first shower in a week!

so, i should begin by saying i'm quite cheerful about how this first week has progressed. not only do i have a very nice p.i. (primary investigator) to work with, but he likes much of the same music, movies, books, and television that i do. he is very good company and i appreciate his politeness, generosity, and overall the respect he gives me. it is refreshing to work with someone so mellow.

on the topic of work: we began in the chiricahua mountains in southeast arizona. it was lovely, quite cool, only slightly cloudy, and filled with loads of cool plants and creatures. not, unfortunately, any hummingbird-visited flowers in the area we surveyed. we did hear a broad-tailed male (they have a distinctive wing whistle), but did not observe them on our transect.

our first site was easy enough to find, as it was just off a hiking trail, but as we located it with the GPS unit, we found ourselves in the midst of a thicket of manzanita bushes so dense we could barely walk. there were clearly no flowers here!

the next day our sites were out on steep slopes in the deserts around fort bowie, arizona. the first was right near a gravel mine of some sort. we saw a really big snake almost catch a cottontail (it was probably our fault he didn't), a lot of cattle that looked like they might charge us (until i started yelling and clapping and scared 'em off so i wouldn't die), and some hummer-friendly ocotillo there, but no hummers.

the second site was closer to the town of bowie, up on a steep mountain side, covered in acacia, prickly pear, loose rocks, and grasses. i had a hell of a time hiking since i am complete novice at hiking mountains. i was pretty tired (but also, sadly, pretty menstrual and uncomfortable), so richard offered to do the majority of the transect himself. he's really generous in that way. but i was afraid he'd be resentful of having a field assistant who did little assisting, and i determined myself to work harder across it all, since this was our second site of the day and i am still aand keep my head up. staying cheerful was a little difficult, but i'll be damned if anything negative came out of my mouth. i'm rightfully proud of that.

we moved our camp to some place called "hot well dunes" north of bowie that night. we got there so late we had to set up camp in the dark, and had no idea what our campground looked like. it was deserted, but there were lots of tire tracks everywhere from the obvious ATV activity. later, i saw some other tracks, too, the kind i was actually looking for! coyotes, birds, mice, and rabbit tracks!

so the "hot well" part of our campground was supposed to be these two hot tubs filled with hot springs mineral water that seeped from the ground. when we went to investigate after a long day out in the dry, windy chihuahuan desert, the lousy tubs were off, the water was buggy and mucky, and richard was pretty bummed out. i had convinced myself there was nothing there to look forward to, so none of my hopes were dashed, but i felt bad on his behalf.

yesterday (yes, the week has flown by!), we set out and did two more sites, no flowers as usual, but did see a black-chinned male feeding at our feeder, and saw/heard a broad-tailed male as he briefly investigated our other feeder, without landing of course. richard was in a better mood after that, although he always seems to be in pretty good spirits. i was happy that he had some data that weren't zeros for a change.



when we got back to our campground, there were other people there, and richard had a hunch that the weekend would bring other campers as well as a running hot tub. he was right on both accounts. we sat in the hot tub for an hour and soaked as more and more recreating folks arrived with truckbeds full of ATVs. they disregarded the posted speed limit (10mph), they obviously weren't paying the fee to use the grounds, and they barreled over hills around and around and kicked up sand and dust continuously from 5pm until 4:30 in the MORNING. obviously we slept very poorly last night. when i got up, it was 7:40, and after five minutes they were roaring up their engines again. there had to be 30 or so people there, simply to catapult themselves through this beautiful, calm, ancient beach land. they probably didn't even notice the wildlife or even appreciate where they were. those people extracted a hate from within me that i had to work to suppress.

at the very least, i heard the coyotes howling in the early hours of the morning each of the three nights we camped there.

today we drove to el paso, texas. it was a long, unattractive drive. we stopped in deming, new mexico, got lunch at a mexican restaurant (still a novelty for my canadian p.i.!), and went to wal-mart for some additional camping necessities. we got to el paso and drove around and around looking for an inexpensive motel with wi-fi and at least two beds, but no dice. so we settled for a howard johnson with one king (and i generously let richard use my air mattress while i took the bed, since there is no way in hell that i signed up to share a bed with a man i met a week ago, even a giant bed, to which he fully concurred). we have showered and checked emails and gone out for greek food (fanTASTIC) for dinner and are now each in bed.

and here i am, sacrificing sleep time so that i can update my valued readers with words and pictures from my trip so far. i am so very tired, but really grateful to have a pillow and a mattress and air conditioning. i'm glad i'm in a place where i can appreciate those simple things.

i hope you enjoy :)