I often say that the day of the Point Reyes Christmas Bird Count (“CBC“) is the best day of the year. This year it might have also been the luckiest.

I’m on the Tom’s Point team, also known as “Area 3”. We start, early in the morning, on Route 1 at a little area by Walker Creek. The first bit of luck: I made it with no incident, even though the day before I’d been having a bit of trouble with the car that involved getting a jump from a tow truck.

Anyhow, we trespass around Walker Creek for a couple of hours, and do our best to find our target species, the Rufous-Crowned Sparrow (RCSP). (Luckily, we found our RCSP’s with little effort this year). Then we head up to Tomales, have coffee and the most delicious pastries in the world, and an all-important restroom stop. Our area leader also picks up a loaf of bread for his wife’s Christmas present…it doesn’t seem like much, but he does a gazillion counts each holiday season, so I figure he’s picking up the jewelry and chocolate truffles on other counts.

Part of the thing that makes this day so great is the people who I get to spend it with. In addition to the area leader, there are two other friends that join in, and this year they brought their 11-week-old baby along to bird with us, which a beautiful thing.

After our break in Tomales, we head out to Tom’s Point proper, an Audubon Canyon Ranch preserve that is not open to the public. Here we wander around counting birds and looking at interesting things. This year we were lucky in many ways. For one thing, the weather was not nearly as bad as we expected. And we got a new bird for our area, a Short-eared Owl. I didn’t get a really good look at it, but luckily, others on our team saw enough to get a positive ID. And we were all treated to great views of a Peregrine Falcon doing his best to pick out a Bufflehead for lunch. I feel such a wonderful connection to this place, watching it over the past few years.

But it was back in Tomales that my luck really picked up. My car started! I was parked on a hill just in case I had to push-start it, but no need. Our area leader headed off to get a couple more birds out of our area, and I packed up my gear. Unfortunately, the car stalled and then wouldn’t start again, but I was lucky to be on that hill and then the people on our team showed up just at that time. They made sure I got started ok, and I was off to Point Reyes Station for the post-count dinner. Funny, I screwed up the push-start, but somehow the engine caught and started running again anyhow. I was suspicious that it wasn’t the battery, but I was glad to be on my way.

Many CBC’s have a post-count dinner. However, I’m absolutely certain that the Point Reyes CBC dinner is the best in the entire country. It’s like the Illuminati of birding all gathered in one place; each area is lead by someone that you’d normally have to pay to go birding with. It’s a lively bunch of bird nerds. My kind of people, though I’m pretty sure some day they’ll discover how poor my birding skills are and kick me out. Shhhh….we won’t tell….

After everyone gets their dinner, the count compilers read through a big list of bird species we typically see. As they read each one, you yell “Yes!” if you saw it that day. We usually have about 200 species marked “yes” by the end of that. Then it’s story time. Every group leader stands up and relates the highlights of their day. This is where we get to find out what rarities have been found, adding species to our list. And the stories are great, sometimes hilarious, sometimes with unintentionally hilarious delivery (nerds are nerds, after all). My favorite stories this year were about a mountain lion sighting that one team had, and another story about a coyote that seemed to be trying to play with a bobcat. Capping off the day with this dinner definitely makes it my favorite day of the year.

When dinner was over, I went out to my car to head home, and the darned thing wouldn’t start. Another lucky thing: my area leader helped me set up jumper cables so we could try jumping it. A passerby pointed out that it wasn’t my battery; the symptoms pointed to another problem. He was right, at least, that a jump wasn’t going to help me. But my luck still held: I had phone coverage, and was able to call my auto club with my cell phone. It was too bad, though, that they couldn’t coax anyone to come out to Point Reyes Station that late at night. My day leader also helped me try to push-start the car, but that wasn’t working this time either. He pushed the car a whole block! I finally got him to go home after that.

Luckily, the auto club gave me the number of a tow truck operator that wouldn’t contract through them, but could come out and I could pay them and then get reimbursed. After some calling around, I decided that the out-of-pocket was too steep, so I decided to try something else. I walked up to the gas station, but they were closed.

