A very meh July 4th

It's kind of hard to be excited about celebrating our break from a monarchy three days after the Supreme Court gave that type of power to the President. That, coupled with the Chevron decision, feels like a serious blow to the future of our democracy. Add in that it was 100+ degrees for the long holiday weekend, and meh is about all I can muster.

We were supposed to be camping but had to cancel. I wasn't real excited about camping in 95F heat, so I wasn't particularly upset about canceling. I need to only camp above 3000 feet in July and August. With it being so hot I didn't leave the house on Thursday, and Friday I only left for happy hour at our local pub. Yesterday I only left to go grocery shopping, and this morning I got up at 6 AM and went birding with the RVA Audubon Society. That turned out to be a good call as it was a solid morning of birding. We didn't find the Yellow-Crowned Night Heron that has been seen in the park for the last week, but I did ID 32 species, and got my first ever decent photos of a hummingbird somewhere other than a man-made feeder. In other bird news, we've booked a campsite for the Wings Over Water Wildlife Festival on the Outer Banks in late October. We also booked two group birding tours on Hatteras Island during the festival. With the temps around here the last two weeks I'm already looking forward to fall.