Sandhill Cranes and Tires

2/15/2019

We moved yesterday, about an hours drive, It’s a good thing it wasn’t any further than that but more on than that later.

We’re parked on the bank of a large ancient dry lake, well mostly dry lake. Sometimes the Sandhill Cranes winter on the lake, or at least visit it.

We did the hike out to the viewing spot. It was around 2.5 miles round trip, the area where the Cranes should have been was still a good distance away, as in we were pretty sure we didn’t see any movement. From that distance there is no way you could make out a bird without some pretty strong optics………… that leaves us out, although some good binoculars are on the wish list when we get near a Bass Pro or Cabelas, we have several points to use.

Our spot is in the migration path of the Sandhill Cranes and this morning, at sunrise, for about 45 minutes flock after flock flew directly over us, squawking and carrying on. Looked like they were forming up into a V like the Canadian Geese do.

We met someone last week that went to see them south of here and the government guesstimate is around 600,000 in the area.

Now for the reason we didn’t move very far. When we left the park I wanted to top off the propane tank, More COLD weather is moving in.UGH!!! and, they didn’t open until 10:00, topped off he tank with no problem.

Next stop was a tire store, whoever put on the tires, didn’t make the valve stems accessible, I had told them I would be there around 10:30, I was right on time.  They said to come back in an hour……….. well it was 2:00 before we left, they ended up custom making/bending some metal stems. At least now I can check the air pressure in the tires. Needless to say it made for a long day sitting around waiting on them to finish, they also had a special going on so I had the tires on the Jeep rotated for $20.