Desert cottontail day

19 April 2016

Our jetlag is perfect for wildlife watching. We woke up nice and fresh at 5am, which meant we could drive out at sunrise to look for wildlife on the Carrizo Plain. We found desert cottontails (rabbits, basically) and more ground squirrels near the (still closed) visitor centre but apart from that, nothing much. On our planned itinerary we had another night around here pencilled in, but given the full moon we decided not to bother and headed off across the San Joaquin valley towards Yosemite. There’s certainly not much more than a day to give to the Carrizo Plain if you run out of mammals to look for!

Wow. Valley is a crazy word to use for this vast, flat, endless vista of agriculture and dust. It’s days like this that really allow America to humble you with its immensity. This endless San Joaquin valley is just one small part of the enormous state of California. And California is just one small part of the enormity of the USA. It’s no longer geography on a human scale, there’s something quite awful about not being able to see anything changing in any direction. Like an ocean of land.

One thing we did see was an oil field. For a few miles there was nothing to see in all directions but hundreds and hundreds of nodding donkeys. Like a forest.

Eventually we found mountains, and stopped in Oakhurst just to the south of Yosemite in a friendly B&B called the Houndstooth Inn. There was a good short hike nearby along a creek full of the hot scent of pine trees, and then a burger dinner at the Southgate Brewery. Hm. Beef every day so far – it can get like that on holiday if you don’t watch out, especially in the U.S.

Related Images:

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 14th, 2016 at 11:39 pm and is filed under USA. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.