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Favorites: Travel Books

Posted in Books, Travel, Wildflowers, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on August 1, 2012| 7 Comments »

 “The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” – St. Augustine

Ten of Hundreds

 

Lake Powell, which destroyed Glen Canyon and which wouldn’t ever have existed if Edward Abbey’s “Monkey Wrench Gang” characters had anything to say about it. — Photo by Pat Bean

I won’t say these are my 10 favorite travel books, because I could name 10 more just as easily. But these are books that influenced my decision to become rootless and make the road my home for the past eight years.

I Married Adventure, 1940, by Osa Johnson. I picked this book up at the library when I was about 10 years old. I was always sneaking into the adult section. I think I already knew I had wanderlust, and this book simply confirmed it. I, too, wanted adventure.

Blue Highways by William Least Heat Moon. My 22-foot RV, Gypsy Lee, is my version of Moon’s green van, Ghost Dancing. I loved this book so much that I’ve given dozens of copies away as gifts. The green-dotted scenic byways marked on today’s maps are my blue highways.

Road Fever, by Tim Cahill, I have loved everything this Wyoming author has written, especially this book that details a 15,000-mile trip from Tierra del Fuego to the top of Alaska. I’ve read everything this author has written that I could come across, including his many Outside magazine stories.

A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson. This book fueled my desire to walk the Appalachian Trail, but except for a few miles on various sections it’s a to-do list item that I’ve waited too long to get around to doing. But I still have time to hike at least a few more miles on this trail whenever I come across one of its many trailheads.

One of Charles Kuralt’s more popular “On the Road” episodes wat the time he hooked up with a botanist to put names to all the wildflowers he was seeing, like this fireweed. — Photo by Pat Bean

Travels With Charley by John Steinbeck. I read this book many years ago, but reread it when I took to the road in 2004. My wordsmith friend, Charlie Trentelman, mentioned that I was the female version of Steinbeck, thus the title of my travel book, “Travels With Maggie.” Thank you Steinbeck.

On the Road with Charles Kuralt. Charles Kuralt was also influenced by Steinbeck. Kuralt, meanwhile, is actually the traveler most like me. We were both journalists, and we both prefer looking at life’s brighter side. I cried when Kuralt died, and one of my favorite travel photos is of his “On the Road” RV that’s on exhibit at the Henry Ford Museum.

The Snow Leopard, by Peter Matthieson. A fantastic writer who makes one think. This book brought the Himalayas to life for me. I was privileged to have once heard this author speak.

Out of Africa by Isek Dinesen. Like Osa Johnson, this book made me want to travel to Africa. Not only did I do that in 2007, I visited Dinesen’s former coffee plantation in Nairobi.

Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey. While I loved this book, Abbey’s “The Monkey Wrench Gang” is my favorite of all that he has written. It, too, could be considered a travel book in that it includes awesome descriptions of Utah and Arizona’s red-rock landscape.

The Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux. No travel book collection would be complete without Theroux. This is my favorite of his many.

Book Report: Busy morning, then a four-hour lunch with a group of mostly crazy old broads, whose Bay of Pigs nickname rivals my former group of crazy old broad friends called the Murder of Crows, that I wouldn’t have missed for the world. It comes under my umbrella mantra of smelling all the flowers and grabbing all the gusto this life has to offer. While I will do some editing as part of the rewrite of my travel book late this afternoon, I doubt I will add any significant word count. It’s the story of my writing life, conflicting goals. The good thing is that I no longer flagellate myself for such lapses.

Bean’s Pat: Photos and Facets; http://tinyurl.com/ckpfxer No! It’s not the London Bridge you’ve been seeing on television.

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Arkansas: Where “Travels With Maggie” Begins”

Posted in Books, Favorite Places, Journeys, Lakes, Nature, Travels With Maggie, Writing, tagged , , , , , on July 30, 2012| 13 Comments »

A short visit to White Oak Lake was included in activities on the first day of my “Travels With Maggie.” — Photo by Pat Bean

 “It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.” – J R R Tolkien

The Gurdon Lights

On the first day of my six-month, 7,000-mile, 23-state plus Canada journey, which is what the travel book I’m hoping to complete rewriting by the end of August is about, I passed through Gurdon, Arkansas.

The small town’s claim to fame is the Gurdon Light, which supposedly haunts the railroad tracks a few miles out of town. The mysterious light, which many have claimed to have seen, was featured on the TV show “Unsolved Mysteries” in 1994, and is described in the “Encyclopedia of Arkansas.”

