After two weeks on the road, yesterday was the first time I got to play tourist. At first, given my uneducated planning efforts, I was rushing, driving 1800 miles to get to a family wedding on time. Easy in a car; not so much in a high-top camper van. After the wedding, and a much needed day of rest, But yesterday I got to Midland TX, home of both the Permian Basin Petroleum Museum and the I-20 Wildlife Preserve. Opposite ends of the spectrum, so to speak.
After a family history in the oil business, I was interested to see the museum. It did what I expected in promoting and glorifying the oil industry.
The words “climate change” are not to be found there. They do however have a room full of awesome and beautiful crystals, another interest of the museum’s founder, including this huge amethyst.
The wildlife preserve was more interesting and fun. I had no idea it was there until I camped in the RV park across the street. The have an 86 acre “urban playa” lake. Some open water, but surrounded by wildlife habitat. There is a 1.5 mile path around it, with blinds you can stand behind and be much less seen by the wildlife. I needed the long walk after so many days on the road.
The people at this preserve have developed the iNaturalist app for the iPhone. Point your phone at any living thing, take a picture and it will tell you what it is. If the quality of the image is not quite good enough, it might tell you, “that’s a bird!” as opposed to what kind of bird. But birds are small and far away and usually backlit, all of which make identification difficult. The lizards ware impossible for me: small, constantly moving, and almost the same color as the path they scurried along. But for plants it works great. You can also use a better camera setup and feed those images into the app. (I haven’t tested this.) I also haven’t tested how it works in some other environment, such as upstate NY for example. I will report back about this.
I’m having issues with the photos in WordPress, possibly related to my old theme.
More later.