And then I had the super-incredible luck of coming back to find two last people leaving the dinner. One of them was a woman who’s son participated in the count, and she also happened to be a Point Reyes park ranger. She knew the local tow company personally, and suggested we go try to find them. So off I went with her. He wasn’t home, but we stopped at a local tavern and they called his numbers. No answer. It was here that I noticed that my wallet wasn’t in my purse. My heart lept into my throat, but luckily I’ve learned this prayer about offering over my will and by this point I was saying that prayer to myself about every five minutes. OK universe, if losing my wallet is also part of what needs to happen here, let’s go with that.

My good samaritan offered to let me sleep on her couch. At that point, I was prepared to sleep in the car, but I was grateful that I didn’t have to. This wasn’t luck, this was sheer goodness in another human being who turned out to be one of the most upbeat and positive people I have ever known.

We went back to the car and, lucky me, my wallet was right on the dashboard where I’d left it. And, also lucky me, I had a change of clothes, packed just in case we got soaked on the count, and a toothbrush and toothpaste in my purse. So off we went. I decided that there must be some reason for me to meet this person, so I let it drop that I’d applied to the Peace Corps and of course it turned out that she’s a returned volunteer herself. She had some interesting stories and good advice for me.

And so this is how I ended up waking up in front of floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Limantour Beach at Point Reyes National Seashore, maybe the most beautiful place on the planet. And, although there was no phone service, there was a wireless connection and just enough juice left in my phone to get the word out to my ex, who was dog sitting, to let him know what had happened. How lucky is that — my dog was already in good hands that night! Any other night, and I would have been leaving her stranded alone at home without dinner.

In the morning, my good samaritan took me back into town. Super-duper lucky to find a pay phone that would let me make toll-free calls for no charge. I literally spent an hour on the phone with the auto club as they tried to find someone to come out in the stormy weather. (Luckily, the phone booth had a bit of shelter to make the big shower we had during this time much more bearable than it might have been.) While waiting on the phone, I tried to think of all the dry places on the earth where they would literally kill for this kind of rain. And pulled out that prayer in my head a few dozen times.

The auto club just couldn’t find anyone they contracted with to come out to such a remote area for such a long tow. But luckily they could arrange for the other tow company to take me for cash, and (incredibly lucky) this happened during a time in the month where I actually have money in my checking account. Also lucky: the tow truck said he’d meet me at the diner and take me to my car. I was going to get my coffee AND breakfast!

The luck doesn’t end there. On the way home, we saw some routes were flooded out, but we made it all the way back to the ranch. The trees I always see on “my” road have never looked lovelier. And I know more about the towing business than I ever imagined possible. I like to think that my tow truck driver needed to come up to Bodega today for some reason we’ll never know. Maybe he needed to be away from an accident that he might have been in on his regular territory. Maybe he stopped to help a disabled driver on the way home and maybe they fell in love and will have a bunch of kids and one of them will find the cure to cancer. Who knows. All I know is, at this point, I’ve convinced myself that everything that has happened had to happen, and I“m better off going with that flow than railing against it.

Best of all, when I got home I heard a familiar bark, and Laika came running out to greet me. She’d already been delivered home to me, so I no longer had to worry about anything else for the day. I could just enjoy being snug at home, taking care of us, and appreciating all the luxuries of warmth, tea, internet connections and phone coverage and electricity. Tomorrow, I’ll call a friend who’s a mechanic, and I’ll get his advice about what to do next, and I’ll take it one step at a time. If I try to think two or three steps ahead, a dozen hydra heads of potential problems crops up. So just one.

This is not to say that I’m some kind of paragon of virtue and serenity. There were moments when I just wanted to buckle and bawl in a giant pity party. I was rude to the auto club rep last night, hanging up sharply instead of saying goodbye politely. I spent a lot of time beating myself up about not maintaining my car better, about always depending on other people for help, berating myself for my whole lifestyle, ”if you just got a job like everyone else you would have more money for these kinds of emergencies“ and so on, endlessly. Envy at the park ranger’s home (when she and her husband have obviously worked hard for years just to be able to get into this, a rental through the park service!) Endless self-centered head chatter about endless details, ”shouldas“ and ”if onlys“ and falling into ”help me“ instead of ”I accept“, even now.

But I am grateful for all of the little things that went right. And I’m open to more of that kind of luck.