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(Click the photos for larger versions.)

Congratulations to Sam who was the first person to correctly surmise the identity of this month’s mystery animal. The Javelina or Collared Peccary (Pecari tajacu) is native to the Americas, from the southwestern U.S. all the way down to Argentina. Though it looks an awful lot like a pig or wild boar at first glance, the Javelina is more closely related to the deer family than pigs (pigs evolved in the Old World).

Though primarily nocturnal in the hot summer months Javelinas take full advantage of daylight during the cooler weather. Which is probably why we had our first close encounter with a small family group (females and young stick together throughout the year) here on our property earlier this week. Tucson has a substantial population of Javelina that share our urban area—Sam also made the acquaintance of his neighborhood Javelinas earlier this week (see his photo on Flickr).

Our small group of four (the fourth one stayed hidden for protection probably because it has a pronounced limp) wandered quite peacefully through our yard for a half hour. Which allowed us plenty of time to observe their behavior—like when the two adult females rubbed each others backs, releasing a pungent odor from their scent glands. And obviously, they even hung around long enough for me snap some photos, some of which turned out better than others.

Thanks everyone for participating! See you in the New Year for a fresh set of challenges.

This month we have a “Mystery Animal” photo for you to decipher. The challenge is to identify the animal in this picture.

Please be as specific as possible. Good luck!

(Click photo for larger version.)

Instructions: When you think you have figured it out, enter your guess in the comment field below. Be sure to check back in three days (this Friday) to see if you were right.

OK, I admit it, I am a weather wimp! According to National Weather Service it has been at least a week since we have seen 70s here in southern Arizona. I can’t change the weather but I can take heart in the fact that I am not alone in my winter weather wimpishness. To see what I mean check out the December 2nd issue of our (last remaining) local paper which printed this cartoon from Tucsonan David Fitzsimmons, an editorial cartoonist: Top 6 Ways Tucsonans React to Winter.

And, just for the record, I completely agree with you David, anything under 72 degrees is downright freezing. Brrrr!

Lance and I are both avid readers and when I’m bored (like while sitting in a one of those appropriately named waiting rooms) I’ll read just about anything. (I’m far less picky about what I read than Lance is.) The down side is that I end up perusing some really odd material. The up side of it is that I occasionally come across little nuggets that really resonate. In this case it is part of the “Good-Life List” that I snagged from the February 2008 issue of Redbook. I thought I’d share this one thought-provoking sentence:

Imagine yourself as an 85-year-old looking back on your life, what do you want to have achieved?

While in St. Louis this past summer I took advantage of a free afternoon to wander a few of the Gateway City’s many attractions. One of those was the St. Louis Art Museum in Forest Park. The museum was in the midst of a massive expansion project which made navigating the different galleries a bit awkward. On one of my wrong turns I found this sign posted in what I presume is an employee entrance. Definitely warranted a photo!

The last leg of our summer trip found us in familiar territory: southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona. Several members of my family moved out to the San Simon Valley over a dozen years ago and we love visiting them; not only for their wonderful company but for the gorgeous views. The rhyolitic Chiricahua Mountains dominate the southern skyline while the unsettled Peloncillo Mountains meet the sky to the north. Our weekend visit was a quiet and pleasant affair, mostly just lingering over meals and catching up on each others’ lives.

About mid-day on a Sunday we left on our RV’s last road trip of the year—we were heading home. Odd word, home. It seems to have several different levels of meaning. In the most concrete sense (a house, apartment, or other shelter that is the usual residence of a person, family, or household) our home was wherever we parked our RV. Even in the emotional sense our RV certainly fits the meaning of home: “the place in which one’s domestic affections are centered” or “any place of residence or refuge.” Those definitions may be technically correct but during these past few years of travel we have discovered that home isn’t just the building in which we live.

We thought this month’s challenge might be a bit too tough. But Face soon proved us wrong (Congrats!). The answers to the clues are: Buckeye, Herbert Hoover, Ulysses S. Grant¹, Minnesota, The Spirit of St. Louis, A Sand County Almanac.

