On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Good morning all,
I’m still on tenterhooks awaiting further news on the dive boat tragedy off the California coast. Some events stick with me, burrowing deep under my skin and haunting stray thoughts and dreams. This is one such horror.
Le Comte – if you’re around, please let us know all is well.
Have a wonderful day, everybody. Let your friends and family know you love and appreciate them each and every day because one day, you won’t be able to.
Today, pictures from valued commenter Albatrossity.
More images of the critters found in the Flint Hills of Kansas, final batch for this round.
Taken on 2007-04-15 00:00:00
Flint Hills of Kansas
The Greater Prairie-chicken was formerly found across much of eastern North America, but is apparently too tasty to persist in a landscape increasingly dominated by humans with firearms. In the spring males, like this one, gather onto leks (aka singles bars) to dance and show off their moves, while females show up to inspect the goods, mate briefly, and then vanish to lay eggs, raise the young, and hang out in the prairie until next spring.
Taken on 2017-04-08 00:00:00
Flint Hills of Kansas
American White Pelicans are abundant in the spring and fall as they migrate to and from the prairie pothole lakes where they raise young every summer. In the spring they will often have these knobby protuberances on their bills, the function of which is still mysterious. Many locals are surprised when they see pelicans, but that just means they need to look up more often.
Taken on 2015-11-01 00:00:00
Flint Hills of Kansas
This is the platonic ideal of a woodpecker, with the whitest white, blackest black, and reddest red of any woodpecker in the world. The aptly-named Red-headed Woodpecker summers here, and if the acorn crop is good, often winters here as well.
Taken on 2017-10-09 00:00:00
Flint Hills of Kansas
Huge flocks of Franklin’s Gulls are one of the more amazing sights on our local reservoirs in the fall. This is just a small fraction of the estimated 420,000 gulls on my local reservoir a couple of years back. Franklin’s is a very odd gull, nesting in the northern prairies and subsisting not on normal gull fare, but on flying insects such as dragonflies, cicadas, grasshoppers, etc. They are often seen wheeling over the wind-swept grasslands in a scene reminiscent of gulls flying over the ocean waves.
Taken on 2017-07-24 00:00:00
Flint Hills of Kansas
Finally, here is a common bird across much of North America; in fact, it is the state bird of at least three states. American Goldfinch in his summer finery, perched on an ironweed and looking for love.
Thank you so much Albatrossity, do send us more when you can.
Travel safely everybody, and do share some stories in the comments, even if you’re joining the conversation late. Many folks confide that they go back and read old threads, one reason these are available on the Quick Links menu.
OzarkHillbilly
Thank you.
?BillinGlendaleCA
Great shots Albatrossity, your birds seem much more interesting than the birds here on the West Coast.
JPL
Beautiful
Rob
Gorgeous!!
Mary G
I had no idea that there were inland pelicans and gulls, and the prairie chicken and goldfinch are very pretty.
debbie
Beautiful!
Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)
Love them all. Thanks Albatrossity!
Albatrossity
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Oh, you have great birds on the West Coast! Check out the Bird of the Day on my twitter feed for an example today – https://twitter.com/DaveRintoul01/status/1169203202325192704
Emma
Wow. Just wow.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
I am – got your kind email, but was too busy yesterday to respond!
I’ve been following this, and have some thoughts on it:
1. This would not have been my kind of dive trip. I’d have shied off of the rat warren environment of the sleeping quarters, and the whole thing looked crowded – crowded salon, crowded dive deck, crowded heads, crowded showers, bodies crowded when trying to boat after a dive. No thanks!
2. For my thinking, the secondary hatch is completely inadequate, and probably should never have been approved. The operators monetized the thrift of their customer demographic (and these were CHEAP trips – $200 a night, included food and dives) by piling three bunks under the emergency access, which is neither well-marked nor lit. It opened into a cabinet which was part of the central table in the salon. Opening looks to be 2X2 (which doesn’t appear to be up to CFR), and the cabinet it opens into is enclosed on 3 sides and has a permanent fixed top about 3 feet high. You’d need to be a contortionist or a 10 year old to easily traverse the thing.
3. Scubaboard mods have shut down their thread. California divers have assured all that this sort of crowding and lax standards is common and good and right and don’t mess with their cheap diving with our highfaluting expensive safety standards and desires for less crowded dive environments. I’ve seen the video – it’s pretty gross. Dirty, cluttered, cramped.
