February 01, 2007

Alaska to Arizona

Ok, I'm finally getting around to posting pictures from our 4257 mile journey to Arizona. Due to the fact that I'm too cheap to pay for a Photobucket upgrade, the slide show needed to be split up into five parts. Unfortunately, I couldn't get the slideshows to actually display on my blog, so for now you'll have to click on each of the links below to see each part. Oh well...not quite as cool as if you could watch them here, but you'll still get to see them.

Part 1: Seward to the Canadian Border

Part 2: Stuck in Haines Junction, Yukon Territory

Part 3: Haines Junction, Yukon, to Prince George, BC

Part 4: Prince George to Oregon

Park 5: Southern California to Rimrock, Arizona!

I do, however, know how to make videos work. So here's a little bonus for you of Harvey's reaction to his first wood bison. Even doped up on sedatives he couldn't resist the allure of large, hairy mammals.


So, there you go. It was a long trip, but still exciting at times. And Sonja even helped drive...for at least 47 of the 4200 miles. A rather traumatic incident involving a flock of ptarmigan on the road put an end to her driving, though. At least until we got to California, where she actually stayed awake for almost an hour while driving. There's just something about road trips that makes Sonja very sleepy. But only when she's the one doing the driving. A little suspicious, if you ask me. But I really didn't mind doing most of the driving.

I also wanted to add that we tried a bit of highway birding along the way. I've done my fair share of that before, and it usually yields some pretty interesting results. However, considering that 3/4 of our trip involved driving through cold and snowy mountains, it's safe to say that our list wasn't all that impressive. At least not until we got to central California, where we both ended up getting some lifers (Yellow-billed Magpies and Anna's Hummingbirds for me, and I think Sonja ended up with 12 lifers). However, we chose not to count the aforementioned ptarmigan. In Sonja's defense, it is quite difficult to see a white bird sitting on a snowy road at 7 in the morning in January, let alone slow down in time.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice pics Paul! Where was Harvey the whole time?

Patrick B. said...

Great photos there. A 2000 mile detour? And I thought NJ roads were bad...

You can't beat a highway Yellow-billed Magpie.

kippur said...

First of all, how do you see a humming bird from the highway. Secondly, how do you know what kind it is from the highway?

Also, we used to have Magpie outside our back window in Oregon. They sounded like someone left a baby laying in the back yard. Not sure if they had yellow bills though.

Good pics, and I'm with Janine...Where's Harvey? Did you keep him in the Uhaul?

P. Ollig said...

Ok, first of all, the hummingbird was spotted at a rest area while the dogs were doing their business. We did see the magpies from the car, though. Didn't actually see the yellow bill, but considering that they were magpies as well the fact that we saw them 15 miles south of Fresno, I considered it safe to call them Yellow-bills. That counts, right Patrick?

And, as for Harvey, if you actually LOOK at the pictures in the slideshow, Chris and Janine, you will see him poking his head through the bars in the back of the car.

Patrick B. said...

I think that counts!