The third letter from Buckeye = C
The second letter of Hoover = O
The last letter of Ulysses = S
The second to last letter of Minnesota = T
The third letter from Louis = U
The third letter from Sand = N

Rearranged, the letters spell out a place that is very special to us: Tucson! After all our travels across this amazing country we still think Tucson is one of the best places to live and we are not alone in that. AARP The Magazine’s September/October issue had an article entitled, “The Best Places to Live the Simple Life.” Tucson came in first place. The subtitle was “Rich culture, great food, low stress. Who wouldn’t want to call these affordable cities home?” Who indeed.

¹ Technically, his birth name was Hiram Ulysses Grant. A clerical error on his West Point nomination papers mangled Grant’s name to Ulysses S., which he adopted and used for the rest of his life.

To commemorate the Questing workshop I attended at the end of last month, we have a virtual quest for you. The clues draw from the education we received on our RV trip this summer. As you’ll soon see, we learned quite a bit in a short period of time!

It’s a two-parter: you not only need to figure out the answer to each clue but after taking the designated letter from each answer you’ll need to unscramble them to figure out the final answer.

The common name for this two-toned, lumpy nut (and the tree it came from) was derived from its resemblance to a deer’s optical organ. Take the third letter.

Despite a humble beginning (he was orphaned at a young age) this man graduated from Stanford, was a millionaire by his thirties and eventually landed the highest office in this country (at the time he was the first one born west of the Mississippi River). You’ll need the second letter of this man’s last name.

This man was born in Ohio and raised in an abolitionist family. After he graduated from West Point he was stationed out west where he married into a slave-owning family. A few years later he abruptly quit the military. When a crisis faced the nation he re-joined the military and eventually he was promoted. Afterwards he was twice elected to the White House. Grab the last letter of his first name.

One of our favorite radio shows broadcasts weekly from this state. The state’s name comes from a Dakota word meaning “sky-tinted water.” Scoop up the second to last letter.

One of this now famous aviator’s first jobs was delivering air mail. He later went on to win the Ortieg Prize by flying non-stop from New York to Paris in a plane specially made for him. Snag the third letter from the last word in the name of the plane.

This renowned forester-professor-author wrote a non-fiction book about his efforts to restore a worn-out farm in Wisconsin. He mixed his observations about the natural world with philosophy and the resultant text became the conservationist’s bible. You’ll want the third letter from the second word in the book’s title.

Now rearrange the selected letters to spell out the name of a place that is very special to us.

Instructions: When you think you have figured it out, enter your answer in the comment field below. Be sure to check back next Sunday (November 22nd, 2009) to see if you were right.

After our mammoth of a drive from St. Louis, Missouri to southern New Mexico over the weekend we were in need of a quiet week. Especially since Mound City had kept us so busy during our stay. We had heard good things about St. Louis from our friends Rich and Karen but we were still pleasantly surprised by all the Gateway City had to offer.

We knew we wouldn’t be able to drive all the way to Tucson in such a short period of time so we pored over the map of New Mexico. Always looking for something new to discover we skipped over places where we’d stayed before. That put us south of Socorro and north of Las Cruces. Finally we decided to check out Elephant Butte, a place we had driven by many times before. Though fossilized mammoths and mastodons have been uncovered in the area the name comes from a distinctive landform; a large volcanic core—now an island in the lake—that purportedly resembles an elephant. I dunno, we stared at the misshapen rock but couldn’t find the elephant. Maybe we needed a different angle.

There are three entities that share the name Elephant Butte: a tiny community, the state’s biggest lake, and New Mexico’s largest state park. Of the three we were most familiar with the lake since it had piqued our interest when we skirted it on I-25 on road trips past. The town, the lake and the state park all owe their existence to the Elephant Butte Dam that impounded the Rio Grande in 1915. The embankment was authorized in 1905 as part of the Rio Grande Project (a water compact between three U.S. states, Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas, and Mexico).

The Project, originally designed to control flooding and provide water for irrigation, now also generates power through the hydroelectric plant at Elephant Butte. Though all water projects in the arid southwest have downsides, one positive effect of the dam was the creation of a recreation and tourism industry in the area. Simply put, the town and state park wouldn’t exist without the lake. Though we aren’t into fishing or water sports the sparkling water of the lake enticed us to stay and play.

We spied this unique vehicle assemblage in St. Louis and thought it a fitting time of year to share it with you. He looked like a nice enough guy but his license plate leaves things a bit open to interpretation. I mean, is he offering the passenger seat or the casket?