Home Is Where You Park It!: Bitter Lake NWR

Arrival at Bitter Lake NWR on Monday, April 6, was blustery and wind-blown. If we hadn't really needed to travel, Alvin would have hunkered down somewhere to wait out the weather. From Denver City on was pretty much white knuckle driving.

Once we were set up, the wind died and we were treated to a spectacular sunset

the hazy clouds diffused the sunlight

until the sun dropped behind the horizon.

The RV pads are atop a hill overlooking the marsh with the Pecos River near the red bluffs to the east.

The marsh was teeming with shore birds, we ID'd Black-necked Stilt and American Avocet, but the clouds of peeps were just too far away.

We are so happy to be back in the Land of Enchantment with wide open spaces, endless horizons, infinite star scapes, and humidity we can live with.

Sunrise is special, too, with first light turning the marsh to mirror.

We started orientation in the Visitor Center on Tuesday morning and meet some local volunteers and most of the staff.

Wednesday, Alvin started watering trees and I assisted Steve with flyers for the Butterfly Festival Poster Art contest. We took of about 10 AM armed with stacks of flyers, a list of elementary schools , and GPS to spend the rest of the day making deliveries and seeing Roswell from top to bottom and side to side.

ON the south side of town on Hwy 285 we discovered this whimsical road side display. Roswell has played up the 1947 UFO incident and become the Alien Capital of the World.

Thursday, Job Corps brought out a crew of young people to participate in a clean up of Pine Lodge Road. We fed them afterwards, so Alvin and I were in charge of setting up the luncheon and cleanup afterwards.

In between, we were treated to Scaled Quail just outside the front windows.