As was a hike with Maggie on a nature trail at Poison Springs State Park. Sorry, I didn’t manage to snag a photo of the Gurdon Lights. — Photo by Pat Bean

Some believers claim the light is the lantern of a railroad worker who stumbled in front of a train and was killed. Others believe it is the lantern of William McClain, a railroad worker who was murdered in 1931 at about the same time the floating light was first seen. Skeptics look for a more natural phenomenon, such as quartz crystal in the area exuding electricity.

All I saw when I crossed the railroad track as it passed through Gurdon were rock pigeons perched on overhead utility wires. I suspected the small town’s pigeon population was larger than its human one. I wondered if these city dwelling birds had ever seen the lights, and asked my canine traveling companion, Maggie, what she thought.

She didn’t answer. She was asleep – and snoring.

Book Report: This is a tidbit from the first day of my travels. The book, in its third and final rewrite, is now 23, 511 words on its way to completion.

Bean’s Pat: Write to Done http://tinyurl.com/d73y49c 50 quotes to inspire writers. The wondering wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

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Blue Water Highway: From Surfside to Galveston

Posted in Birds, Books, Favorite Places, Journeys, Nature, Travel, Writing, tagged , , , , , , on July 27, 2012| 2 Comments »

“All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.” – Martin Buber

Travels With Maggie: Voice

As you travel the Blue Water Highway from Surfside to Galveston, you can enjoy two different landscapes, the beach and restless waves of the Gulf of Mexico to the east of the road, and a lush marshland where birds, such as this tri-colored heron can be seen in abundance. — Photo by Pat Bean

This past November, I blogged about my NANO (National Novel Writing Month) experience in which I wrote a 50,000 lousy first draft of a mystery. It was a way for me to keep up my six-day-a-week blog and still have time for the serious business of writing that NANO demanded.

So as to keep my blog’s travel theme, I also posted pictures of some of the many places I’ve visited since I became a full-time RV-er eight years ago.

About midway during those eight years, I wrote a travel book: “Travels With Maggie: The Journeys of a Wondering Wanderer and Her Canine Companion.”

It’s a six-month travelogue that begins in May and will take readers 7,000 miles, through 23 states and Canada.. It begins in a small town in Arkansas, wiggles north to Acadia National Park in Maine, and climaxes in Texas in time for Thanksgiving with family.

After it was finished, it was accepted as a book worthy of critique for the Mayborn Nonfiction Writer’s Workshop, and received high praise in all but one area. The nine writers who critiqued it, to a person, all said it lacked voice.

A restless Gulf provides a background for these laughing gulls. — Photo by Pat Bean

I’ve played around with rewriting the book for the past two years, but finally got serious, and re-excited, about doing it just two weeks ago. That’s mostly because I finally found my voice.

While writing the first draft, I had this image in my head that readers would get turned off if they knew how old the author was. That, along with my journalist background of keeping my own voice out of stories, was a serious flaw which I am now correcting.

I love that I’m an old broad with perspective, and I’m now trusting that readers will appreciate it, too.

This old broad stops for butterflies wherever she sees them. — Photo by Pat Bean

So so as to simplify my blogging so I can spend more time on my travel book, I’ve decided to repeat what I did during NANO, which is to post pictures of some of this country’s many beautiful places, while at the same time keeping you updated on the progress of my travel book. Perhaps you’ll even have your own perspective to add to my thoughts.

In the meantime, I’m also trying to convince an agent that my book will fit perfectly on a bookshelf between Charles Kuralt’s “On the Road,” Tim Cahill’s “Road Fever,” and John Steinbeck’s “Travels With Charley” – but with a birdwatchers’ old-broad slant.

Bean’s Pat: Durango to Silverton http://tinyurl.com/bm73owe A train ride you shouldn’t miss. Brian and Shannon are two of my favorite bloggers, perhaps because they and I travels frequently cross paths. Blog pick of the day from the wondering wanderer.

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Let’s Have a Read-In at “The Corner Cafe”

Posted in Books, Writing, tagged , , , , , , on June 19, 2012| 32 Comments »

 “Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.” – Groucho Marx

An Experiment in Self-Publication

Snowbasin is where I learned to ski at 40. It was also the venue for the 2002 Winter Olympics downhill events. Shown above is the finish line for the Super G. — Photo by Ken Lund

Back when I was all thumbs and big toes about blogging, I hooked up with Dani Greer and her group at the BBT Cafe and learned a lot. Now I’m learning a lot more as I follow her group as they write, e-publish and promote a short-story anthology called “The Corner Cafe.” It’s an experiment to see if the book, now selling for 99 cents on Amazon, will drive traffic to the writers other books.

