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Archive for the ‘Favorite Hikes’ Category

Chalk Ridge Falls

Posted in Favorite Hikes, Nature, Travel, Writing, tagged , , , on December 14, 2012| 3 Comments »

Another hiker, the only one we saw on the hike, volunteered to take our picture.

Another hiker, the only one we saw on the hike, volunteered to take our picture.

            “Collect moments, not things.” – Unknown

A Hike for the Memory Bank

When my oldest son, D.C.  graduated from high school in Utah, he joined the Army, which sent him to Hawaii. Then he got married, had three kids, made the Army his career, had many tours of overseas duty, and when he was stateside, he and I never lived in the same state.

 

The waterfall. -- Photo by Pat Bean

The waterfall. — Photo by Pat Bean

He finally retired, and lately we’ve finally been able to spend more than just a day or two together maybe once a year. Not only did I get to have Thanksgiving with him and his family this year, he and I found time to take a hike together.             It was great easy trail,  with a waterfall at the end of a loop, turtles sunning themselves on logs and a suspension bridge across a river. Mother Nature kept calling me to look at this tree or that plant.

But it will now be awhile before I see D.C. and his family again. Gypsy Lee, Pepper and I are back on the road to visit another child. When you have five kids, as I did way too many years ago, and they all scatter to the five winds, that becomes a way of life.

The turtles. When I tried to get closer they dove beneath the water. -- Photo by Pat Bean

The turtles. When I tried to get closer they dove beneath the water. — Photo by Pat Bean

That’s why memories are important. And the photos I took of the hike will bring them back many times. I hope you don’t mind my sharing them with you.            Book Report: Stuck again. It seems the closer I get to the end of Travels with Maggie, the slower I get. What’s up with this I’m asking myself.

Bean’s Pat:  The Leisurely Life http://tinyurl.com/d6n8vue After the storm, birds and sunsets

           

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Dark Night, Gray Morning and Then Came the Light

Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Favorite Hikes, Journeys, Nature, Travel, Writing, tagged , , , , , , on November 2, 2012| 5 Comments »

            “There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.” Leonard Cohen

When I first got on the parkway this day, fog and mist obscured the views. — Photo by Pat Bean

Adventures with Pepper: Day 35

            I ended my travels yesterday, which I had started in Meadows of Dan, Virginia, at Julian Price State Park in North Carolina. It was a beautiful park by a lake, but I had neither cell-phone service nor internet connections.

But when the fog cleared out, the colors of fall were brighter and crisper than I had seen before. — Photo by Pat Bean

I would have liked to have stayed put a couple of days but with a writing deadline to meet the next day, I knew I would have to move on early the next morning so I could connect back to the world.

I didn’t sleep good because it began raining shortly after Pepper and I took a hike around the lake in the early evening, and the dripping continued all night. Normally I love to listen to the patter of rain on my RV roof, but I didn’t want to drive the parkway in the rain the next day. Gypsy Lee handles steep hills quite nicely, but doesn’t do slick well.

The rain finally stopped just before dawn, and as I had my morning cup of cream-laced coffee, I watched the grayness of day overcome the blackness of night. There’s usually a brief moment of this fantastic grayness, before the light of the sun takes charge of the day, that always seems magical to me.

One of many parkway tunnels that I passed through this day, briefly leaving the light behind but finding it just as bright again on the other side. — Photo by Pat Bean

But not when the grayness lingers, as it did this morning.  And when I got on the road, the grayness turned into a thick fog that shut down all but about 50 feet of the road ahead, and all of the grand views looking out from the mountain ridges.

Then, as if someone had clicked a switched, the sun popped out, creating light that pleased my camera more so than any other day I had spent so far on the parkway.

If I had to pick one day as my favorite of driving the 466 miles of the parkway, this day might have been it. But then I’m glad I don’t have to choose because every mile, every hour, every day on the parkway had something amazing in store for me.

Book Report: Travels with Maggie is now at 60,701 words.

            Bean’s Pat: The Crown of the Continent http://tinyurl.com/crkcmxg Take an armchair tour of Glacier National Park – and prepare to be awed.

