This summer I have had quite the leave of absence, and I am happy to announce that it is over! I have been traveling throughout the United States for the last three months (far too long) and am now finally ready to return to the sweltering desert that I missed so much. This week, I will tell of some of the more interesting events of my summer.
Around mid-June we left Baja for Central Oregon, where we would spend the first month or so. When we arrived, we were greeted by an arctic winter: roughly 60 degrees. It took some time to adjust, particularly because it insisted on going full-winter mode and snowed a few days later, coinciding perfectly with my first day counseling at an outdoor nature school.
Our travels then took us to New England, where I found some incredible creatures, such as my first milk snake and many large grumpy water snakes that had evidently not had their coffee yet.
We then cleverly traveled back across the country to Northern California to finish up some business at a Mexican Consulate and visit friends. Here we had an amazing time discovering an old barn filled with interesting creatures such as racers, gopher snakes, ring neck snakes, alligator lizards, skinks, garter snakes and even a shed from a rubber boa. Unfortunately, getting there involved a steep, long hike up a huge hill, but of course I climbed it as often as I could.
Finally, on the way back down to Baja, we stopped in San Diego to visit the San Diego Natural History Museum, which deserves a column of its own. – chancestevens123@icloud.com