Not to be totally left outside whining to get in, since I’m not one of the anthology authors, I volunteered to help them promote the book. And since my blog is primarily about travel, I thought it would be fun if I focused on story settings.

I mentioned this to Dani, and in reply she asked if I skied. I, in turn, went into my spiel about learning to ski at 40, then related my adventure walking the men’s 2002 Winter Olympics downhill course, when it was being put in, with current presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

At the time I was city editor at the Ogden Standard-Examiner and responsible for the paper’s Olympic coverage. Mitt back then was CEO of the Salt Lake City Organizing Committee. Ogden’s Snowbasin ski resort, where I had learned to ski, had been chosen as the venue for all that year’s downhill events.

“Great,” Dani chortled. “That’s a great lead in for Helen Ginger’s story in the anthology. It takes place on a ski hill.

A poster from Helen Ginger’s days as a mermaid. She’s the tall girl on the bottom left. She said she didn’t have a picture of her in her tail. — Aquarena Springs poster

So I asked Helen about the setting in her latest book, “Angel Sometimes.” She told me that a big part of the book takes place in a bar/restaurant called The Aquarium, where Angel swims as a mermaid.

“Since I spent three years swimming as a mermaid at a resort park, I know how to swim in a mermaid tail, how to eat and drink underwater, how to do back flips and spinning dervishes,” Helen said.

I don’t know about you, but I found that fascinating.

Helen has two stories in “The Corner Cafe,” Gila Monster, which takes place in a high school, and “One Last Run,” which takes place on a ski slope. She said she left the high school and its town generic and that readers could imagine it as the one they attended.

But for the ski slope, she said she pictured it being somewhere in the Colorado mountains.

“I envisioned the tall trees that seem to whisper in the wind, the snow piled high along the trails, and the brilliant blue skies that can turn dark and cold so quickly,” said Helen.

“One Last Run” is one of the shorter stories in “The Corner Cafe,” and Helen wanted to share it with readers to entice them to buy the book. All proceeds from the sales, by the way, is being donated to a charity. 

One Last Run

By Helen Ginger 

Coming down a steep hill at Snowbasin. I wonder if this is the kind of setting Helen imagined for her story. — Photo by Scott Appleby

When soft flakes turned into a blinding storm, Roger veered off the ski path. A .black diamond skier, he led the way through dense trees.

He was gone now. I was alone, lying on my back staring up at a sky of stars blinking through wispy clouds. As soon as his gray jacket disappeared from sight, I’d packed snow over the gaping hole in my stomach to slow the blood flow.

How naïve I’d been to believe Roger when he said we had time for one more trip down. Now I was slowly bleeding out and freezing to death while Roger most likely sat by the fire pit at the Corner Café, drinking his favorite wine, watching his gloves burn – the ones he’d worn when he shot me. I wished I had a glass of Cabernet now. So many times I’d turned it down, worried it would send my blood sugar skyrocketing.

He’d get away with it. The snow would hide his ski tracks. After he shot me, he smiled. When he leaned over to kiss my lips, I scratched his face. He used a tree limb to break my leg then scraped my fingernails.

Kneeling close to my ear, he whispered, “Thanks. The scratches and any DNA on my clothes will add credibility to my grieving boyfriend act.”

He didn’t notice his own blood dripping on my forearm.

No one else would either. I eased my hand into my pocket and pulled out the blood sugar meter. His blood had started to congeal, so I pushed the stick into the tiny pool and let it soak in. Then I emptied my lip balm and driver’s license out of the zip bag and put the stick in. Clutching the sealed evidence in my palm, I stared up at the trees and sky.

Stars winked before sliding behind clouds as a cold quiet seeped into my bones. 

Helen Ginger is a partner/owner of Legends In Our Own Minds®, coordinator of Story Circle Network’s Editorial Services, writer, editor, teacher, and maker of a mean margarita. She cannot, however, ski worth a flip. If she ever dies on the slopes, it’ll be her own doing. Before that happens, stop by and say hi to her on her blog, Straight From Hel: http://straightfromhel.blogspot.com/ .

