Busy bees harvesting pollen...

from opening globemallow blossoms. I’ll have to go prospecting for the entrances to their underground hives, given away by their tiny sedimentary turrets.

Desert globemallow (Sphaeralcea ambigua). The fully open blossoms are about 15 mm wide.

Fully loaded mallow bee with a large pollen pellet on its hind legs, weighing up to 30% of the bee’s weight.

An early morning start...

on a once-weekly ritual commences from Lions Park, then a six mile (10 km) uphill climb on the Moab Canyon Pathway to the Moab Brands trail network where one can play on the singletrack until near exhaustion, then a nice and long downhill return.

Pedestrian/bicycle bridge across the Colorado River on the Moab Canyon Pathway.

A GPS radio tracker is tucked away...

in the payload bay of my high power model rockets that allows for accurate flight telemetry in real time, and also assists in locating the rocket after touchdown by transmitting its location. Today’s first test flight with the device went exceptionally well and provided a wealth of interesting flight data.

The Arreaux at liftoff on an Aerotech F20-7W engine, soaring to an apogee of 936 feet (285 meters).

The Featherweight GPS radio tracker mounted on a sled inside the payload bay. A small LiPo battery is secured beneath the circuit board and will not budge under high G forces at liftoff.

GPS track of flight at the Round Mountain Proving Ground rendered on Google Earth. L = launch site, A = apogee, and T = touchdown point.

Distance between launch and touchdown points is about 100 yards/meters.