Sense of Adventure

Or actually, just a pair of muskrats. They didn’t get up to anything … untoward during the short time I had them in view.

After writing some more on the new Rogue Angel yarn, I gathered up Emma Dog and took her off to the Nature Center for an afternoon walk. It’s a perfect Albuquerque Spring day: warm, clear, calm; the trees are getting green and the fruit trees and the lilacs fragrantly in bloom. A marked improvement over the gale we walked through a couple of days ago, and the Arctic day that followed it.

From the levee bike path I saw some big, soft-shelled spiny turtles sunning themselves down on the ditchbank. A guy cruised by us on a nifty recumbent tadpole trike, lower-slung and probably more expensive than my TriCruiser. Sometime this week I need to get my tricycle to a bike shop for an overhaul so I can start riding it before it gets brutally hot and I’ll snivel too much.

Not a lot of birdage about, though some of interest. Our usual Piper Cherokee-sized Canada geese kept flying low overhead, honking stertorously. As we walked north up the dirt path along the east side of the clear ditch, which is very pleasantly shaded by trees and brush, a bitty grey wren-like thing flew over with a whir that seemed to be a call, rather than the sound of its wings. It gave a little cheep as it lit in a tree to our left. Naturally it went promptly around the other side of a big branch where I couldn’t see. It seemed to have a very curved beak, almost like a thrasher. But they’re way bigger than this bird, which was so tiny I first thought it was a cicada - although we’re at the wrong end of the season to see them. It may’ve been a Canyon Wren.

There’s a notch in the ditchbank that leads right down from the trail to the water, perhaprs halfway between the footbridge that leads back to the east side and Montaño, where it’s convenient for Emma to go wade in the water and drink. As we approached it I heard a big woodpecker thudding away off in the bosque proper, across the ditch and the bike path.

And then when we got to the notch, right there swimming south and not eight feet from the bank I saw a muskrat. A beat later I saw a second toward the other side of the ditch. They both dove pretty promptly; one surfaced briefly under some brush overhanging the far side. I bet they have a burrow under there.

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Well, our New Mexico weather is following its usual pattern. As seems to be the case most places, the seasons change quite definitely on or about the first of the month - not three weeks later, as per the bureaucratic (or fascist) calendar. And you can start sensing the onslaught of the seasonal change - not just by temperature and length of days, but the color and quality of light, the feel of the air, the smells - a week or two before.

Sure enough it’s begun to feel springlike here of late. The temperature’s trended up. Unfortunately that’s also meant we’ve started with the winds that makes Spring my second-favorite season as opposed to first. Yesterday, despite the fact it got above 60, the winds were savage, making it unpleasant to venture outside during the day. (Also, despite the warmth down here in the valley, the mountains were dusted with snow clear to the bases; a good deal remains today.)

Today I went to meet with a friend to walk by the Rio Grande Nature Center. When I woke up it was cloudy. When I left the house it looked as if it was clearing up and definitely wouldn’t rain. When I met my friend at the RGNC parking lot ten minutes it was solidly clouded over and seemed to threaten imminent rain. Ten minutes later when we left the pond it was clear overhead and getting bright.

So it remained for most of what would turn into a 9.31 mile walk. I’ve intended for a time to work up to 10,000 steps a day, as measured by my trusty Omron HJ-112 pedometer. While it appears the Japanese originally picked that as an auspicious number for steps in a day because of a cultural battiness for the number 10,000, it turns out actually to be a pretty near-optimal number of steps to take. Go figure.

So today I took 16,457. No, seriously. And that’s just counting between the time I parked my car and the time I climbed (gratefully, I’ll add) back in.

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The real one. Here in New Mexico the seasons usually arrive on or about the first of the month they’re supposed to start: December, March, June, and of course, September. Despite what the bureaucrats say, the feel of the air, the nature of the light, the mellowing temperatures tell the tale. And I’m not the only person who thinks this way; Phil Plait over at Bad Astronomy does too.

Usually I can smell and feel the approach of autumn by about the middle of August. This year, after again having a cool start to summer, we got a late-season heat spurt that kind of hung on. There wasn’t a lot of autumn advance notice.

But today when Emma and I went for our walk it was clearly beginning to be autumn in Albuquerque’s North Valley. My favorite time of year.

We walked the ditch that runs up through Tinnin. It’s a beautiful walk year-round. The yards are mostly a combination of immaculate lawn and well-designed and maintained xeriscaping (that latter’s usually the sticking point.) The houses are mostly gorgeous and well-constructed, as I learned when I got to walk through some of them during construction years ago, courtesy of my friend Chip, who was in the business.

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But not all by myself.