You can purchase this book for 99 cents on Amazon

Other links: The Corner Cafe on Amazon http://amzn.to/KyQ2wv 

 https://www.amazon.com/author/helenginger

http://www.storycircleeditorialservice.org/

http://helenginger.com

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Navajo Mountain

Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Books, Favorite Places, Lakes, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , on June 13, 2012| 2 Comments »

“Bring me men to match my mountains: Bring me men to match my plains: Men with empires in their purpose and new eras in their brains.” – Sam Walter Foss

Looking beyond Lake Powell to Navajo Mountain — Photo by Pat Bean

And What Changes the Men Have Wrought

Environmentalists have long bemoaned the creation of Lake Powell by the Glen Canyon Dam. The lake drowned the canyon and all its magnificence, wonders that sadly I never got to see. It was done in the name of progress, which requires ever available water and energy.

Lake Powell is popular with boaters — Photo by Pat Bean

The brouhaha about whether it was a good or bad decision continues today – an argument in which I’m not going to take sides. My waffling, fence-straddling, journalistic mind knows both sides have legitimate arguments.

My comment today is just to note how the landscape keeps changing, both by Mother Nature and by men. I thought about this when I stopped to read the roadside marker that points out Navajo Mountain across the lake. This mountain figures prominently in the history and legends of the Navajo people and the ancient Anasazis before that.

Navajo Mountain from space with Lake Powell in the background. — Photo courtesy Johnson Space Center.

The coming of white settlers intruded on these lands, and boundaries were established and re-established until today, when the mountain is once again in the hands of the Navajo Nation. All others have to get a permit to hike the remote areas around the mountain.

Climbing the sacred mountain itself is forbidden.

Thinking of the settlement of the west – I know, my brain hops around like it’s besieged by fire ants – made me think of the “men to match my mountains” quote. I thought Irving Stone, who wrote “Men to Match My Mountains (a really great book), was its author. Instead I discovered it was written by Sam Walter Foss, a 19th century Massachusetts librarian and poet.

Who would have thought? It’s not just fun to wander and wonder. It’s educational, too.

Bean’s Pat:: Hoof Beats and Foot Prints http://tinyurl.com/7ykh73n As a horse lover, I’m fascinated by this blog. But I simply enjoyed the message of this one.

 *This pat-on-the-back recognition is merely this wandering/wondering old broad’s way of bringing attention to a blog I enjoyed – and thought perhaps my readers might, too. June 13, patbean.wordpress.com

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Route 66: With Plenty of Time to Linger

Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Books, Favorite Places, Journeys, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , on May 28, 2012| 10 Comments »

 “Life is all about timing … the unreachable becomes reachable. The unavailable becomes available, the unattainable, attainable. Have the patience, wait it out. It’s all about timing.” Stacey Charter.

It’s pretty easy to see why this area of Petrified National Park is called the Tepees. — Photo by Pat Bean

Tepees and Grinning Old Men

But can you see the two grinning old men that I see in these rock formations? — Photo by Pat Bean

Having the time to dawdle as I travel, time to let my imagination run wild, time to stop just to see a dandelion’s fine seeds blow in the wind, to watch a cloud dragon turn into a mouse or a red-tailed hawk circle above is precious.

While I didn’t always keep my nose to the grindstone, the time I could let my mind wander in wonder in my younger years was always way too short. That is not the case these days. And each day I awake with gratitude in my heart for every unrushed second allowed me to on this beautiful planet.

Which is why this blog is still a couple of weeks behind my reality. I don’t want to rush you through the landscape either.

I want to share fully the unhurried day  day I spent in Arizona’s Painted Desert lands, espcially for those who told me they had passed this way but  didn’t have time to linger.

And these reminded me of pawns on a chess board, and then I immediately thought of the chess game in the first Harry Potter book. Perhaps you see something different? I’d love to know what. — Photo by Pat Bean

I hope you enjoy lingering and dawdling with me – and my odd thoughts. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bean’s Pat: A Small Press Life :  http://tinyurl.com/bpnf80c Surfin’ Bird – this one’s for Agatha Christie fans. As one myself, it tickled my funny bone to see this early photo of the Grand Dame of who-done-its. 

*This recognition is merely this wandering/wondering old broad’s way of bringing attention to a blog I enjoyed – and thought perhaps my readers might, too. The Pat on the back is presented with no strings attached. May 28, patbean.wordpress.com

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Books: The Rain Wild Chronicles

Posted in Books, Travel, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on March 31, 2012| 4 Comments »

“The gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.” – Albert Einstein

I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living.” – Dr. Seuss

Don’t Do That To Me Robin

Look what you did to me Robin. My hair might not last until the fourth Rain Wilds book is published. -- Art by Pat Bean

I’m a big fan of fantasy books, but particular about which ones I read. Actually I’m that way about all the books I read, which includes just about all genres except horror, or books where the dark side dominates the pages.

