When people ask me...

What I do in retirement, my rote answer is "I visit pretty places, take pictures and write about it." If they aren't shaking their heads and retreating by then, I'll add "in the morning, I drink lots of coffee and in the evening a few IPAs. I read a lot too." 

I know pretty simple, but it seems to work for me.

Since April 4th, I've been in five National Parks, one National Monument and a smattering of State Parks. It's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it. 

I was forced to make a detour when the Southern Utahan dirt roads got gloppy wet. I traded a cool and clammy Capital Reef NP for a warm and wet Death Valley NP. Retirement like life is all about flexibility and adjustments. 

With me its all about the weather too. Once in awhile the Weather Channel lies and I'll end up in a downfall of White Death. Like Wednesday at Great Sand Dunes NP. I'm now writing "nasty-grams" to the Honchos of the Weather Channel. Talk about disinformation. 

In case you missed a past National or State Treasure, here's a recap.

http://jeffsambur.blogspot.com/2016/04/death-valley-is-sort-of-dead.html

http://jeffsambur.blogspot.com/2016/04/april-22nd-trifecta-of-dates.html

http://jeffsambur.blogspot.com/2016/04/zion-finale.html

http://jeffsambur.blogspot.com/2016/04/my-expanding-family.html

http://jeffsambur.blogspot.com/2016/04/barley-van-wishes-to-thank.html

http://jeffsambur.blogspot.com/2016/04/bryce-canyon.html

Stay tuned for the announcement of the "Great Wandering, Wondering Jew Sweepstakes." Who knows? You may already be a winner!

Here's a few snaps from Great Sand Dunes NP. The White Death melted.

Cheers,

Jeff

Home is where the best...

Breakfast Burritos are and other things.

http://jeffsambur.blogspot.com/2014/08/there-will-never-be.html

As I crossed over the Utah/Colorado border, I heaved out an audible sigh. It felt good to be back in the Centennial State. This is Home and it's more than just a mailing address.

BTW many thanks to nephew Keith for the use of his address. He's the CFO who watches over the "Wandering, Wondering Jew's" huge financial empire while I am on the go. I couldn't do this crazy lifestyle without his help. I owe him.

If there's ever a demand for "WWJ" T-Shirts, coffee mugs or beer holders, I'll get my marketing team (me) to start the production line moving. For my faithful readers, it'll be such a deal! 

Here's last year's thoughts of being back in Colorado.

http://jeffsambur.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-idea-of-home.html

I read the blog over, nothing has changed except now there will be one more family of Sambur's paying state taxes here. Nephew Justin scored a professorship at Colorado State University. Let me be one of the first to welcome J-Man, Deli and Little Max to Paradise. I hope they buy a house with a driveway. It's always nice to plug Barley the Van in for electricity. IPAs taste so much better when they're cold. Reading lights and fresh brewed coffee in the morning are pretty swell too.

So friends and family, I'm looking forward to seeing you. This talking to myself is starting to grow old. (At least I'm not saying "What?") As usual, I'll be looking for folks to play, eat and imbibe with. You know how to find me and right now, I'm not that BUSY!

Here's some photos on why Colorado is more than just the Rockies. 

Cheers and Come on Summer!

Jeff

"Hey Colorado

It was not so long ago

I left your mountains to try life on the road

But I'm tired of that race

It was much too fast a pace

And I think I've found my place

Colorado, I want to come home

Colorado

Is it too late to change my mind

I've done some thinking

And I'm trying hard to find

A way to come back home

Cause I've been so very long alone

Won't you take care of your own

Colorado

I think I'm coming home

I want to come home

Let me come home"

Lyrics by Linda Ronstadt

Belated Flowers for my Mom...

"Don't it always seem to go

You don't know what you got

Till it's gone"

Joni Mitchell

I regret I never gave Clara Sambur flowers on Mother's Day. 

My only excuses are I was too young, clueless and poor at the time. She passed when I was 17. Her final year was spent in and out of hospitals. Mostly in. She died at the age of 52. 

It was a crappy period of my life.

In retrospect, that tiny Viennese born woman (she was 4'11") made a huge impact on me.

Do you like my latch-onto-you-and-hold-on hugs? Thank Clara for that.

Do you like it when I break out into a smile when we make eye contact? Thank Clara for that. 

Do you like the occasional reassuring pats on your back? Thank Clara for that.

Do you like seeing me actually sit still and read a book? Thank Clara for that too.

I'm certain she passed along her gentle genes to me.

http://jeffsambur.blogspot.com/2015/05/i-still-miss_10.html

So Mom, I brought you some pretty flowers. I just wish I could have handed them to you in person. I still love and miss you.

Here's a little advice: Show your Mom you care while you still can. 

Happy Mom's Day!

Say Yo to a Threatened Species...

Meet a Desert Tortoise (Gopherus agassiziiand Gopherus morafkai).  

One would have a greater chance of seeing Sasquatch or Nessie the Loch Ness Monster than one of these units. Besides being rare, they spend 95% of their time in burrows. Out of sight, out of mind. 

I felt blessed to be on the receiving end of this close encounter of the Tortoise kind. 

There numbers have been greatly reduced by the usual suspects: loss of habitat (run over by strip malls, roads and subdivisions),  ATV'ers (run over by motorized vehicles), diseases (infected by pet tortoises released into the wild), and predation (Ravens really do a number on the soft shelled juveniles). 

In other words, it's not easy being green/gray.

In all the years and miles of wandering in the Southwest deserts, this is only the third one I've ever seen.  

However for some reason, this one made the tastiest soup!

Only joking! I would never harm a hair on its thumb sized head. That is if it had hair.

