Fun on the rocks

Today was a very weird and different day. In a lot fo respects it was the same as many of the days on the trip, but at the same time it was incredible different. Or rather, I was different. once again I didn't catch any of the lizards that I need. It's incredibly frustrating, I only need 3 more, and it's seeming like I'll be here forever! But something shifted in mybrain while I was sitting in the sun (coincidence?) and I was reminded of a story I heard of a man working in a toll booth who used to turn the music up nd have a fantastic party every day at work.

I had something sharp in my shoe - the blackjacks and grass seeds get right through and into the mesh where they bother me all day - and I decided to take a break. At the time i had a bunch of traps set up too far from any other sites to monitor them effectively, so I settled down in the shde and took my shoes off. Not that remarkable. On this trip I've done a fair amount of crawling through thorn bushes, either to set traps or to get to various sites, so my shins have been scratched and cut like crazy. Add the insect bites and you could probably play connect-the-dots on my legs to come up with some impressive constellations. climbing over some boulders earlier had scraped my shins and some of the cuts were bleeding, so I rolled the bottom of my pants up to stop the blood from staining them, and I took a break. I had some water, tried to eat the apple I took along this morning only to find that it had been pulped somewhere along the line, and I wtched the traps and listened to my Ipod.

It was a beautiful day, with the bright blue sky that I've never seen in any other part of the world, and I was high on a rocky outcrop where I could see for miles and it was so beautiful... So beautiful that I turned up the music and, barefoot and bleeding, I danced around the outcrop.

From that point on I found that I wasn't frustrated or upset or anything. I went to another site to scout around for trapping locations for tomorrow and wound up exploring huge sections that had been hidden by grasses and I only found because I was feeling adventurous. I did some rock-climbing that got a little bit hair-raising to sa the least, and I found a lovely area that will get the perfect morning sun - a great site if I can figure ouot how to get to it.

Once I was done exploring I found an old site (named "burned tree" because there happens to be an old burned tree on the edge - imaginative I know, I named it!) and I sat and wited and waited. Eventually I saw two (possibly three but I'm not sure if the third is a separate lizard or the first one moving quickly) lizards and I stayed watching them until after sunset so that I'll know where to catch them when they wake up tomorrow morning.

That was on a large outcrop, known as the Sundowner rock, because it's one of the most beautiful vantage points on the farm, and we always take visitors up there for sundowners. admittedly I was just drinking water (and eating a Sparkle because I didn't go home for lunch), but I got to watch the sunset.

And it was beautiful.