Happy Thanks Giving!

 

The touist season is over, so we have hit the road yet again!

Dinner anyone? - Choteau, Montana

 

This Hawk dropped into our park for dinner tonight

at Choteau Mountain View RV Campground in Choteau, Montana.

We have Richardson Ground Squirrel's in our park.

The locals call them Gophers.

This Hawk thought one would make a tasty treat.

I have seen multiple birds check out our fields including Golden and Bald Eagles,

and even a Great Horned Owl, which I'm told resides in the nearby cemetary.

This is the first time I have seen any of them succeed.

Rainbow at Choteau Mountain View RV Campground - Choteau, MT

Even though we could not see the top of the Rainbow, we saw Both ends.

Road Conditions: Wheatland County, Montana

I was driving from Choteau Montana to Reed Point Montana, a 250 mile journey down mostly 2 lane roads.  The weather said there were going to be pockets of rain all across the s

I checked the weather conditions in all the small towns along my route for the day.

It was nice along my route, looking toward all the little moutain ranges around me, The Little Belt Mountains, Snowy Mountains, and Crazy Mountains were all socked in with dark looming clouds that seemed to hover over the ranges.

It was nice in Harlowton, but when I turned south Boomer started wining.  I had just pottied him, but his stool was a bit loose so I was going to find a spot to let him out.  When I crested the hill I looked in front of me and saw a shot of lighning in the distant sky.  Looked like I was going to get to go through a storm after all.  I decided Boomer does not like lighning and brilliant dog that he is knew we should wait.  If I would have waited I probably could have skipped the storm.

Harlowton is in Wheatland county.  The road is older with no shoulder and large cupped grooves in the road from all the truck traffic that in the past couple years got diverted over to.  

I could see the storm ahead and slowed down.  The weather went from dry to torrential down pour in the blink of an eye, I was driving 45 mph when a huge wind gust that yanked me all over the road as I was towing my highprofile 14 foot box trailer.  At one point I thought something was wrong with my truck.  I decided it was the combo of the wind gust and the crash landing in the pond of water that was on the road. 

The torential rain continued, but it started including some snow.  The black cows on the side of the road were turning white, and it was like giant pieces of wet slush slamming into my windshield.  The cars and pickups going the other way looked more like boats with large wakes each in turn splashing the slushy mess from the roadway onto my windshield.  Wish I had a dash cam to catch the cool sight of them coming down the road. 

When it started to calm down and the the cars had all passed I took this shot.    

The rest of the trip was nice and dry so out of the 250 miles I drove I only had 1 mile of bad weather.

Shortly after the road got dry I crossed into Sweetgrass county, where the road has been updated, no cupped pavement, and a nice shoulder.  Would have been much less exciting had the storm cell been just a couple miles south of where it was.

Reed Point MT: Indian Point Fishing Access

 Took Boomer to the local fishing access for his evening excursion.  Looks like the spring run off has started the river has risen a little since I was here last month, and looks a little muddy too.

First thing Boomer did after he got out of the truck was do a high legged prance over to a sandy spot and had a super long roll.  

It is hard to see here, but tons of dust flew off him when he shook, and he is supper dusty!

Thankfully when he rolls in the durt and sand he always chooses the cleanest spot. He decided to have another quick roll and shake off before we left.  

Take note on the paws, I am going to choose not to worry about a bit of dust on the dog.

Canadian Goose - Freeze Out Lake, Montana

 Driving around the lake you will see couples of Canadain Geese nesting in the grass.

This one decided to utilize one of the man made nests.

Trumpeter Swans and ducks - Freeze Out Lake, Montana

 

Snow Geese over Freeze Out Lake MT

 

Snow Geese Migration - Freeze Out Lake Montana

 I saw the migration numbers on the Montana Fish and Wildlife web page

(click the tab at the top right 'Migration Status' to see the current numbers.

Under migration status on the day we went, there were 8,500 Snow geese at the lake. Since the sun was out, we ran over to take a peek.

Here is a video of the geese appearing to be dancing in the sky, they did not go anywhere, just flew up and gave us a great show before settling back down again.

This video is a single goose hovering over a flock of geese sitting on the ice.

Most of the time the Snow Geese looked like they were napping on the ice of the lake.  In this video they are waddling closer to the group.

I was amused watching what looked like hall monitors walking and honking amongst the flock of Snow Geese sitting on the ice.

Most of the lake was still frozen on this day, but we did see 2 seperate groups of Geese.

Normally, we have the best luck at sunrise or dinner time, but on this day we saw this awesome flock at about 1pm mountain time.

There were a lot of Canadian Geese on their nests in the area and also various other ducks, gulls and such,

but the Snow Geese stole the show.