I hope one day you get the opportunity to see a Desert Tortoise. Hanging out with Horace the Tortoise made my day. It should do the same for you.

They live from 50-80 years. They know how to pace themselves. Maybe slow and steady wins the race after all. 

Cheers from Frigid Flagstaff, Arizona 

Jeff

Last photo: the road does go on forever.

A Stark Reminder:

Bad things can happen in National Parks. 

When a park's name is Death Valley, I'm extra careful. 

However it doesn't matter how safety conscious a hiker is; sometimes Mother Nature can turn bitch. Like the time I was exploring here in February, 2016. Who knew the rock I was standing on would slide? Why wasn't there a warning sign? 

Because it's a wild place and that's the way it's meant to be.

A typical day for me is to inhale two pots of coffee, washed down by breakfast and head out. I'm not really sure where I'll end up. Oftentimes, I get side tracked. No one knows where I am. 

A lot of the times, I'm unsure of where I am too! I think a lot about Aron Ralston. He's the dude who amputated his caught between-a-rock-and-a-hard-place arm in a Utahan slot canyon. No one knew where he was either. In fact, no one noticed he was gone. 

People are BUSY.  They don't have the time or energy to ponder about other humans precise locations. My black comedy joke with my family is, "if you don't hear from me in a few years, read my last blog. At least you will have an idea on where to start searching for my bleached bones." 

I don't wish to ever write a blog or book about limping out of a scary situation. Doh!  I've already did that! 

http://jeffsambur.blogspot.com/2016/02/as-i-was-falling-over-backwards.html

Now I have a gimpy left knee. It's better than what the final alternative could have been. 

I'm running out of my Nine Lives. 

With all these morbid thoughts in my brain, I don't take unnecessary chances. When I see a rough route in an unnamed side canyon, I'll look at it from below. Is it worth the risk to see where it might lead? The answer is "No!" If I got into trouble there, Search and Rescue would never find me. Unlike Mr. Ralston, I don't carry a Swiss Army Knife in case I needed to perform an emergency surgery. 

My point to all this? There are risks in everything we do. Try to hedge your bets to see another day. Injury or Death can really screw up your future plans. 

I'll paraphrase World Class mountaineer Ed Viesturs, "Getting to my destination is optional. Returning back to Barley the Van is mandatory." 

Speaking about Survivors! Check out this male Wood Duck doing laps at the Stovepipe Wells pool. A wetlands duck in a vast desert? Talk about misreading your map. 

Be safe out there,

Jeff

Death Valley is sort of Dead...

Compared to mid-February when I was fortunate to be here at the height of the Super Bloom.

http://jeffsambur.blogspot.com/2016/02/super-bowl-vs-super-bloom.html

http://jeffsambur.blogspot.com/2016/02/i-bloomin-in.html

http://jeffsambur.blogspot.com/2016/02/parting-is-such.html

All those lovely blooms have now gone to seed. However, that's not what's making Death Valley seem lifeless. There's hardly any people here. Measured by the National Park Service's barometer of crowds, the Selfie-Stick Index, the Park is a virtual Ghost Town.

What's the Selfie-Stick Index you ask? Why it's the number of visitors welding Selfie-Sticks/100. The Index was pegging in the 80's when the Park resembled a Flower Shop. Now it's down to a more manageable 20-30 range. This makes walking around the overlooks a lot safer. Have you ever been "cloths lined" by a Selfie-Stick? 

I'm now in Barley the Van, getting a bit seasick as we get jostled by northerly Banshee breezes. Unfortunately, it's not the "When this Van is rocking, don't come knocking,"  kind. Rats! It's also raining. A lot. But, it's a warm rain. Oh yeah, there's flash flood warnings too. 

These photos were taken above DV today, before the wind and the rain came by. 

Excuse me while I blow up my water wings. 

This sure beats White Death. 

Jeff

PS. If you care to visit, get here soon, it's 20 degrees cooler than normal now. That won't last and neither will I. Triple digit temperatures will be returning next week. The NPS closes all the campgrounds in the Valley by May 10. I suppose it's a way of preventing heat related bad things from happening to the clueless. Think of it as a form of Heat Hibernation. 

PPS. Last photo, there were pupfish swimming near Barley this morning.

Clara Sambur didn't raise a schmegegge...

G(Yiddish for a stupid person)

As told in my last post, 

http://jeffsambur.blogspot.com/2016/04/bryce-canyon.html

Barley can get kind of cramped when I'm forced inside by inclement weather. So after another frigid night being buried beneath five blankets, I figured somethings gotta give. 

I checked weather forecasts for the Red Rock destinations of southern Utah. It was a litany of White Death at the higher elevations and cool and sodden at the lower ones.  Incessant cold winds were added as a garnish. No Bueno.

Hmmm. I might not only have to lower my altitude, I needed to lower my latitude. 

I checked the forecast for Death Valley National Park. OY! Perfect! Tank tops, flip flops, baggy shorts and sleeping once again with all my windows open. Is that not  Heaven on Earth? 

So I drove through one cold front after another for 300 miles to sit outside in Shoshone, California. There's no wind, the Bluesy Bullfrogs are croaking from a nearby spring fed pond and I'm wearing a sweatshirt and a grin. 

I can now drink beer without hiding it from the authorities like I did in Utah. I'm in California, the Land that elects movie stars for Governors. 

All is Bueno.

From my Super Bloom posts of Death Valley from February.

http://jeffsambur.blogspot.com/2016/02/super-bowl-vs-super-bloom.html

http://jeffsambur.blogspot.com/2016/02/i-bloomin-in.html

http://jeffsambur.blogspot.com/2016/02/parting-is-such.html

Come on Summer!

Jeff