Incoming! First day on the road

Note - this didn't get published on Thursday November 19 for some accidental reason as is it was scheduled, so posting now a week later.

Today our first day on the road)we spent all day going...not very far.  Well, actually we did travel a fair amount.  From Ananda Village we drove the motorhome to Rocklin for a checkup on the dashboard emission light which turned out to be a confused computer chip.  5 hours later, by the time we departed Rocklin it was afternoon so we drove ata leisurely pace (afterall this is life in the right lane) to Lodi and encamped in a KOA near the delta.

Not much daylight left and we wanted to see the cranes so we unhooked the "toad" and headed back north a few miles to the Isenberg Crane reserve west of I-5.  A group of birders from Oakland was there and I also ran into a model railroad friend, Niles, from Granite Bay. Small world.

Sandhill Cranes landing

What was really amazing were the featured attraction.  Around sunset, hundreds of Sandhill cranes return from a day of feeding in the San Joaquin valley to roost in the shallow waters of the delta, safe from predators.  Truly wondrous as they used their sounds to hone in on a landing spot.  Due to low clouds, I couldn't get  good photos of them at the landing points but did get a couple nice silhouettes against the sunset.  Here is one.  due to low light, the photo is a little grainy.

The reserve is shared with coots, ducks and black necked stilts.