I think they’re deathtraps. Pretty much all Eastern US and European divers tended to agree. Californians didn’t.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Albatrossity: I was actually thinking of Southern CA, the Stellar Jay is nice, but I’ve not seen too many others.
AmyBlueKat
And just a couple days ago, my friend Bill Proctor suggested I try this site because I am trying to find a home for two rescue kittens, and he said there are a lot of animal lovers in this group who might be willing to put up an adoption post, as I am willing to transport them anywhere a good home awaits.
I hadn’t talked to Bill in awhile, until I got a message from him with this suggestion. And now he’s gone. Rest in peace Bill Proctor. It’s amazing how even small gestures can show someone that you’re still in their thoughts.
I don’t know what his handle was on this website, but I know he posted quite a bit here over the years.
JPL
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Thanks for checking in.
Albatrossity
@?BillinGlendaleCA: The bluebird actually was photographed in Morongo, so that’s SoCal, isn’t it? Coincidentally I will be in your fair state next week, but in the Monterey area rather than your neck of the woods. Hopefully l will have bird pics to share after that!
Alain
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: figured the odds were that you weren’t onboard, but you’re the only diving adventurer I know. Phew.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Albatrossity: Morongo’s out by Joshua Tree, the only place I’ve shot birds is here in the basin. My results have been somewhat disappointing so I’ve not pursued it.
ETA: Enjoy your visit out here, it’s nice up there in the north country. Hope you get some good shots.
Elizabelle
I’ve been obsessed with the dive boat Conception tragedy too. Mostly, way too many bunks. I don’t know how you’d get out of there in an emergency. Tragedy waiting to happen; they were lucky, previously. Careful as the operators are.
Mostly, the sleeping cabin reminded me of the most crowded hostel ever, but it’s on water, in the dark, with a staircase or hatch above a 3rd tier bunk. I would not have stayed there. Sleep on the deck, or no go. Surprised that the diving community was OK with it, or had no imagination of their fate if something went terribly wrong. Even without the exits bringing you into a fire, I wonder that smoke inhalation would not doom a lot of the passengers as they attempted to escape.
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Good to see you back.
@AmyBlueKat: Welcome. What a mystery about the late Mr. Proctor, RIP. Wonder who he posted as. Where did he live? My condolences on the loss of your friend.
TheOtherHank
Delurking to comment. My son did the same trip a few weeks ago on one of their other boats. Whenever I think about it, it enrages me that the entire crew survived but none of the passengers did. That points to so many failures by the company and crew. As I said on another site, it’s easy to be awesome when nothing goes wrong. It’s much more difficult when events don’t cooperate.
Kattails
@AmyBlueKat: He posted under his own name, if you go to the magnifying glass up top you can type it in and find the posts. What happened to him? He posted just recently! I’m so sorry to hear this.
About the kitties, if you go to the top, quick links, contact us, and send a note to TaMara, she’s a front pager who could post something for you.
arrieve
An Albatrossity post always makes my morning. Pictures of birds in flight are so hard to do and you do it so well.
Elizabelle
@TheOtherHank: The entire crew did not survive. One of them, a woman, was sleeping underneath.
The crew’s sleeping quarters were above, near the bridge. That makes sense, actually.
I don’t think this company prized its crews’ lives over the passengers. I think they just gambled on their guests’ making it out of the sardine tin sleeping accommodations, and lost big. This fire happened at the worst possible time. Full dark, passengers asleep underdeck. Amazing, in retrospect, that the Coast Guard approved those accomodations. (Somewhat like the duck boats in the midwest, which were less escapable if the craft capsized.)
I would not think “liveaboard” companies are going to be permitted to stack so many passengers in, in the future.
TaMara (HFG)
@AmyBlueKat: Hi Amy, you can email me, Anne Laurie or even Adam and one of us will be happy to post an adoption thread for you. Please include photos and as much info as you have on the kitties. And, also, email one of the information on Bill P., I’m sure there are few people who would want to know.
TaMara (HFG)
Albatrossity, these are some of my favorite birds. We always say we know spring is here and no big storms on the horizon when the Pelicans return to the ponds. Great pictures.
Kattails
Gorgeous pics as ever, Albatrossity, thank you for the morning treat. It looks so sunny and pleasant in those pictures, sitting in my comfy chair. I’ll bet the reality can be some frigid winds and baking hot days! But it beats an office.
