Quest and Venture

 The best birding in Florida for us was without a doubt La Chua Trail at Paynes Prairie State Park. This elevated boardwalk that leads out into a wetland starts just after a barn with infographics about the buffalo and wild horses (WILD HORSES!) one can see at this place. Alas, we did not see any wildhorses or buffalo, but wowie did we see some birds. From the moment we walked in the birds were falling out of the trees. Literally. There was a massive live oak covered in Spanish moss and at least ten wood storks. While we walked by one of them hopped into the sky and flew overheard, guiding us deeper into this preserve. Bizarre shrieks and guttural rattles drew our attention to one of my targets for Florida, a limpkin. This speckled wading bird has a somewhat gangly appearance and a call that feels like it came right out of the Triassic (apparently, they often use it in movies to make jungles seem more jungly). We saw one moving across aquatic plants. Another probing in the wate...

Allow me a moment of your time if you will, to sing praise to a fine establishment known as The Proper Brewing Company in a wonderful town in Pennsylvania known as Quakertown. We had a night in Quakertown simply because we could not find a spot in DC, and it was within striking distance, but ho, was fortune in our favor. Quakertown may not have known we were coming, but Quakertown still prepared the way. If you are in the DC area and looking for something quant and lovely and wonderful in Pennsylvania, may I recommend to you this town. The most cursory of google searches revealed an establishment in the middle of ‘downtown’ that not only brewed their own beer, but also cooked their own food. They also sold beer to go, and after time spent traipsing through New England, where each state has a different policies in regards to alcohol and when/where/how it could be sold, I was quite eager to go somewhere where I could sample the wares before taking some home. We arrived to find a co...

 On this trip, I long fantasized about seeing a Northern Goshawk. I had read out them in detail in H is for Hawk, despite never finishing the book because it became too morbid for me to read during Covid. While in the deep forests of Michigan and Maine, I kept my binoculars around my neck at all times as I scanned for one of these elusive hunters. I never saw one.  That’s not so surprising, but what did surprise me was that in New Jersey, one can see Northern Goshawks in substantial numbers when they migrate south. This led me to look for a hawk watch spot, something I had never participated in before. There were a few in New Jersey that seemed to reliably produce Goshawks, but all were more than 40 minutes away. Not a small feat to accomplish with two kids, especially when the end game is playing by themselves while daddy stares at the sky. So instead of going to one of these more inland sights, I settled for Chimney Rock. It was only seven minutes from our generou...

  Sachuest Point, Rhode Island   “Did you see that?” I asked of Leo. He was in a grumpy mood, not having wanted to have left the RV. We had already spent a damp twenty-four hours more or less trapped inside the RV, so perhaps that explains why I was so eager to set out despite the moist weather. I get sitrcrazy in next to no time. Twenty-four hours indoor is not easy. “There was a rock wall, pretty cool!” He did not respond to this obnoxiously dad-like comment. We left our campsite on the north side of the same island as the town of Newport, where one can go and see the mansion that Vanderbilts back with the money they did not pay to the railroad workers who made their fortune. Instead of heading to the southwest of the island, we went southeast, for a point that stuck out into the Atlantic, that is a designated wildlife refuge. I was hoping to see a Saltmarsh sparrow and/or a Nelson’s sparrow and was not about to let the rain get me down. The boys had rubber galoshes and ...

  We call our RV the Whitehawk, because that is the brand that it is, and, well, also I like birds. But perhaps after three weeks of travel, it is time for that name to change. My cousin Natalie named our RV the Icebreaker, upon saying bon voyage to it and the stinky Mitchells it carries. And indeed, I believe that there it is something glacial about our passage as we tow it across the country, driving the speed limit (or 5 under to burn my gas more efficiently!) while Americans of every stripe rush past me. We visited my family this month, Jehovah’s Witnesses from central Michigan. We arrived on the eve of a craft fair, to a piece of land crowded with sheep, chickens, dogs, beehives and people busy packaging laser cut merchandise. Their yard had been a swamp until the Father of the house filled it in with backfill from a basement and planted it with grass seed. I had to be careful not to run over the head to a well, which looked like little more than an easily crushed clump of...

 We spent the week in Detroit, and my cousin Audrey showed us the joys and wonders that this city can do for a family. So, I present to you FIVE things to do in Detroit with kids under FIVE who wake up before FIVE and need dinner at FIVE (And FIVE (Minus Two) Things to Avoid).   1.     Carpenter Lake Nature Preserve   Carpenter Lake Nature Preserve is an unassuming little loop through the woods. Fine and good and all, but the reason to visit the park is a massive (art?) installation of boulders at its entrance that can be climbed upon, crawled through, and used to play pretend being billy goats. The place is a rocklover’s dream and has beautiful views hidden among the seemingly strewn-about boulders. Try to find the two benches (the only polished pieces of stone in the whole place) and sit to enjoy the arranged view. Great place for hidden angles, kid-friendly bouldering, and a wall of trees to look for birds. 2.     Henry For...

Today marks the end of our seventh day on the road, and we’re still having fun! That said, the learning curve has been steeper than most of the roads we’ve been driving on. Prior to this week, I had towed an RV exactly TWICE, once when we bought it, and a week before our trip when we went on a ‘practice run’ without kids. HO! Like that even counted.  Now that we’ve been on the road for a week, I wanted to share some things we learned this week that might be relevant to other RV newbies. I call this segment TODAY I LEARNED: TIL: Kids Need Practice.  We bought this fancy ‘piggy backer’ for our 20 month old  to use, but we never actually used it. It's just a metal bar attached to backpack for him to stand on and ride as a piggy back. It seems simple and awesome enough (the branding is legit) but Xander doesn’t know how it's supposed to work, so it is a struggle. Our first time using it resulted in tears and tantrums. Our second time ALSO resulted in tears and tantrums, but h...