The Halloween season has come to a close which brings with it a mixture of sadness and relief. We hate to see it end, but it also feels like the steam has finally been released from the pressure cooker. Yesterday (the 1st) was “Spirit Day” as we have come to call it. The night before the haunters were nestled all snug in their beds while visions of ghouls and monsters danced in their heads. Away to the local Spirit “popup” Halloween store we flew like a flash for what to our wondering eyes should appear but an entire store at 50% off. A bundle of props we flung on our backs. We were heard to exclaim as we drove out of sight, we can’t wait until the next haunt night! Actually, there is a little pressure still left in the cooker as I have to find places to store all the new stuff – eh, worry about that another day ha. In addition to celebrating another successful haunting season I also managed to reach an annual running goal. In all the Halloween chaos and injury setbacks, I managed to still hit my 1200 mile annual running goal – 60 days early!
I mainly bring this up as a lead in to let you know Brad will be taking the helm to give me a badly needed rest and because his post happens to be about another trail “speed demon”.
Take it away Brad (and Jan)…
Let me set the stage here for you.
It’s late September. Jan and I are in a National Park in southern Nevada just outside Las Vegas. We are in the desert with Red Rock all around. That’s right, it’s Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area, about 20 minutes outside of Las Vegas. The temperature is in the upper 80’s or low 90’s at 4pm. Yes, we remembered to bring water with us.
We flashed our Annual Park Pass (surely you all have one of these beauties by now) at the entrance gate and started on the 13-mile scenic drive to see what we could see. One of the first things we saw surprised us a little bit.
It was a “Tortoise Crossing” sign. I figured the chances of seeing a Desert Tortoise were just as high as our seeing a Bighorn Sheep in Arches National Park (still haven’t seen one there, despite the myriad of road signs). Although the Elk Crossing signs near Estes Park, CO are very accurate.
About four miles into the scenic drive, we came upon a white sedan with its doors open and flashers on, taking up the right side of the road. We crept past and parked to see if they needed any help. Two young men (college age I’m guessing) were kneeling in front of the car. I suspected car trouble.
Imagine the surprise when Jan and I got out of our car to find out what they were doing.
Hit the jump to find out what the surprise was!
The two men were holding onto a Desert Tortoise (Gopherus agassizii) to keep it from running into traffic.
The tortoise shell was about 12” long and 10” wide, not counting the legs, tail or head and neck. I believe this Desert Tortoise was probably fully grown. Remember, tortoises are found on land, turtles are found in the water. Just then another tourist car drove by to shout out some useless information about what to do with the tortoise and sped off (hope the park rangers caught them later on). The two that were kneeling said they had been trying to keep the tortoise out of the road for a little while, but cars kept buzzing by. We decided to take it where it wanted to ago; across the road to the other side (there’s a joke about a chicken in there somewhere).
The two college kids carried it across the road while Jan and I stopped the drivers speeding by. They set it down on the opposite side of the road and it took off. I’ve seen tortoises move before, but nothing prepared me for how quickly this guy was moving. Desert Tortoise can travel up to 0.30 MPH (about 1,600 feet per hour). Yes indeed, that is the blinding speed of almost 1/3 MPH. This one was doing every bit of that, maybe even up to 0.32 MPH! Jan said it was getting in some uphill speed work for an upcoming desert trail run.
Jan positioned herself ahead of the tortoise and kept snapping pictures. It was moving so rapidly, she had to walk backwards rather quickly.
It wasn’t until we saw the photos later, we realized the tortoise had a mouthful of something green and was munching away the entire time. The Desert Tortoise diet consists of mainly grasses, flowers, fruit and cactus. Their food contains almost all of the water the tortoise needs; which is a good thing because it may not come across fresh water for up to a year at a time. We looked around a little bit, but didn’t see any Tootsie-Pop wrappers or paper sticks. (Kids, ask your parents, or grandparents, about Tootsie-Pop commercials from the last century. Better yet, look them up on YouTube. Better still, go ask Mr. Owl.)