Elizabelle
@ Albatrossity: wonderful photos and informative captions.
Good advice for all of us.
I first thought the woodpecker was swathed in a little cape.
West of the Rockies
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Life-long Californian here… I was PADI-certified in ’94 in California (Monterey). I would never dive on such a boat.
AmyBlueKat
@Kattails: , @Elizabelle: , @TaMara (HFG): Thank you for your condolences. I could not find his posts, but @Kattails said he posted under his own name – Bill Proctor. He was from Tennessee and lived the last several years there, and he worked most of his life in Greenville, North Carolina.
I sent TaMara an email in the hopes that she will post an announcement of his passing. I also included information about the two rescue kittens I have, and hope an adoption post will be made on this site. It’s hard to believe he just contacted me a couple days ago with this suggestion after not hearing from him for quite some time…
Thank you all.
TaMara (HFG)
@Kattails: I’ve had no luck finding his comments. Did he maybe spell it funky?
Steeplejack (phone)
@AmyBlueKat:
What was his email address? One of the front-pagers might be able to find him from that, if he used it as part of his log-in.
AmyBlueKat
@Steeplejack (phone): I’ve sent all the contact info I have to @TaMara.
Bill Proctor normally messaged me through FB: https://www.facebook.com/bill.proctor.9
BigJimSlade
I may be mostly a lurker (and my nym is just me being absurd when I got sick of coming up with user names), but I’m on the site every day and feel I know a lot of the regular commenters…
This happened on a hike I was on this weekend – I knew the man who died a tiny bit – had seen him on a few hikes and exchanged a few words. My wife called 911 for him and I was trying to give him shade and water (he hadn’t run out yet, either) on a hillside that had turned into an oven: https://www.newsweek.com/malibu-hiker-dies-heat-stroke-rescue-water-1457292
It was a bad day. I ran out of water early trying to cool off the man who died and another who was rescued. I could feel my own window closing for being able to do the hike – we pushed on and were able to show a friend of the hike leader, who was in the parking lot, which way to go to bring him (the leader) and one other man more water.
West of the Rockies
@BigJimSlade:
That’s horrific, BJS. Looks like there was very little shade. It’s surprisingly easy to slip into dehydration and heat stroke. Here in NorCal, 100-108° in the summer is not at all unusual, so I am fairly careful not to overdue it, but as I said, it’s easy to over-extend oneself.
Elizabelle
@BigJimSlade: My condolences on the loss of your hiking acquaintance. Always makes me think of the loss of the brilliant Sally Menke, Quentin Tarantino’s marvelous film editor. Died on a local hike, loss of water on one of the hottest summer days (actually, it was late September). Her dog survived; she did not.
California is so different, because there just is not the shade we East Coasters rely upon for cool.
IndieWire on Sally Menke:
I think we are all going to have to be a lot more careful, because the environment as we know it is changing, and better to underestimate one’s limits.
I lived in the LA area at the time, and remember how hot that day was. Also that we had been warned of the heat.
BigJimSlade
@West of the Rockies: Yeah, I was shocked at how fast it went from, ‘gosh, this is a hot, hard hike’ to ‘I’m in serious trouble.’ It was like a moment, not much more. I knew I could make it, but barely. We hike every weekend, so it’s not like we’re newbies, either. For instance, we hiked Yosemite Falls and Yosemite Point a month ago in similar weather. It had more elevation, but no point was quite the oven that this was – we were zonked that day, but didn’t actually have to fight heat exhaustion. Monday it took me an hour after drinking about a liter of water and having an apple and some salty nuts to stop lightly panting!
That mountainside was way more of an oven than we were expecting – south facing slope cleared of larger vegetation by the fire last year (no shade). We thought that would make it easier to hike on this obscure, disused trail (an old dirt road, grown over and collapsing a bit in a couple places, but not bad mostly) – we were very lucky (though it was too late for one) that right by where we called 911 there was a wide spot where a helicopter could land – unbelievable! I was thinking, oh my god, they’re dropping like flies around me – it was horrible.
Miss Bianca
@Kattails: @AmyBlueKat: Oh, no! I think Proctor even front-paged a couple posts here. If it’s the commenter I remember, he seemed like a lovely, kind, and funny person. Oh, what a shame. : (
@albatrossity: Your photos are so lovely. Are there riding trails through the Flint Hills? That looks like it would be lovely horseback birding country.
BigJimSlade
@Elizabelle: Thank you Elizabelle