Tempus Fugit

It's Saturday, Day 7 already and I'm in San Diego, California. Time flies when you're having fun.

I left Colorado Springs early Tuesday to clearing skies although still chilly. My route took me up Route 50 to Salida. My drive from Colorado Springs roughly begins at Cheyenne Mountain.

If you remember correctly, Cheyenne Mountain is the home of NORAD.

Route 50 is fun to drive on a motorcycle with its many curves as it follows the Arkansas River which is muddy from all the recent rain.

Salida is a balmy 65 and sunny when I arrive. I take Highway 285 southbound and cross Poncha Pass into the San Luis Valley.

When I arrive at the Orient Land Trust, the sky is clouding up and there are storms across the valley heading towards me.

I set up my tent before the rain arrives.

Fortunately, all that arrived was a brief shower. The view of the valley from my tent is nice as the sky begins to clear later that day.

A local showed up to check out the newcomer.

In addition to deer, the possible wildlife include bears ( one ran around my tent back in 2011 - you can read about that on an earlier blog post ), bats, bobcats, mountain lions, golden eagles, gophers, and rabbits. Later that evening I made the hike to the old Orient Land Trust iron mine to watch the Mexican free-tailed bats bats leave for their evening feeding.

Other campers make the hike as well and we all stand around waiting for the show.

Here they come. Over 250,000 bats begin to leave their cave at around 7:45PM. They will consume over 3 millions pounds of insects during the night.

 They stream out for about 15 minutes and head out across the San Luis Valley.

Later that evening, we make a fire in the pavilion and toast marshmallows.

 Am astronomer from Salida showed up and treated us to some star gazing using the permanently installed 16" telescope housed in this shed which is rolled back on wheels.

When we use the telescope, it is dark so I can only get a silhouette of it as the full moon rises behind the telescope.

It was beginning to cloud up again, but I did get to see Jupiter and it's moons, Saturn's rings and a few space objects the names of which escape me.