August 27, 2008

Close Encounter With Bighorn

What is it with us and wildlife encounters? Here's another lesson in what NOT to do...

So, we're in Jasper National Park, in the Canadian Rockies, along a major highway. This was our third sighting of a herd of bighorn for the evening and by the time we spotted them, there were way too many people clustered around them.

We parked our open-topped miata a ways down the road in order to avoid boxing the herd in and bothering them. No one else seemed to care that the bighorn is very easily bothered by close proximity to people.

Further, we cut the car engine and set up to take a few pictures. We have nice, long lenses, we don't need to get close. Apparantly, we are non-threatening, because about 10 bighorn proceeded to trot right down the road and surround our convertible.

We were way too close.
They were way too close.

In a very short time, we were on display, and cars were surrounding US, too.

We didn't want to startle the bighorn herd by starting the car, so we stayed still and talked quietly.

They didn't leave. In fact, the big ram came right up to my passenger side window and I had to keep the camera in front of me to avoid being nibbled on. Meanwhile, this lesser bighorn went behind the car and started licking it, likely because of the salty roads.

It was an odd encounter. We were not comfortable. We were not planning on such close proximity.

Eventually, the bighorn got bored with us and moved away, but then some foolish people scared them back to us. They had us basically surrounded. Finally, they moved off to the side and we started the car and carefully moved on.

All this time, unobservant people flew by on the 2-lane highway at high speed, just inches from these endangered animals.

Posted by sorsha at 12:54 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 17, 2008

Roadtrip Report: Herd of Endangered Bighorn Sheep

Hello, all!

I'm just back from a roadtrip up the Pacific Coast, through California, Oregon, Washington and across the Trans-Canadian highway!

Along the way, we got to see some amazing wildlife which I plan to tell you about soon. Some of the highlights included:

• A Raft of Sea Otters in Monterey Bay, California
  
• A Colony of Harbor Seals in Shelter Cove, California
  
• Lots of roadside Ravens in the Canadian Rockies in British Columbia, Canada
  
• Three herds of Bighorn Sheep and some elk in Jasper National Park in Alberta, Canada
  
• A lonely Bison in Elk Island National Park in Alberta, Canada
  
• Prairie Dogs and huge amounts of ducks in Saskatchewan, Canada
  
• Two white-tailed deer fawns in Riding Mountain National Park in Manitoba, Canada
  
• Pair of courting Sandhill Cranes along the Great Lakes in Ontario, Canada
  
• Canadian Geese in Quebec, Canada
  
• A Woodchuck & a White-tailed Deer fawn in Northern Vermont
  
• A Black Bear in Crawford Notch, New Hampshire

I am getting settled in and hope to write about my Canadian roadtrip in the coming weeks.

Posted by sorsha at 2:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 25, 2007

Thanks To The Hybrid: One-Tank Travels

My husband and I used to roadtrip a lot. We hit up much of the Western United States and Canada, always camping, staying with friends, or finding some interesting place to stop. We got a National Park Pass and roamed through just about every National Park and National Monument we went anywhere near. Good times.

We had our favorites, like summer in Yosemite's Tuolomne Meadows and early morning autumn circuits in Yellowstone for the wolves and elk mating displays. Pinnacles National Monument has a great hike through a long cave that requires flashlights, not to mention its a great place to spot California condors. Zion is only a short drive from Las Vegas and much more up our alley than gambling. Olympic National Park has areas that look like the Swiss Alps, and others that remind one of New Zealand in the rainy season. The Canadian parks of the Rockies are especially beautiful, including Montana's Glacier National Park on the border. There really isn't a park we wouldn't go back to again.

Except California gas prices have just about doubled since our roadtripping days in the late 1990's.

Don't get me wrong. I have always thought our gas prices should be more like the rest of the world's. People complain about how fuel is so expensive everywhere else... but it's really about how our gasoline has been so underpriced. Our 5,000 mile trips became cost-prohibitive, not to mention the negative environmental impacts in terms of gas-guzzling for no particularly good reason. Despite the fact that we almost always supported the local businesses in the areas we visited, none of the cars we owned was particularly gas efficient. We moved on to more backpacking and hiking, and less driving. Flying and then traveling locally. Better all around.

When my husband announced he wanted to get a hybrid, I was only tentatively in favor.

