It's Spring! (Spring Break, anyway)

I look forward to spring break every year. Most years I have nothing luxurious or exotic planned, I just relish a week off and time to be completely lazy without a lot of guilt. Ok, I always manufacture guilt, but I like the time off anyway.

This year, true to form, I stayed home. I scouted a few locations for field trips. One place I visited was the Rocky Point side of Klamath Lake. The springs with mare's eggs had water bubbling up through the sand below and ice on the surface. Very cool.

I also made a quick trip to Bend to scout traffic patterns for a field trip later this spring. Luckily, Vanessa went along to navigate for me. I'd much rather have Vanessa telling me where to turn now than ten shrill teenagers in a month. We had vague plans for lunch and possibly some shopping, though both of us are in "austerity" mode for a while. Our one necessary shopping adventure revolved around finding beer for Bill. After a miscue at a bar, where the looks from the regulars clearly said "Yer not from around here are ya?" we found our way to the Broken Top Bottle Shop. Siri, I'll never doubt you again. Both Vanessa and I found it very funny that we drove to Bend on essentially a beer run for Bill.

Later in the week, after much lazing and reading, I took the dogs up to Gerber for a day. It was gorgeous, warm, and just what we needed after being cooped up this winter. The first picture below was the best I could get of two sandhill cranes wading in a pond. I've never seen sandhill cranes anywhere other than in open meadow/fields, so I was fascinated. I did have my binoculars and bird book along, so I know they were sandhills. Maybe they were bored with land bugs and decided to try shellfish.

The water level at Gerber seems to be very low for this time of year. I saw lots of birds, watched the jets from Kingsley Field having big swooping fun, read a lot, got some sunshine, and didn't get one decent picture of the dogs. They had a blast, though, and didn't seem to think March was too early for a good swim and splash. :)