Traveling.

I’ve been on the east coast visiting family in NY and NC all week, so I don’t have much Truckee River news to report. All I’ve heard is that the water in the river is very low, and you probably already knew that. Also, Dylan Kuhn sent in a photo of a Killdeer in the river channel downtown. Thanks Dylan! Killdeer blend in pretty well with the river channel, but have a distinct call that sounds like their name (“kill-deer, kill-deer”).

The eastern US seems to be soaking up all of the water that we’re currently missing. In NY, they’ve had about 4 inches of rain so far this month, and near my parents house the ground was so waterlogged that trees were falling over and roads were washing out. In NC, I think we witnessed another 4 inches of rain come down, and the house we were staying in was hit by lightning. Everything is very green. The east and the west don’t have much in common, really, but I did see some milkweed in bloom, which is blooming along the Truckee right now too.

On the way back to Reno yesterday, my plane flew through some incredible clouds. Big cumulus clouds with crisp edges, others thin and layered. We cruised low over a thick bank of clouds, lumpy, like a snowfield of cottonballs. The cloudbank parted, and we could see little popcorn-like puffs of clouds below. Unreal. The view from a plane window always seems like a view that humans just weren’t meant to see. It’s kind of wonderful.

By sunset and the third leg of my journey back to Reno, the sky turned pink and purple, with long wispy clouds stretching over the dusty brown basins and ranges of Nevada. To the west, the sky turned salmon-pink over the purple and brown peaks of the Sierras, still crusted with a little bit of remaining snowpack. To the east, the desert ranges faded from brown to purple to blue, and disappeared into the clouds. I wish I had a photo of any of that, but I had an aisle seat for the final leg of the trip. Anyway, you’ve probably seen it before. It’s great to be home, and I’m looking forward to getting back out to the river this week. Today is the summer solstice, enjoy these long days!

Upcoming event:

If you like mapping and identifying wildlife, there’s a great event called a BioBlitz happening on July 12 at Sagehen Creek Field Station. For more info, check out: http://www.eventbrite.com/e/2015-uc-berkeley-sagehen-creek-field-station-bioblitz-registration-16898197965

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