BlueRavenBirders

Vacation Day 1
6/18/22

We drove to Kuna to stay with John and Bill on Friday which is why our drive starts there. Shanna and I haven’t had a vacation where we went anywhere outside of family locations in a very long time.

I chose a roundabout route so that we’d see parts of Oregon that we wouldn’t normally see.

One of the themes of this drive was “is it water or a mirage/optical illusion?” The first time we were faked out was this field of flowers. When viewed from the highway it was set behind a farmhouse and we both thought it was a pond. When we turned off the highway we discovered our error. Later we were tricked by real lakes, real mirages (based on rocks and heat), and roofs of low buildings.

This was a glorious long drive. It was lightly raining for most of the trip enriching the sagebrush desert colors of western Oregon.

Two damp turkey vultures

We passed a large shallow lake (Lake Abert) and pulled over for a few photos. I didn’t see any birds that would have been close enough to photograph.

One of our favorite roads was between Klamath and Medford. This twisty mountain road with few guard rails was beautiful and scary at the same time. We did not stop for pictures on most of this trip because we knew that every stop meant a longer drive. We were lucky that we managed it in 12 hours. I can’t wait till I can work with the footage from this drive.

Obligatory photo of Petal our travelling companion in our hotel.