On A Horse with No Name

By Nick Kotula, JRA Guest Contributor

You can either:  Drive two miles out of town, drive through a mile long tunnel carved into the bedrock, put on a hard hat, and be checked out by a Department of Homeland Security agent OR make the climb down one thousand and four-hundred feet of near sheer red sandstone in the near 90 degree heat with the sun beating down on you.  These are your options if you live in the Grand Canyon area and want to see Great blue herons.

I’m in the desert southwest, and thought that my reader(s) might be interested in hearing of the lengths that others have to go through to see these amazing birds.  (Can I write this off as a business expense?)  My wife and I opted for the less adventurous bus ride through the tunnel and to the base of the Glen Canyon Dam and the Colorado River.

The raft down this section of the river is nothing like the much more adventurous white water rafting through the Grand Canyon, but the relatively (we did get splashed with freezing cold water a few times) calm waters allowed us to really soak in (pun intended!) the scenery.  We were surprised to find a familiar friend in a very unfamiliar landscape.  A heron! The guide let us know that we were pretty lucky to have found them so early in the spring.

Richmond is extremely lucky to have the James, doubly so for having a heronry in such an easily accessible place.  Being in the desert has given me an even greater appreciation for just having a body of water around.  (And Chapstick. I never thought I would miss the Richmond humidity!) And while the land where the deer and the antelope play is beautiful in its own way, I’m looking forward to returning home to where the rapids shoot through downtown and checking up on OUR herons!