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Archive for January, 2011

The Magic of Planning a Journey

Posted in Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , on January 2, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Reading for my upcoming adventures on the Blue Ridge Parkway -- Photo by Pat Bean

  “Let your mind start a journey thru a strange new world. Leave all thoughts of the world you knew before. Let your soul take you where you long to be … Close your eyes and let your spirit start to soar, and you’ll live as you’ve never lived before.” Erich Fromm

Travels With Maggie

There’s something magical about getting on the road with no destination in mind and stopping whenever and wherever fancy strikes . That was the ideal for my travels before I actually got on the road. It worked – sometimes.

Today I spend endless hours plotting my journeys, like the one I plan to take this spring driving the Blue Ridge Parkway between Smokey Mountain and Shenandoah national parks.

For my upcoming Blue Ridge Parkway adventure, I purchased mile-marker guides of the parkway (Rockfish Gap to Grandfather Mountain and Grandfather Mountain to Great Smokey Mountain NP) by William Lord. I learned from Lord that plans for the Parkway begin in the early 1930s and that upon hearing such news Aunt Caroline Brinegar, a-sittin’ and a-rockin’ in her cabin high in the Blue Ridge by Air Bellows Gap slapped her knee and laughed at the notion. “Why Lord have mercy, no body a-living’ could put one of them through here.”

This is an actual page from my Blue Ridge Parkway plans. I note the campground where I expect to stay for the night with a telephone number so I can either make a reservation or cancel one. Occasionally I even insert pictures. -- Photo by Pat Bean

As part of my planning routine, I plot the proposed route out on my Microsoft Streets & Trips computer software, which I use as my road atlas. I then go online to research the sights along the way, Finally, I use my Trailer Life Directory to find convenient campgrounds for each night’s stop.

This kind of detailed planning takes days and days, but I enjoy doing it. Besides, I’ve discovered that such planning allows me the security of knowing I will have a safe place to stay the night, assures me I won’t overlook interesting places, and provides directions to trails I want to hike.

There are still unexpected rainbows, the shimmer of sun shining down on a field of poppies, and the people whose paths I cross to keep the journey interesting.

There are also days when I trash the plan on a whim so Maggie and I can stay in place for awhile, or take an unplanned side trip. Just because I have a plan doesn’t mean it has to be followed. That’s the magic I allow to remain in my plans.

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The Badlands: Steeples and Ripples of Striated Color

Posted in Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , on January 1, 2011| 6 Comments »

A landscape with more appeal to nature lovers than farmers. -- Photo by Pat Bean

Note: Since I have taken the pledge to blog daily, this is the first of 365 blogs for 2011. Maggie, my 13-year-old cocker spaniel co-pilot, and I are now in our seventh year of traveling across America. We live and roll down the road in Gypsy Lee, a 22-foot RV that now has 115,000 miles on her. I hope you join us for the ride.

Travels With Maggie

The Badlands “are so fantastically broken in form and so bizarre in color as to seem hardly properly to belong to this earth.” Theodore Roosevelt

 My RV rocked and rolled for three days in up to 45 mph wind gusts that blew sand down through my air conditioner and into my tiny RV home as I sat out a South Dakota September wind storm just outside of Badlands National Park.

Once an ocean, then a jungle, now bad lands. -- Photo by Pat Bean

 Finally the wind broke – thankfully before my sanity – and I took the opportunity to go exploring. Why, I soon wanted to know was this land called bad. I found its steeples and ripples of striated red and white rocks that reeked with fossil evidence of an ocean, and even a jungle, in its past fascinating. Seeing it for the first time as a I drove through the park was awesome.

 Probably because it was a week day and also because the wind was still haughtily showing off its power in occasional bursts, it seemed as if Maggie and I, and the prairie dogs and rattlesnakes, had the park all to ourselves. Later that night, with the wind still jiggling my RV, I researched the origin of the land’s naming. It was, I discovered, a Sioux thing.

W

Watch where you step. -- Photo by Pat Bean

 The Indians had called it bad land because its formidable terrain was difficult to travel through and because the land was no good for growing things, As one who had traveled the awesome ground on pavement and who didn’t have to grow her own food, I realized my way of loving a land merely for the pleasure it gave me might be considered selfish.

 The thought brought me back to my days as an environmental reporter and my efforts to fairly cover the polarized issues of conservation and economic survival. I had realized back then that neither side was wrong and that compromise was usually the only answer.

 Thankfully, the act turning the Badlands into a national park was a win-win situation for both sides. The land is protected for nature lovers like me while our tourist dollars help keep food on the table for South Dakotans.

The wind was still blowing the next morning when Maggie and I continued our journey down the road. I wondered why someone hadn’t called this place Windyland

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