Campland

I know that the whole point of living in an RV is to travel, but it is so nice to be fixed in one location for a while! Don't get me wrong, I love to travel, but packing and unpacking every three, four days or so does get a little old. And having laundry close by and shore power, water, and a dump included in our site is a blessing that I really didn't appreciate until we spent those three weeks in Yosemite (more on that later). At any rate, our space here at Campland is pretty sweet. Our rear end-the bedroom windows-is facing a wide canal that is really part of the bay and I love it! Being able to leave the curtains open most of the time is wonderful and (my favorite part!!) I get to watch all the waterbirds that frequent the canal at different times of the day!! I feel like I am living in the middle of one of the bird refuges up in northern California. There aren't the sheer numbers, but the variety is astounding. I think I see a new species every three days or so. Just yesterday I saw my first ruddy ducks. Very cool, but they were in winter plumage. Not nearly as colorful as their breeding plumage. Some of my favorites are the little blue-winged teals and cinnamon teals, the Northern pintails, the American wigeons (they squeak instead of quack!) and these little brant geese.

And those are just some of my favorites! You can check out all the others I've seen here at Campland on my list to the left. I think I've just about worn Joe out with birds though. He used to at least pretend excitement when I would squeal from the bed in the morning that "There's a new species!! New species!! Where's the book?!!" But I think I've overused that particular phrase because now he doesn't even put down his coffee and come running, just asks me what it was I saw. I have to admit though, he's catching on to the whole bird identification thing pretty quickly (hahaha, success!!). Of course, my totally sweet computer field guide with its completely awesome quizzes and fantastic pictures helps a lot - thank you, Mom, Dad, and Vanessa!

On to other happenings... Joe challenged and passed two of the three sailing certification exams today! Now we can rent a sailboat from MWR off the bases here and float around the bay! We are both pretty excited, but I will definitely need to take some dramamine before we head out. Maybe it was just because we'd had a HUGE breakfast, but just the docks moving with the water were making me feel a little funny! He's got to go do a hands on exam within the next two weeks to officially be able to rent a boat, but for a Navy man who's lived on a sailboat for the past 15 years or so that shouldn't be a problem. Very exciting!!

Well, I think I am going to find my way back to bed and flip through some of those sailing magazines that came in yesterday... :)