If you say the name “Sturgis” to any motorcycle enthusiasts across the country, you may see their ears perk up. That annual pilgrimage of ramblers to a small town near South Dakota’s Black Hills has gained recognition even outside of the biker community. Resembling that summer spectacle of steel & leather, there’s one weekend each year where a small Gulf Coast fishing community attracts more plastic & nylon per square foot than most sporting goods stores
Bunnies seem to be everywhere, especially in the spring and summer. Mother cottontail rabbits often start having babies in April and May, and they can have as many as four separate litters during the warm weather months.
Anyone who loves the outdoors has been told, "You HAVE to visit Yosemite!" I'd certainly heard it, over and over. Enough people follow the advice that one needs reservations just to enter the park. It has gotten that crowded the past few years.
Pumpkinseed sunfish are colorful little fish that are almost always willing to bite. That’s a good description for this feisty member of the sunfish family since these fish are quite colorful indeed. They are often a greenish-yellow color, fading to yellow-gold on the belly with orange speckles on their sides.
A volcanic national park? What the heck is that? Will I see volcanoes blowing up? When you visit Lassen for the first time, you don't know what to expect. It slaps you in the face pretty quickly! After leaving the visitor center, a short ride puts you at Sulphur Works. Here, numerous vents in the ground emit sulfur-stinking steam.
Yellow warblers are one of many small songbirds that fly south for the winter and migrate back through North America in the springtime. They breed and raise their young throughout much of the United States and almost all of Canada during the spring and summer.
Most moths look very drab and boring. Many species have gray or tan wings with little or no other coloration. But not all of these night-time flyers are lackluster; some are actually quite colorful and beautiful. One of the most spectacular moths in North America is the large and colorful cecropia moth.
We faced another campsite dash. Death Valley National Park accepts no campground reservations, so the plan was to get there as early in the day as possible. Unfortunately, that put us both on the interstate and in armpit Las Vegas during morning rush hour.
The highlight of our one-week Alaskan Adventure was to be a halibut charter in the Cook Inlet out of Ninilchik. I had spoken with the captain several times on the phone and was optimistic about success. But Alaskan weather intervened as it often does and after rising early and meeting at the boat, the captain said the weather was just too rough to go out.
Some birds are seen but rarely heard. Others are just the opposite – heard but rarely seen! The gray catbird is one of those vocal, but very shy birds that people don’t often see. Aptly named, this gray-colored bird prefers to spend its time in thick underbrush and at least one of its many calls sounds like the lonely mew of a cat.