Why only tentatively? Well, we had two cars already and so this meant shedding one of our existing cars. At the time, hybrid meant Prius to me, and I really don't like them. I find them uncomfortable and worry that they are more fad like the VW bugs were. I worried about safety, comfort, and options, but I didn't want options I thought frivolous and likely to make for lazy drivers (like the backing up video when you should be doing head checks). We are also planning to have kids soon, so this new car would have to be able to fit more than just the two of us (so no 80+ mpg Honda Insight, unfortunately).

My hubby wanted something comfortable for his commute, but still something that got decent gas mileage. Also, we both are suckers for a powerful car. Shane test-drove them all, and settled on one that met all his needs - the Honda Accord Hybrid. I was moderately horrified that it only came in Automatic transmission, but I admit, I have always been better at multitasking in the car than my husband, so having a free hand is a good thing for him on his 35 mile daily commute. We've had it for a while now, and I still consider it "his" car. I steal it when I plan to drive more than he does on his daily commute, in order to save gas. It's grown on me.

This past weekend, we took our first roadtrip with the car. To call the 1000 mile round-trip long is laughable, given our past treks. The time passed very quickly, even sitting in the back seat to make room for a motion-sickness prone grandmother. We had no complaints from anyone on the 10 hour drive, and I admit it was nice to be driving something comfortable instead of the Jeep Wrangler (our other, functional but not particularly comfortable car). It would have been a perfect trip report had it not been for some unrelated troubles.

The most impressive part, though, was the fact that we made it all the way there, from the Bay Area in central California to central Oregon, on exactly one tank of gas. Costco Regular, to be exact.

I always forget that Oregon gas stations are all Full Service. It's interesting to me that pumping gas is a profession there, offering thousands of jobs. Another benefit is that it results in a lot fewer gas spills at the pump, so it's good for the environment.

Posted by sorsha at 1:06 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

May 18, 2005

Roadtrippin' Oz

Australia is definately on my short list - a place I haven't been that I would really like to experience. I'd like to go great white shark diving in the Southern Ocean outside of Melbourne, and scuba diving off the Great Barrier Reef. I'd like to see the fence that was erected across the nation in an attempt to protect farmer's crops. I'd like to see the creatures found nowhere else in the world - not just the giant saltwater crocs, but endangered marsupials like the duck-billed platypi, and kangaroos, wallabies, and koalas.

But as much as I want to visit Australia for the ecological aspects, I'm just as excited about meeting more of the people of Australia. Over the years, I've had Australian penpals, friends online, and other close friends from Australia - and I've come to think that Australia produces some of the most unique people - with very strong characters. I have found many of the Australians I've known to be easy going, very friendly and vivacious.

Rather embarassingly, most of my knowledge of Australia comes from movies like Crocodile Dundee, Muriel's Wedding, Strictly Ballroom, Rabbit-Proof Fence, The Man From Snowy River, Mission Impossible II, A Cry in the Dark (Dingo ate my baby), and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (there's a roadtrip for you). Ironically, these movies do not always portray the people of Oz in a very positive light... but you can't say they're not strong personalities.

Australia is big enough and wide-open enough that it seems to me to be the perfect place for a roadtrip.

The walls inside most of the bush pubs along the highway are stapled over with bras, underwear, foreign currency, and business cards—a few of mine included—left by visitors from around the world. Basic rooms cost about $35; given the volume of cold Victoria Bitter on tap, by bedtime most customers aren’t in a state to quibble over thread counts. Just about every pit stop is run by someone who could pass as the main character in a novel. The

More at: Fill’er up, mate! - Budget Travel - MSNBC.com

Also, here's a great site where you can practice Ozzie slang for your trip!

Posted by sorsha at 1:07 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 10, 2005

Mexico Roadtrip by Sportsmobile

Some of our friends are planning the great North American roadtrip by Sportsmobile - a van conversion for 4WD.

Smaller than a mobile home - self contained, perfect for a couple, with high clearance and all sorts of possible amenities. While I've never been interested in a winnebago-type vehicle, this does interest me a bit. I'm looking forward to seeing our friends' when they visit. The varied layouts make it as exciting as outfitting a house!

Here's the account of another roadtripping group with a Sportsmobile, who has been rumbling around Baja and beyond:

The strong rain from the night before continued through the day. Driving to La Paz was rain, rain, rain. Still, we were not prepared for the way the we found La Paz: flooded! The roads were filled with water. The manhole covers were popping up, splurting brown water from the storm drains below. Rivers of water were filling the intersections and there was no way to escape it. Fortunately, our van is a high clearance vehicle so we had no problems, but we watched efforts of the small city cars as they tried and sometimes failed to navigate the water.

More at: Mexico Road Trip 2005

Posted by sorsha at 3:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

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