Along with wanting a good plot that keeps me turning the page, a book’s characters must have both strengths and failings and grow in depth as the story progresses.

Without a character with whom I can connect, a book gets tossed aside at my self-imposed 50-page benchmark — or at the end of the first free chapter that Amazon provides Kindle users.

Poor writing, naturally, will turn me off much sooner.

I have many mystery authors that I follow but far fewer fantasy authors. That’s because an abundance of them seem not to measure up to my 50-page limit. This means when I find an author I enjoy, I usually read everything they write, and eagerly await their new offerings.

I took this photo today at the Sonora Desert Museum in an area that talked about prehistoric Arizona. It's only connection to this blog is that it reminded me of the kind of creatures on finds in fantasy books. -- Photo by Pat Bean

George Martin, whose series, “Game of Thrones,” I started reading when it first came out, taught me a lesson, however. His lengthy sabbatical between books convinced me to wait until a series was completed before beginning it.

With this in mind, it was with great delight that a few years ago I came across the work of Robin Hobb. I read her first book, “Assassin’s Apprentice,” in the Farseer Trilogy and was deeply hooked. In rapid succession, I absorbed the other two books in the trilogy and then continued n with her Liveship, Tawny Man and Soldier Son trilogies.

Soldier Son was weird, but even that I couldn’t put down. Of the other three trilogies, I would be hard-pressed to name a favorite as I loved each and every one of them.

At the time I discovered her, Hobb was still writing her Rain Wilds Chronicles. I patiently waited until the trilogy was finished before I began reading them. Last night, I finished the third in the series, only to be left hanging.

Unbeknownst to me, this series has a fourth book, which isn’t out yet.

AAAAccccchhhhh!!!!

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We’re All Many People in One

Posted in Birds, Books, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , on February 22, 2012| 17 Comments »

“There come a time when you have to stand up and shout: This is me … I look the way I look, think the way I think, feel the way I feel … I am a whole complex package .. Do not try to make me feel like less of a person just because I don’t fit your idea of who I should me.” – Stacey Charter

Travels With Maggie

 

This award was started in 2008 by Norwegian, Hulda Husfrue, or so I've read.

Michelle Gilles at Silk Purse Productions Blog (how to make silk purses out of a sow’s ear) nominated me for a Kreative Blogger award. Thank you Michelle at: http://silkpurseproductions.wordpress.com

I’ll use my Bean’s Pat to play it back. This “Pat” on the back goes to my personal choice of the best blog of the day. My choices are eclectic and I hope my readers have been checking them out.

As part of the acceptance. I’m supposed to tell you seven things about myself that you might not already know. I’ve done this before, but this part’s actually fun, especially trying to think of things my blabber-fingers haven’t already told you. So here goes.

Miss Clairol’s Nice and Easy, No. 99 has been my friend for umpteen years. My original color was dishwater blonde. I haven’t the foggiest idea what color it is these days because I try hard to never let my roots show.

I stuck into college without ever graduating from high school, just one among many ways I’ve lived my life backwards.

OK. I admit it. I'm a tree-hugging flower child who believes that some day this planet will be a peaceful place to live. -- Photo by a stranger sharing my day at Custer State Park in South Dakota.

I’m a prolific reader of just about everything – including cereal boxes, bumper stickers, roadside signs and blogs — with the exception of horror. When much younger I watched a Vincent Price horror flick – Murders at the Wax Museum I think it was called, and spent the next year expecting a missing head to turn up in my washing machine every time I opened the lid.

I once zoomed up behind a police car doing 100 mph while driving between Salt Lake City and Wendover, Nevada. I thought I was only doing 70 until I looked down at the speedometer. I’m not sure why I didn’t get a ticket. Perhaps the officer was day-dreaming.

I was 37 years old before alcohol of any kind touched my lips, well if you don’t count my grandmother’s beer, which I’ve been told I stole and drank when I was 3 years old.

I’m speaking tonight at a Blue and Gold Banquet for my daughter’s Cub Scout Pack on Compassion for Animals. I’m going to play the wolf howl-video that I mentioned on yesterday’s blog.

I’ve been living and traveling now in a small RV with my canine traveling companion, Maggie, for over seven years. By the end of this year I should have visited all 50 states. I did Hawaii and Alaska in earlier days, just FYI.

Now I’d love it if my readers would tell me something quirky about themselves.

Bean’s Pat: 10,000 Birds http://10000birds.com Great blog for anyone who likes birds, especially if you’re passionate about them — like me.

