~ By Vicky ~ Over the recent years I've noticed the way I travel has changed. In years past the priority had been to see new places, and rarely did I want to go back to a place I have been to, knowing there was so much more to see. Even with hiking, I'd rather hike a new trail than go back to one I've already done, no matter how good it was. There are campsites I've been to and hikes I've trodded that I couldn't remember how to get back to. When I back-packed through Eur

~ By Sumalee ~ We've never had the opportunity to live full-time on the coast, so when an opportunity arose to work in the Fort Bragg, CA area, we immediately began planning for coastal birding on days off. We have a special fondness for shorebirds, and have even taken the Kevin Gower Cornell Lab of Ornithology online course on shorebirds, so we hoped to encounter some. This particular stretch of Northern California coast features windswept, rocky and craggy cliffsides wi

~ By Vicky ~ 2025 was a trial of a year. I won't say much more on it than that. And now It feels like the spaghetti paths of our two connected lives have singled out to this one stretch of open road. And the road must be traveled with no turning back, because S. and I have officially begun living the nomadic life. We've taken work, play, and pets on the road and inside a truck camper. Having lived on and off for the past year in the Roost, our truck camper, we've ha

~ by Sumalee We'd been thinking of returning to Death Valley for a while, and a break between gigs in December 2025 provided the opportunity. This second trip to Death Valley trip would register two significant changes for us since our first foray into the lowest place on earth, 282 feet below sea level. We would be returning as a married couple and as practiced birders. In fact, I proposed to V at sunrise on a day we had embarked on the long drive into the park from Beatty,

~ By Vicky & Sumalee When I told a colleague about a contract job I was considering in Clear Lake, CA., she--like almost every Californian we spoke to--had a preternatural bias against Clear Lake. Upon hearing our plans, she paused and dropped her voice in concern: "have you been there yet ?" That next weekend, S. and I reconnaissanced the lake and the RV parks nearby. I had also looked up a long-term stay RV park at Blue Lakes, so we also scouted it out. The Blue Lakes

~ By Vicky ~ 2024 was the kickstarter year of our truck camper adventures. We became the proud owners of a four-season, cozy, and highly capable truck camper that we aptly named The Roost, which perched atop our one-ton long bed truck we named Sanderling in honor of the hardy migratory shore bird whom we love to find dodging the swash and backwash along ocean shores. As campers who sought lesser-known forest roads on BLM land, we dreamed of a truck camper to expand our cam

~ by Sumalee ~ Last summer, V. and I hiked longer trails than typical for us. These were upward of eight miles, and we revisited these...

~ By Vicky ~ On our woodland birdwatching outings, we often spotted small nests woven into the branches of spindly trees, but the...

~ By Sumalee & Vicky ~ The Coast: La Playa Blanca and Chomes After getting our birding eyes primed for Costa Rica with the help of...

~ By Vicky ~ The Road to Monteverde For years we talked and dreamt of international travel. Our passports were renewed and hot off the...

~ By Sumalee ~ We have to start out with the pictures first, to get the heartbreak out of the way in order to write this story. Here are...

~ by Sumalee ~ About a year ago, V. and I were strolling the many straight lanes, once paved gravel roads, of a bygone U.S. Army training...

~ by Sumalee ~ Some time ago, V. and I made a discovery: the better birders we are, the fewer new birds we see. In our birding infancy,...

~ By Vicky ~ The wettest fall followed the driest summer yet experienced in all my years living in Oregon. And yet the lady and I were...

~ by Sumalee ~ You would think that neither of us would look forward to standing around in the rain peering through foggy, wet binocular,...

~ by Sumalee ~ “The early bird gets the worm” truly exemplifies an early birding foray we undertook recently to William L. Finley...

~ By Vicky ~ We went on a long weekend trip to Camano Island, WA to accomplish a few things. Firstly, to visit S.'s mom and see her new...

~ By Vicky ~ One of the many joys of home ownership is being able to do what one wants with one's own home and property. For instance,...

~ by Sumalee~ We do love birding for its own sake, but a wee part of both of us also wishes for that public affirmation, the imprimatur...

~ By Vicky ~ The lady and I had some difficult decisions to make: Go to Eastern Oregon for songbird migration, or to Klamath for more...