Southern California

When we started our Thanksgiving trip we planned to visit Jeff and Debbie, though we hadn’t planned our route to their house.  When Leslie sent Jeff pictures of the Painted Desert and told him how much we had enjoyed it, he insisted we should stop at Red Rock Canyon State Park, which was forty or fifty miles from our route, a mere pittance compared to the 4,000 miles we ended up covering on our trip.  
Despite the fact that it overcast and dark, the cliffs were quite spectacular,

though not as spectacular as some shots I saw online.  I’ll have to return on our next trip to see for myself if the rocks are really as red as some of those shots portray.

We spent two nights and a part of two days in Fresno. Surprisingly,  it was my first time birding in nearly three weeks.  Unfortunately, I didn’t have my birding lens and camera with me, but the Sony RX10 IV managed to get some pretty good shots, like this one of a Bushtit, 

a Ruby-Crowned Kinglet, 

and a Say’s Phoebe, which may even have been a first for me.

The highlight of the short visit, though, was getting a chance to see Jeff Hallock play his harmonica with Kornbred, one of several bands he plays with regularly.  

I purposely didn’t have a camera with me that night, but my iPhone 11 managed some pretty good shots.