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The Victory-Lap Years

Posted in Books, Journeys, Nature, tagged , , , , , , on January 31, 2012| 5 Comments »

 “Victory is won not in miles but in inches. Win a little now, hold your ground, and later, win a little more.” Louis L”Amour

While I haven't taken a walk through Alaska's wilderness, I have driven the Top of the World Highway past Chicken. It was an awesome drive. -- Wikipedia Photo

Book Talk

I just finished Lynn Schooler’s “Walking Home,” a true story about Alaska, Mother Nature’s fierce side, a crippled grizzly bear that wanted to eat a human, and coping with loss.

Lynn survived the bear, plus a raging creek, and heart-wrenching, although self-imposed, solitude – I’m not giving away the ending because of course he had to survive to write the book – with the comment that his next adventure might just be a drive in a rented car around Hawaii.

“Why not? I am fifty-five years old; they are all victory laps now.”

He said a whole lot more that resonated with who this wandering/wondering, nature-loving old broad is, but that comment made me laugh with joy. I’m 72 years old so certainly my life is now nothing but victory laps. It’s fun to think of it that way.

And I spent all day in a bus traveling this road in Denali National Park to Wonder Lake. Mount McKinley, shown above, hid behind the clouds for most of that day. -- Wikipedia photo

Lynn said it after surviving an awesome environment that suddenly turned mean and realizing that his wife no longer wanted to be with him.

His book, one of those slow-reading ones so you have time to ponder the words, made me think of the things I had survived. While nothing so deadly as Lynn’s adventure, I had survived my own marital breakup, teenage-children with rebellion in their makeup, 37 years as a journalist and even being thrown out of a raft in the middle of a raft-eating rapid on the Colorado River as it flowed through the Grand River.

These are indeed my victory-lap years. Thanks Lynn for allowing me to think of them this way.

Bean’s Pat: Everywhere Once: American Safari http://tinyurl.com/7932lx2 Who said you had to go to Africa to be on safari?

 

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Favorite Places: Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge

Posted in Birds, Books, Favorite Places, Nature, Travels With Maggie, tagged , , , , , on January 30, 2012| 4 Comments »

 “Finding beauty in a broken world is creating beauty in the world we find.” – Terry Tempest Williams

Travels With Maggie

Yellow-headed blackbirds are common sights at the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge. -- Photo by Pat Beans

I first visited the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge east of the Great Salt Lake in Northern Utah in the 1970s. It was lush with vegetation and full of twittering birds.

Then came the early 1980s, when the lake reached a historical high and its briny waters took out roads, causeways and buried the refuge. It killed all the sanctuary’s green-growing plants and took out the visitor center as a warning of Mother Nature’s fickleness. .

It took a long time for the refuge to recharge itself, a period in which Terry Tempest Williams wrote “Refuge,” a book published in 1991 that was written when Williams’ mother was dying. The book weaves the landscape of the refuge and nature into a tangled web with the author’s struggle to come to grips with her own life. A very good read, in case you’re interested.

Another common refuge inhabitant is the snowy egret. -- Photo by Pat Bean

Since both the refuge and I existed at that time in the shadows of the Wasatch Mountains, the refuge drew me to it – often. I enjoyed its quiet sanctuary from the chaotic and stressful world of journalism, and also wrote about the refuge’s recovery for my newspaper readers.

I still vividly remember the first green-growing thing that returned. It was pickleweed, a salt loving plant that would help heal the soil for other plants. Those tiny nubs of green poking up seemed like a miracle.

Today, the refuge,is once again lush and a thriving habitat for birds and other wildlife. It’s there for anyone willing to endure a drive down a 10-mile, bumpy unpaved road from Interstate 15.

Maggie and I’ve driven the slow-going, rough miles several times in Gypsy Lee, who shakes, rattles and rolls over the bumpier spots. She’s used to such detours, however, and so far has not complained.

For those less passionate nature lovers, there is now a new Visitor’s Center just a few hundred yards off the freeway. It was built there instead of on the refuge proper just in case Mother Nature decided to get a wild hair again.

It’s really a nice center, with a created wetlands through which a boardwalk winds to give visitors a chance to see Mother Nature at her best. If you’re ever in Northern Utah, you might like to check it out. Perhaps you’d even like to take the 10-mile bumpy drive.

Bean’s Pat: Travel Photography: Most Unexpected Rainbow http://tinyurl.com/867pogm Have you ever seen a full rainbow? I haven’t. But this photographer did.

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