Last January, we took the
most amazing vacation. Cabo? Nope.
Jamaica? Nah. Disney World?
Uh-uh. We went to—
Klamath Falls. A small, dingy city that squats in the high
desert nearly on the southern border between California and Oregon. And just happens to also be the gateway to a
hundred thousand acres of intense bird habitat.
The weather was spectacular. It snowed six inches the night we arrived; for
the next seven days, alternately snowed, snushed, froze, thawed, fogged and
sparkled. Temperatures ranged from below
zero to a “balmy” 45 degrees. Funny that we had to travel 300 miles SOUTH to
find snow. I didn’t realize how much I’d
missed it, during the 29 years we’ve lived in the jet-stream-moderated climate
of NW Oregon. Ah…winter!
Why Klamath Falls? I did mention the wildlife, right? Birds!
Raptors. Owls. Eagles.
Geese, swans, ducks and herons. And
as a bonus, a really thriving population of coyotes. Often, it felt like we had all those acres of wildlife refuge virtually to
ourselves. Not everyone’s idea of a
dream vacation. But I thought it was
magical.
Now that the days are
shortening, the trees are shedding their leaves and the sun, when it appears at
all, paints a weak arc in the southern sky, my heart is yearning to go back to
that place. I want to see the hoarfrost
sparkling like diamond dust on every cattail, reed, sage bush and blade of
grass. I want to peer into the tangled
naked branches of every winter-dormant willow and marsh-side tree for the telltale
triangular silhouette of a Great Horned Owl.
I want to see strings of bright white swans trailing across a brilliant
blue sky. I want to watch the shadows
grow and mellow from blue to peach to orange as the sun sinks behind the
mountains in the southwest.
All this yearning made so
much more desperate by the fact that we probably won’t be able to swing it this coming January.
I comfort myself by
speculating that perhaps our experience last winter was so spectacular, that it
couldn’t be matched. If we went back,
would it be as wonderful? Or would we be disappointed? Have we “been there, done that?” I don’t
know. I suspect not. Still, I need to take the edge off my craving
for a winter bird fix somehow, or I won't make it 'til spring.
I’ll have to content myself
with believing that last January was a once-in-a-lifetime enchanted journey, and trying to recapture that magic would be a futile effort. But, oh…it wouldn’t take much to talk me into
giving it another go…
No comments:
Post a Comment