After sunset

Hesperus - Blue Lake Ranch, Colorado, 10 PM, a day in August 2010:

At first I thought it was an owl, but then the tone was joined by another yapping sound and another howl and another.  They hunt in packs, communicating by eerie sounds in the night.  I love this sound - last time I heard it was in Yellowstone National Park when at 5.30 AM during a meteor shower in early September a few years ago we heard a coyote pack on a mountain across the wide valley, soon answered by a wolf pack howling from another mountain ridge nearby.  In southern Colorado, you only hear the coyotes, but they are the real thing.  It makes you think about wide expanses of land, the Wild West, and old western movies.  I love the sounds of coyotes!  We have coyotes in New Jersey too, but they are quiet, probably because there are so many more people, cars, dogs, and houses in NJ and the coyotes try to avoid detection.  Out here in the west they can roam free.

Oh, and if you want to go to one of the best bed and breakfasts/ hotels/ inns in the USA for an unforgettable stay, book a room or cottage for a few nights at Blue Lake Ranch in southern Colorado.  The breakfasts are amazing, and Jackie makes the best biscuits and sausage gravy (a very American thing) and chicken tortilla casserole (a very Southwestern dish) for the breakfast table. What a treat!  The gardens are gorgeous, the place is like an oasis in the dry high-desert and pine forests. It is the kind of place you are glad you know about as a refuge that day when you need to get away.  It is probably one of the best and nicest places I have stayed at ever.

More photos from Blue Lake Ranch here.