It’s been wa-a-ay too long since I’ve been walking. Just ask Emma Dog. She’s been keeping me up all night, asking out (or back in) about once an hour. I reckon she’s antsy and bored and needs exercise.

Me too. But what with being sick much of the last almost three months (!) and the late heat spurt, and travel - and a host of other miserable, sniveling excuses - I haven’t been for a walk, nor taken Emma for one, in an age.

Last night I slept pretty well (despite Emma’s alarums and excursions) and woke up with clearer lungs than I’ve had since the flu hit me for real a couple weeks before. I actually … felt good. And I decided that one way or another we would hit the trail today.

Even though we got a later start than intended (what else is new?) the afternoon wasn’t hot, with the rain we’ve gotten the last couple days to break the unusual late-season heat spurt. So, on with the water-bottle carrier (carrying a water bottle, go figure, along with sundry useful items); on with the twelve-buck red Convo knock-offs which are the most comfortable walking shoes I’ve owned for a while, possibly ever; on with the wraparound shield-style UV-resistant shades, and the 8 x 25 Simmons monocular that’s a contender for best $20 I ever spent, in case birds break out; on with the Omron pedometer; on with the sweat-stained tan painter’s cap with New Mexico Land of Enchantment on the front I bought for 69¢ at the thrift store. And out the door we went.

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Yesterday was a day from Heck.

Definitely not a Day from Hell, thank goodness. A Day from Hell is when somebody dies or a major body part falls off. Or at least a concatenation of lesser but still substantial evils.

I slept fitfully after getting back the night before. I started getting wakeful and worried after only a few hours because I hadn’t gotten the check back for a contract I had sent off before leaving town (from a place that’s usually very prompt), and because my cats didn’t seem to be eating. The latter was especially troubling, since as most of you who know me in person are aware I almost lost both of them to liver failure brought on by not eating - for only a couple of days! - two years ago.

I was finally roused from my pitiful attempts to sleep by a rap at the door. Proved to be FedEx Guy, bringing - the missing check! Worry One resolved.

(Worry, of course, is one of the few emotions that simply has no benefit at all. Doesn’t always stop me, though.)

So, being up anyway, I pulled myself more or less together, made myself my customary morning cocoa, which I hadn’t gotten to do in STL. To avoid paying an extra day for Emma Dog I had to collect her by noon. It’s usually a twenty minute trip to the kennel. I left about ten after eleven, figuring I had plenty of time.

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OK, this is even more trivial than the last post and pretty ephemeral to boot. The home page for Meetup.com’s Urban Exploration Meetups headlined their snippets of news and views from the nation’s - and world’s, I guess - Meetup groups with my comment on the Discover Albuquerque group:

Victor Milán says: “I’m glad I joined! I hope we can get more expeditions into unusual and out of the way places going.”

OK. It’ll probably be gone by the time you click over should you happen to bother, which I certainly don’t expect (there won’t be a test … this time.) It’s not that big a deal; it’s not as if seeing myself quoted online is a total novelty. I just got a kick out of it.

I’ve been meaning to post about Meetup.com. A friend of mine told me about it at the 4th of July party. It’s a clearinghouse for people to meet other people with similar interests. Through it are organized various activities and get-togethers. A week ago I did the Old Town Ghost Tour through Discover Albuquerque, and it was a blast. The various Meetups offer everything from dances to coffees to concerts to political rallies (the Ron Paul people are really working it.) Group topics cover a wide range, and I suspect there’s a way to propose new ones if your particular fetish interest isn’t yet listed.

Not everybody’s in my situation: shy by nature (yes, I am) and self-employed. I’ve been way too reclusive, and hoping for a way to meet more people. This would appear to be a godsend for me.

Even if you’re not in danger of staying home alone all the time ’til you turn into a cheese, you might check it out. It seems to be a pretty cool idea. It will get better as more and more people become aware of it and sign on.

And, oh - I’m not the only registered Sense of Adventure member to belong to Meetup.com.

Emma and I took our (mostly) daily walk on the ditch that runs along the east side of the Rio Grande Nature Center preserve. In the southeast corner, the southern end of the field marked off by stands of trees was flooded and marshy. Along with the inevitable mallards and huge Canada geese, strutting right near the fence was a cattle egret, with its sulfur-colored crest very visible.

Hummingbirds have arrived - saw one sitting on a wire, sorting things out. I finally saw a couple of Gambrel’s quail - they usually hang out near the ditch all the time, but I haven”t seen any for months. And over by the clear ditch, that runs along the paved bike path west of the RGNC proper, there was a kind of whirlwind of swallows, mostly barn.

A pleasant day. Rained vigorously last night. Wasn’t too muddy, but the smells were freshened and accentuated.