Thursday - Friday

David and Marty have spent the day exploring both the city of Borrego Springs and the park (Anza-Borrego Desert State Park).  The city is very accessible from the park by bicycle and even though it is located right at the base of mountains, the road grade from park to city is downhill and the return uphill is very gradul.

This is our camp site with the mountains filled with critters we never saw.

In the morning they went searching for the wonderful metal scupltures they had seen when they arrived.  They rode up one street and down another, then across to yet another street and didn't find them.  Maybe tomorrow on the way out of the city they will find them again, if not you will have to take our word for them...they were really quite stunning.

The city has a wonderful library where we sat for Wi-Fi and then found a nice coffee shop where there was also free Internet. 

Marty got side-tracked watching the birds.  When we arrived we put out a bird feeder with seed (of course) and then waited and watched for birds.  Wednesday evening they didn't show up but on Thursday am there were nearly a dozen feeding both from the feeder and from the ground.  

The handsome guy above spent a great deal of time in our "yard" in the campground feeding.  HIs mate was along as well, but she was not nearly a colorful.  After checking the bird book we have learned that the house finch is resident in nearly the entire lower US!

There were lots and lots of these sparrows in the area by the feeder.  Handsome little guys who will eventaully maake their way to Maine (maybe).  This white-crowned sparrow is, as we thought, only a winter resident here and will later migrate through Maine on their way further north!  They certainly have been good eaters at our little feeder here in the park.  

In the afternoon we went for a hike into the canyon in hopes of seeing wildlife.  If we had binoculars with us we would have been able to see the big horn sheep on the side of the mountain.  And if Marty had brought along her biggest telephoto lens, she would have been able to photograph them!  Alas, both items were back in the camper.  Maybe Friday morning there will be the opportunity before heading off to Joshua Tree NP to connect with Dee and Paul.