Back to Balmorhea for Christmas

Here are some album links for locations we birded over Christmas near Balmorhea and Davis Mountains State Parks (cannot figure out how to get slide shows to work anymore with Google's deprecating of Picasaweb) along with some highlighted birds.

South Llano River SP

Chihuahua Desert Nature Center

Limpia Creek Primitive Area

Rio Grande River, Las Cruces

Bosque del Apache NWR

County Road 315, Balmorhea

Lawrence Picnic Area, Davis Mountains

Organ Mountains, Las Cruces

Lake Balmorhea

First Volkswagen Gone

Today was the big day. Volkswagen bought back the first of our two TDI smog-mobiles. This was my car, the 2012 Golf. Here waiting at home to go meet its maker and a souvenir shot at the VW service department. We will miss the quality service at Hewlett VW in Georgetown but I can't say that I will miss the car.

The older Jetta Sportswagen, Danielle's car, is scheduled for Jan 7, 2017. This was the car for which we had so many problems with the VW on-line portal that delayed completion of the paperwork.

Red-Shouldered Hawk Watches Feeders

We have had a pair of Red-Shouldered Hawks living near the house for a couple of years. This morning, it landed in the trees at the border of our back lawn and watched the bird feeders. This shot taken with an iPhone through a spotting scope so the detail is poor.

Comparison of Volt Leather

On Danielle's white Volt, we were able to get the factory leather in black. When we purchased my blue Volt, we were only able to find cloth in black. We had the cloth replaced by after-market Katzkin leather installed by Dealer Source. To add a little pizzazz, I selected one of the pre-designed patterns with contrasting colors. Specifically, I got the one with Code K725-100 described as having Black wrap, Ice Grey center, perf insert, perf wings, Cobalt contrast all stitch.

In the images below, I show a comparison of some of the details of front and rear seats. The factory interior is on the left and the Katzkin on the right. Strangely, the two materials reacted differently to the camera flash. In reality, the wrap color of the Katzkin and the factory leather look very similar.

You may notice subtle difference in how the pieces are cut. Also, note that the factory interior has perforated leather only in the centers whereas this Katzkin pattern has perforation in the wings as well. There is also a noticeable difference in the addition of double stitching in the Katzkin which emphasizes the contrasting blue stitching color. Katzkin provides options for changing some of these construction details. As I mentioned in my last post, the most noticeable difference is that the Katzkin feels softer to the hand and puckers more in the seat wells. When sitting in them, they feel the same. I was disappointed that installation of the after-market leather did not give the car a nice new-leather smell but a more acrid new-vinyl smell. Not sure what is up with that.