Flowers and cooler weather

---

On Monday I got to go to Piute Valley, another area of the desert where they are conducting the burn research. I hadn't been there yet so I was quite excited to go. Justin thought we'd only be out there a few hours, since there aren't many tortoises there and there were 5 of us going out. Within probably the first hour and a half we were nearly done. But then there were 3 tortoises that we could not find. And proceeded to spend the next like 3 hours looking for them. While looking for these guys, I saw some flowers! Which I was excited about, cause I had been bummed that I missed desert in spring, with everything in bloom. So it was nice getting to see at least a few flowers. There were a bunch of tiny purple flowers on some of the bushes, and some of the creosote had pretty little yellow flowers. I really did like it out there. It had a lot more vegetation than most of the other desert areas I've been working in. So that was quite nice. Also, luckily, the weather was gorgeous! We were outside until nearly 2pm and it never got hot like it usually would. Pretty sure it stayed in the low-mid 90s! Which, trust me, seemed lovely, after basically 3+ months of over 100 degree days all the time. There was a nice breeze too which also helped things. So, we covered lots of ground trying to find those 3. One was one that I was supposed to be tracking and the weirdest thing happened. I'm out walking around in the desert when suddenly, voices start coming out of my receiver (which was tuned to the frequency of the transmitter for that tortoise. So normally, all you would hear would be nothing, or if the tortoise is nearby, you hear beeping. So you can imagine my shock and confusion when I heard voices! People talking! I thought I was going crazy. Gloria was near me and I called her over and when she heard it too she was like, "maybe someone kidnapped our tortoise!". I cracked up. Greatest thing ever. Twas quite an amusing thought. That I actually considered for a bit. Seemed like anything could be possible. Wandering around, the voices would come and go. It was strange. Ended up that that tortoise had moved nearly 4km. Rob was the one who heard the signal and walked out to it. We also found the other 2 as well. Seemed that their transmitters were perhaps a bit messed up, since we could be right near them and barely be able to hear the beep. But end result was that we found them all and so were able to leave around 2, which meant that once we got back to the office, we got to go home, because it had already been 8hours! yay! Showered and made dinner and then a little before 6 we picked up Felicia and headed down to the strip to see another Cirque show! Yay! This time we went to see Mystere, in Treasure Island. My first time in Treasure Island. Kinda went directly to the theater, but it did seem to be a more reasonable hotel. There was a $10 store lol. Definitely not something you'd see in Bellagio or even Mirage. But yeah, we were able to pick up our tickets and got into the theater before the pre-show started. The theater was smaller than the one for LOVE, but still quite big. Awesome set design. The pre-show was great... there was an elderly man, part of the show, kinda clown-esque, who was fantastic. Laughed so hard. He occurred throughout the show itself as well. As for the show, it was wonderful. Having live music was really cool and the stunts they did were mind-blowing. I swear, I wasn't breathing through most of the hour and a half of the show. lol. There was a part with these two guys balancing on one other that was just insane. The one guy was moving in a way I would not think humanly possible, contorting more than should be possible (I was surprised he didn't break his neck), all while having the other guy balanced upside down on his feet! It was just nuts. There was also insane trapeze stuff, crazy stunts with a see-saw, and a bunch of other stuff. Definitely very cool, totally glad I went. Still, think I liked LOVE better. So did Gloria. But at least for me, it would be hard to top LOVE, cause I just love the Beatles so much and it was so amazing hearing their music in a venue like that. On top of everything else about it being awesome. Anyway, Mystere was definitely good too. It made for a fun night (especially for a week-day night!).

The rest of this week I have been doing various different field tasks in the morning, and some office work sometimes in the afternoons for a bit. It has been quite lovely. Every day I've been walking to work when the sun is already up! Which has been a welcome change of pace, to be sure. 😊 I also got to go to the babies at CSI and the ones at the tortoise center, which was nice. Tomorrow is the only day I will have to be at work early, and that should work perfectly, because then I'll be done earlier and hopefully we can leave at a reasonable hour to head to Bryce Canyon National Park! I am super excited for that. We are just going for the weekend, but the weather is supposed to be gorgeous, and we are meeting up with a friend of mine from Berg, and it should be great. 😊 Expect a more exciting post, with pictures, once I get back!

---

Comments

[Virginia]

:-)
Thanks again for keeping up this blog - and of course it's also great when I get to talk to you on the phone, too :-) Have a wonderful time at Bryce Canyon!