Desert Tortoise are listed as a threatened species due to habitat loss, road mortality and predation of their eggs and hatchlings. A Desert Tortoise will spend much of the year under rocks or in burrows to conserve water and regulate their body temperature. Knowing all of that, we were lucky to see one at all. Jan and I were happy to help this one transit safely across the road. Hopefully, it will live a long and happy life away from the speeding tourists we encountered. A Desert Tortoise can live up to 80 years if it can avoid the many dangers it faces. We’ve come to the end.
Thank you for reading. If you want to see more photos from our SW National Park tour, please visit here.
Credits
Thanks again to Jan for proofreading and editing. Allyson’s assignment is ending soon. Thanks to Jan nearly all of the photos in this article.
Wildlife Intrigued 
Congratulations on your hitting your running goal 60 days early. Amazing given the fact you were attacked and serious injured by a tree root of all evil. The tortoise is adorable.
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Thanks Tim. I don’t think we had much impact on the tortoise because it seemed to keep happily munching away the entire time. Brian can tell you about his running goal, sure to be higher next year.
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To be honest, I set my January goal to 1000 knowing I have a realistic chance of hitting that (SMART Goal ha), then reset to 1200 once that is reached – stretch. Now I get to enjoy my miles and happy with whatever I top out at..I am thinking 1300 is in reach barring any big holiday travels, but we will see.
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In other words “Expected Results
“.
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Expected for the 1000 level, exceeded for the stretch 1200 and then superior for the walk on water 1300 level should I make that…. and running goals supersede all other failures for the year!
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But as we used to be told, exceeding goals was Expected.
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That was just to justify the predetermined bell curve.
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There’s always a true bell curve, but “leaders” never sought to find it. Instead, they wedged ratings into what they wanted to see, not what really existed. Sure glad that’s gone in retirement.
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Glad you quoted that word and yes, glad that is all past. One of the reasons November is so much happier these days ha.
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Thank you Tim! I spit on that TRoAE and taunt it a second time…let’s hope it has a short memory as I have to run past that same spot a lot as it is my main training ground hehehehe. I’m enjoying this two week vacation from running I promised myself I would take if I managed to get to the goal – hopefully I won’t turn soft.
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Hope is eternal!
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That it is!
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What a beautiful rescue operation, my respect !
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Thank you. We certainly had fun and smiled for quite a bit afterwards seeing such a rare animal.
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How cool is that, great photos as well. 🙂
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Thank you Sandra. I’m always glad when we get lucky with photos of subject we did not expect to see.
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Interesting story of turtle rescue and congrats for hitting your running goal. I assume you run nearly every day!
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Thanks Minna. I’ll let Brian comment on his running goals and accomplishments in spite of the setbacks he’s had this year.
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Thanks Minna, this is the earliest I have ever reached the annual goal – I can remember years where I was out running in the cold/sleet/snow on New Year’s Eve to get it accomplished. I was shocked when my run tracker announced the completion as I was assuming I was actually behind due to the mid-year injury and having to miss the 30 mile race. I do tend to run at least 5 to 6 days a week, but that gets ramped up to every day and even twice a day when gearing up for a race. So much easier now that I am retired. When working it was always a struggle to get the runs planned into the day, where now I get to plan the day around the runs. Take care.
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You are really dedicated to training. It’s great that you managed to achieve your goal despite the injury. Take care!
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Thank you Minna – my wife refers to running as my “addiction” ha. I am always telling her there are worse things to be addicted to.
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👍
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The sign wasn’t kidding, and you scored some precious action shots of this turtle! Look at the ground clearance and look of intent!
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We were very happy to see one. I don’t think the tortoise ever changed expression the entire time. It knew where it wanted to go whether slow and steady or not.
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Nice story and nice young men. They didn’t take any weird selfie’s with the tortoise did they? Or were they normal and not need to document their every waking moment?
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We didn’t see any selfie action. But they did say they had been there for several minutes waiting for traffic to clear. As I recall, I didn’t even see mobile phones when they were protecting the tortoise. Thanks Jerry.
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I can’t believe you actually saw what the sign showed. The only time that happened to us was near Big Bend National Park and we made some not-so-nice punny jokes about the “wild burro” crossing sign until we actually saw them heading down a hill to cross the road! I am glad you found the desert tortoise because I’ve never seen one, and Jan your photos are amazing!
