"Well, you've been everywhere, haven't you?"
This was from the gal at the Renton Les Schwab, and she wasn't wrong. Burien and East Wenatchee were also on the list she'd pulled up. My slow leak had been "fixed" twice already, but my car informed me that it had dropped to 5 psi that morning.
"Yeah. . . is there going to be some smack talk from one Les Schwab to another if you find the problem that they missed?"
She grinned and let me know that her sister worked at the East Wenatchee Les Schwab.
So that would be a "yes".
I stepped out and looked for some lunch, and was greeted by the sound of a California Scrub-Jay. It seemed like a lot of deja vu packed into a small bit of time! Tire stores and Scrub-Jays were two pieces of a pretty satisfying September trip to Douglas County.
Deposits
My trip started with an early morning departure and drive to Ellensburg to help get my son situated for college. What a crazy year it had been, with the campus all but closed during his freshman year. We finally had a chance to get him situated in his dorm. "It'll be the best three years of your life," seemed like an appropriate adjustment of the popular phrase.
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| Well, this changes things (seen on campus) |
My tire had been fixed earlier in the week at a Les Schwab in Burien, but was still leaking slowly. My vague plans of having the Ellensburg Les Schwab take a look at it were derailed by a simple reality - they're closed on Sundays. Everywhere, it would seem.
Once we had him all set in his dorm, he had his goodbyes with his mom and his sister. I got to enjoy a little lunch with him ("while my car tire gently leaks" I heard the Beatles singing in my head). We had burgers and enormous bags of fries at the campus "U-Totem" while the typical Ellensburg wind blew the occasional french fry to the ground for the House Sparrows.
It was hard to say goodbye, but also nice to know that I'd have chances to see him on every trip to and from Douglas County. On this particular day, getting to Douglas was no small challenge.
Inflation
Down to 12 psi, I found an oil change place that was able to get the tire inflated to 40, with advice to patch it up with fix-a-flat to get me to East Wenatchee. It's not the way one wants to enter into a birding trip, but I had to be thankful for how reliable the car had been over the course of the year. To even have a vehicle that would tell me when there was a flat tire was a nice step up from the Taurus that I had put to rest recently.
Pressure dropped into the 20s during the trip, but did not seem too low, so I continued past East Wenatchee and made a pass through East East Wenatchee and into Rock Island.
East East Wenatchee is not a place
I realize this, but there are times when I'm driving areas above the Hydro Park, near the airport, and it doesn't feel like I'm in East Wenatchee or Rock Island, so this is what I've come to call it. On this trip, Rock Island Road was of particular interest as I was following up some sightings of the aforementioned California Scrub-Jays. I drove it slow when possible, and had the windows down listening for these little dudes.
California Scrub-Jays have been making their way into Eastern Washington over the last decade or so, and had added Douglas County to their county checklist in the last three years. I'd made numerous trips through some neighborhoods in search of them, but to no avail. Although I'd made a personal bet with myself that CASJ would be my 200th species for the year, I finally gave up on cruising through East East Wenatchee, and continued on to Rock Island.
Hideaway Lake
What a great spot this has been this year. It will be interesting to see in the end how many species I found for the first time at Hideaway Lake. On this particular day, the lake held Mallards, and a robust population of Wood Duck. Nearly every tree I passed had a couple Yellow-rumped Warblers in them, and White-crowned Sparrows seemed to be plentiful as well. Golden-crowned Sparrow was the bird I was most hoping to add here. It seemed like a good enough spot, given the six species of sparrows I'd found there during the year. Sadly, none of the White-crowned Sparrows had brought a Golden-crowned along as their "plus one".
Back at the car, things had gone south on the tire pressure. As much as I liked the idea of exploring a little more, especially along the water, I called it a day, and made my way back to the Cedars Inn for the evening.
Work had largely been cleared out for the evening, but being having the car problems grounding me, I felt just oddly off-balance. Like. . . I shouldn't even open the computer. . . but what else is there to do? Most days had been a daily grind of work - writing, editing, and revisions - for so many days on end. I had the Seahawks on for a bit, but eventually popped open the laptop, and sunk a few hours into work emails, gaming, and various YouTube spirals.
I was away, but the escape from the day-to-day was pretty incomplete - much like my son's escape from the nest for college in the last year. I finally got to sleep, later than I'd hoped, but at least with a solid plan to get the tire problems addressed, and with an invitation to visit an East Wenatchee resident with a lead on California Scrub-Jays.
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