Pahranaght Wild Life Refuge, NV

 The road and weather report  north of us was good, so we headed out.  On our way out of the campground we saw this meeting of the minds.  

I like to think they were comparing notes on the late arrival of spring.

Here is a video 

Too bad we need to head out I would have loved to hang out longer, but road conditions are telling us if we want to get to Choteau, Montana in time for the Snow Geese Migration at Freezeout Lake with good roads and weather, we need to go.

Cabins - Pahranaght Wild Life Refuge, NV

 We skipped the lower lake, and headed to the cabin trail over by the Headquarters office in Middle Pahranaght section.

1/2 way down the trail Kim and Boomer headed back to the car.  Suzi finished the trail with the camera and looked at the cabins.

 At first Boomer wanted to wait for Suzi to come back, but as soon as it started raining, he was ready to head back.  He was unimpressed with how slow Kim walks to get back to the car and out of the rain and wind.  Of course the rain stopped just as we got to the car.  All 3 of us got drenched.

 

There was a large tree across the trail, but Suzi scrambled across it no problem.

Lower lake - Pahranaght Wild Life Refuge, NV

 Since we had a break in the rain that was supposed to last a couple of hours we decided to check out other areas of the refuge.

We started by heading to the lower lake to drive the shoreline and see what kinds of birds we might see.  When I saw the entrance to the road I was concerned about bottoming out with our low clearance car.

Pahranaght Wild Life Refuge, NV

 It rained for the 2 nights we stayed here.  There was not much action with the birds, but we figured they did not like the military action nearby.  Then we had a short sunbreak and the birds started singing a bit and saw some movement across the lake.

Pahranaght Wild Life Refuge, NV

Off of the Great Basin Highway there is a 15 site campground at the upper lake looks like there are large RV's to tents here.  No hookups.  First come first serve.  Plenty of room to turn around at end of campground if no spaces available.

We are planning to stay for a couple nights while a snow storm North of us rolls thru.

The campground filled up for the night, and we were happy to have gotten a spot.  The campground had a good feel about it, nice and quiet.  

Then about 11PM we were startled by a big BANG!  It sounded like something large blew up just outside or RV, but then we heard the jet engines that we often hear from the military planes.  Ok, must have been a sonic boom.  Then we heard a bunch of bangs that sounded like fireworks, or a war zone.

I had not heard a soinc boom since I was a kid.  Suzi got on the web and looked it up.  Turns out the government has had to reimburse home owners in Alamo, NV for home damage from Sonic Booms.  

We thought about leaving, but it was raining here, but snowing north of us, so we stayed our 2 nights.  No more sonic booms and we were glad we stayed.  

Our site from across the lake.

Joshua Trees - Moappa Valley, NV to Pahranaght Wild Life Refuge, NV

We are headed North before the heat sets in.  Saw this Joshua Tree in Moappa Valley, NV looking ready to bloom.  A sure sign it is time for us to head out.

at the next stop, Pahranaght Wild Life Refuge, NV, the Josua Trees are just starting to show the flower buds.

Turkey Vulture Committee on the rocks - Callville Bay Picknic area - Lake Mead, NV

 Our last morning most of the Turkey Vultures had left for the day.

I saw some movement on the hill next to the campground. 

 I noticed they would bath

Then they would hang out to dry and warm up with their backs facing the sun.

Turkey Vulture Kettle - Callville Bay Picknic area - Lake Mead, NV

During the mid day we rarely saw a couple of Turkey Vultures, but...

Each evening the Turkey Vultures would soar overhead, at first just a couple would come into the area.

Then a few more 

then more and more would join.

It was mesmerizing to watch them soar, how they never hit eachother is amazing, since there seems no order to their movements other than riding the wave of the wind. 

Here is a video: on this evening Suzi counted at least 30 in flight. 

The next evening while there were still some Turkey Vultures coming back to their tree, the numbers were dramatically lower.

  

We took it as a sign to head north ourselves.

 

Turkey Vulture blink of an eye - Callville Bay Picknic area - Lake Mead, NV

 I got some shots of the blinking of their eyes.  

Here is a good comparison:  

For some reason, I thought this one was cool creepy.

Turkey Vulture Committee in the trees - Callville Bay Picknic area - Lake Mead, NV

 We were going to stay 2-3 nights at Callville Bay Campground, but then we saw all the Turkey Vultures hanging out in a committee in a couple of large trees in the picknic area adjacent to our site.  

We ended up staying 10 nights instead.

In the mornings they sit with their wings outstreached to warm up.

By mid morning the tree will not have a single Turkey Vulture in it.