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Jan says Thanks! She did the photography for that story as I was busy flagging down cars. Try Red Rock Canyon sometime, since I know they actually have tortoise “running” around.
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Red Rock Canyon is definitely on our list, and we’re kind of wanting to go to Las Vegas to see the Sphere too. Win-win!
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Take a tour or Allegiant Stadium while you are there. Or a Pink Jeep tour.
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Both of those would be fun. We also want to go to Valley of Fire State Park.
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That’s a good one too! PJ took us there; we had a great guide.
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That Sphere does look really cool – we’ll definitely be checking it out on our next trip out there. If you do want places to bird in Vegas/Henderson just let us know and we can give you a list of our favorite spots.
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Thank you.
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We just missed it being open. They were still doing stress tests so we did get to see several “shows” from the outside. We, too, are looking forward to see what’s inside sometime.
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They also have a small pen behind their visitor center, although I will confess, we have NEVER actually seen any there in the many many years we have been going there.
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Probably just a placebo for tourists. I can see it now, “Hey Honey! There might be a desert tortoise in here. Let’s hang out and wait a while to see if we can spot one.”
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Wouldn’t surprise me…still worth going to visitor center to score an easy Anna’s Hummingbird hanging out at their feeders.
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We found a couple at Upper New Port wildlife preserve. Along with an Allen’s and a few other “to be written about” birds.
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I need that Allen’s. Ron keeps one-upping me on that Hummer every year thanks to his trips to see his daughter in San Diego – I keep telling him that birding during family visits isn’t allowed, but he scoffs at that hehehe.
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Head to Upper Newport Bay Preserve and you can snag about 100 of them we don’t have in the Midwest. Plus a few we do have (darn house sparrows). Between five and seven different hummies can be found out West between Upper Newport Bay preserve and Yosemite.
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Good to know, although that would require me to go to Cali ha.
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Technically yes, but you could sneak in from the east through Nevada, at least to the National Parks.
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True, I dipped my toe in Tahoe and that wasn’t too bad (and very productive)
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Kudos on helping the tortoise helpers.
We’re blessed with a healthy population of Gopher Tortoises around here and are familiar with the process of trying to stop speeding cars while we tote a tortoise to where it thinks the grass is greener.
Sounds like everyone had a great Halloween. We did. Lots of treats. It helps that we turned off the lights and pretended not to be home so we didn’t have to part with any of the good stuff to those pesky kids in kostumes. Nothing beats chocolate candy and coffee for breakfast……….
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Hahahaha, now I have to applaud that treat strategy! Unfortunately, (although thinking fortunate now seeing your approach) we do not get any trick or treaters out here in the country – they would have to work for it and you know kids these days. My partner in haunt hauls his decorations up to his hometown in Wisconsin every year and has a much smaller version of the trail – told me they had 600 kids this year. Thinking he didn’t get any candy with his coffee the next day ha. Take care and thanks for dropping in.
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Thanks Wally. It was the first time we had ever seen a desert tortoise. One one trip to the desert the road was lined with short fences to keep them off the pavement. But since they look like rocks, it’s hard to tell them from the landscape. Hoping to see more sometime in the future. Thanks for stopping by.
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Like one of your other readers, I was taking particular notice of the ground clearance this fellow’s protective box and long legs provided. No stomach-dragger here! I’ve read that, when transporting them off the road, it is best to take them in the direction they were headed, else they will just head back into the road. Very determined. Sort of like Bri on his runs .
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You mean EXACTLY like Bri on his runs as we probably have the exact same pace hahaha. Now If I can just get some young men to carry me …
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Hi Sam. That’s what we tried to do, set him/her off in the direction he/she was already trying to go. I think it was trying to follow the chicken that crossed the road.
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Kudos, Brian, on hitting that big goal! I admire your determination! 🙂
And Brad, what a beautiful shell. I wonder how old this one is? He was really moving, huh?! 🙂
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Hi Lisa. I’m not sure how old it was, but based on my quick estimate, it was near the upper end of the size range. I’m not really sure how long they live, so this one may have only been middle-aged. Yes, this one was certainly on a mission and we were only delaying it (and also trying to keep it safe). Thanks for stopping by.
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Thank you Lisa! Not the most talented, but I do commit ha.
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