bug pictures up in the basin itself. But along the way, Liz and I read our church lessons, finished two books on tape, and chatted happily about everything from baby names to 70's TV shows. And I got to touch a horny toad. The day was so full of things we enjoyed that we didn't even notice the disappointment not getting to do the things we set out to achieve.
Life is good when the win outweighs the fail.
Of course, all this travel is spurred by having The Camera on hand. As I mentioned over on InsectPOD, my mother recently received a Canon EOS 5D Mark II camera as a gift from a friend who told her "Learn how to use this so you can teach me how to use mine." Very shortly thereafter she handed it to me and said "Learn how to use this so you can teach me so I can teach him how to use his." Anyway, this is a many-thousands-of-dollars camera that, coupled with many-more-thousands-of-dollars worth of macro lenses, has enabled me to get such incredible bug pictures that I have restarted InsectPOD. As a result of this, and the fact that Liz' favorite hobby is going for long drives, our weekends have been spent road tripping to photograph bugs. In the past 2 weekends we've been to Thanksgiving Point, Tracy Aviary, Antelope Island, and now, Great Basin National Park.
Liz and I had intended to get out around 10am, but somebody (who shall remain nameless to protect their innocence, Liz is already pretty pissed at this person as it is) slept in and couldn't get moving in the morning, and we ended up getting on the road a little after noon. We were worried that we wouldn't make it on time; Liz remembered as a girl going to the caves and being turned away because they got there at 4:05pm and the last tour was at 4:00. 200 miles is not a problem in four hours, but remember this is on highway 6, not on a freeway. I am happy to report that HWY 6 was largely uninhabited-and thus unpatrolled-yesterday, and we made pretty good time. We hit the border around 4pm, which happily rolled the clock back to 3pm as we entered the Pacific Time Zone.
Along the way we stopped for a few minutes by a sunflower patch. These would normally be covered in spiders and dragonflies back home, but we were in the middle of the desert and dragons do not venture far from fresh water. The sunflowers were covered in ladybugs and annoying little flies; they were being nectared not by bees but by these huge, weird wasps with black and blue stripes.
Also along the way, we discovered a cheese factory desperately on the run from its own reputation. That's a long story, though, and I'll tell it later. To sum it up: we bought some cheese that probably does not have any fly poison or glass shards in it.
At the park, we stopped at the GBNP Visitor's Center and gawked at the shockingly high prices. We did buy some water bottles, however; $12 a pop was pretty steep but we'd been looking for that particular style of wide-mouth liter bottle for a few years now. I photographed three species of ant in the parking lot. I noticed that every harvester ant I saw was carrying dead insects instead of seeds. Creepy!
Once we were done resting at our rest stop, we headed up to the caves to discover that, although the tours now ran through 4:30 and we were an hour ahead of that time, all the tours were full. A guide suggested we take the scenic drive (it's a small park; they only have the one) and maybe hike to the glacier lakes. Yes, there are glacier lakes in the middle of the Nevada desert. That's sort of why this little mountain in the middle of nowhere is a National Park. I did not check to see if there was an actual glacier, but there was still snow on the north face of the mountain.
The scenic drive was, for lack of a better word, scenic. By the time we got out to hike, we were losing light so I didn't get too many pictures. I did photograph a 2-point buck eating an aspen sapling from 10 feet away, though. I mean I was 10 feet away from the buck, not that the buck was 10 feet away from the sapling. Though that would have made for some more interesting pictures.
Nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom
On the way home, every quarter mile or so there was some tiny critter sunning itself on the road. I also nearly ran over two rattlesnakes and an iguana (or one HUGE horned toad, not sure how big they get but this guy was easily a foot long). I apologize for missing the rattlesnakes. I couldn't quite see the tiny critters zipping past them at freeway speeds, and I finally thought "if those are scorpions, I want a picture of one for InsectPOD!" At the next one, I stopped and got out.
It was a horned toad:
The terror of Highway 6
The little guy's eyes were slitted shut and he didn't react to us approaching at all. He didn't seem to be breathing, and at first we thought he was dead. But then I noted that his appearance was completely lacking in the squished and/or flattened department. I nudged him with the lens and he startled awake! He waddled a few inches... and then promptly fell back asleep. I picked him up and held him up for the photo above. His behavior was so odd, I figured he must have wandered onto the asphalt to warm himself for the evening, and gotten more asphalt heat than he bargained for and gone into a heat torpor. We set him down by the side of the road-close enough that he could zip back out onto the asphalt if he wanted, or duck into the grass and hide otherwise. We jumped back in the car and headed home.
So... yeah. We didn't get to see the caves, and I didn't get any bug pictures up in the basin itself. But along the way, Liz and I read our church lessons, finished two books on tape, and chatted happily about everything from baby names to 70's TV shows. And I got to touch a horny toad. The day was so full of things we enjoyed that we didn't even notice the disappointment not getting to do the things we set out to achieve.
Life is good when the win outweighs the fail.