Outdoor Adventure »Stories & anecdotes Community blog

Max the Golden Retriever shares his point of view of a recent road trip he took with his “people”, Stacy and Buddy. In Max’s own bark, “WOOF, WOOF AND A BIG SLOPPY KISS FROM YOUR’S TRULY THE ONE THE ONLY COOLEST AND GREATEST GOLDEN RETRIEVER ON THE PLANET MAX!”

In my previous travelogue I relayed what started out as a fairly mundane first day of travel across the desert and ended in a harrowing “I’m stuck in the desert and I can’t get up” near tragedy. This post is an overly melodramatic and only mildly fictionalized accounting of those hours in Lordsburg, New Mexico.

This is the first of many musings for this journey, affectionately dubbed (by necessity for my registration with CouchSurfing.org), “Friends, family, & head clearing in 30 days or less.” Many updates to my trip will be posted to various social networks throughout each day but every so often I will be posting these longer updates.

Monarch Melissa emerged on October 30, royal and enchanting, blessing the world with her classy style and innumerable mysteries. My only complaint is that, even after I carried her chrysalis and some lovely nectar flowers carefully in a basket around Tierrasanta the day before, eating lunch at a sandwich shop and shopping for sweets for my grandma with her, she chose a moment to emerge the following day when mine eyes were absent from the scene.

Yesterday at work my co-worker kept rapping her scissors on the side of the green waste barrel and saying, “Get back in there!” I, myself, was busy dividing mints and spanish tarragon and took little interest in her trash can talk. After repeated episodes of her antics I finally decided to take a look at what she was fussing about. I casually walked over to her work area and took a peek in the barrel. Instantly my casual attitude turned to excitement as I saw the caterpillar crawling up out of the rosemary cuttings. It was a monarch caterpillar!

I’ve been going through some old photos and came across these porpoise pics I took in 2002 at the beach in Carslbad, CA. At least I think they are porpoise, but if they are dolphin I didn’t mislabel them on porpoise (ha ha sorry).

A few years ago I traveled with my family to Bonaire. It was my first scuba diving experience and I had a great time. It brought back fond memories. I only wish I had seen everything decopixel shot in this video.

I’ve always had a fascination with pyramids. Doesn’t matter where in the world or what culture made them. Even as a child I attempted to learn to read hieroglyphics .

On my visit to the Yucatan, I enjoyed some of the smaller and more remote ruinas better, Chichen Itza has been so well and so extensively excavated that it can’t be denied.

By coincidence I had planned my trip on the occasion of the solstice, when on the side of El Castillo, the steps cast a shadow that creates the body of a snake in light that lines up with the snake head at the foot of the stairs. Talk about engineering feats!

Stacy posted a sunset from a Kumeyaay Solstice Observatory at Cowles Mountain in San Diego. When I saw her post, it reminded me of my trip to the Yucatan.

The picture is the observatory at Chichen Itza.