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You Can’t Get There From Here

Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Favorite Hikes, Nature, Travel, Writing, tagged , , , , , , on October 11, 2012| 8 Comments »

And we should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh. – Friedrich Nietzsche

It was true. You can’t get there from here. — Photo by Pat Bean

Adventures with Pepper: Day: Day 20-21

I literally couldn’t get there from here after I left Illinois and drove into Indiana.  I misread a warning sign, thinking it was the other direction in which the bridge was out.

It wasn’t.

Time to back-track and follow the detour signs.

They led me to Clay City, Indiana, which calls itself the Mayberry of the Midwest, and then onto Highway 246, a narrow, winding backroad on which the colors of fall had already arrived. While I regretted my error, I was sure glad I got to drive the detour.

I wasn’t that happy, however, about getting lost in Bloomington, where I wandered around for an hour. I stopped for directions and twice people gave me wrong ones. I finally found a place to park, somewhere on the University of Indiana campus, where the last direction giver had sent me, and got onto my computer to seek out my own way out of town.

The trail Pepper and I walked daily — Photo by Pat Bean

Thankfully, I was just two blocks from Highway 45, which I had been following until I got side-tracked by Bloomington construction. Once back on the right road, I stayed on it to Nashville – Indiana not Tennessee.

My campground for the next two days would be the Last Resort Campground, where it rained most of the time. There was a nice trail behind the park, which Pepper and I walked several times a day, usually starting out during a lull in the dripping sky, which usually didn’t last until we got back to the RV.

All part of travel – and since no whining is allowed in Gypsy Lee, I didn’t

Book Report: Travels with Maggie now at 55,432 words

            Bean Pat: Wildflowers http://tinyurl.com/9r3lg27 A reminder that beauty can be found anywhere. Almost makes me want to hurry back to Texas. I love this blog because it’s helping me learn the names of wildflowers. As a writer, I need to know these things, because a flower is not a flower, it’s a poppy or a penstemon or a bluebonnet – or as it was today, a blazing star or a gayfeather, or for the scientific-minded, which I am not, a liatris mucronate.

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Steinaker State Park, Utah

Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Dogs, Favorite Hikes, Favorite Places, Lakes, Nature, Travel, Writing, tagged , , , , , , on September 18, 2012| 2 Comments »

“If travel is like love, it is in the end, mostly because it’s a heightened state of awareness, in which we are mindful, receptive, undimmed by familiarity and ready to be transformed. That is why the best trips, like the best love affairs, never really end.” – Pico Iyer, “Why We Travel.”

A view of Steinaker Reservoir through the trees on an early morning hike. — Photo by Pat Bean

Adventures with Pepper: Day Five

            Today’s drive down Highway 40 from Jordanelle State Park to Vernal was one I’d driven quite a few times before. The fact is there are very few roads in Utah that I haven’t driven.

As usual, Pepper is waiting for me to catch up with her. My daily walks with my now nine-month old Scotty-mix puppy help keep this wondering/wandering old broad healthy.

I lived in the state for 25 years, and many were the times an itchy foot would attack me early on a Saturday morning. I would throw a few things in my car, gather up my canine traveling companion, and take off for the weekend. The road was always calling to me as far back as I can remember. After a divorce and after my children had fled the nest, I started answering it back every chance I could.

Highway 40 might haven taken me to Heber, where I might ride the Heber Creeper to Bridal Veil Falls; or to Rockport State Park, where I might set up my tent for the weekend; or to Flaming Gorge, where if I had timed it right, I might watch ospreys feed their chicks.

Highway 40 held the key to many of my memories. There was the tiny town of Myton, which recalled my float trips down the Green River and the rough, unpaved road trip back from the Sand Wash take out to Myton, where civilization began again.

Just past Roosevelt, I thought of the fancy Bottle Hollow Lodge, which I discovered no longer existed. The tourist attraction was a joint business project in the 1970s between the Ute Indians and Utah State University’s Extension Services.

I was working as a writer for USU at the time, and wrote about the venture as part of a marketing campaign. I recalled sleeping one night in the huge round beds that were the standard in the motel’s unique round rooms.

Up the road from where Bottle Hollow had been, there was a neon-lit motel, a bare step above a Motel 6, that now provided passersby overnight accommodations. I was glad I wasn’t stopping there.

I ended my day instead at Steinaker State Park, located just seven miles up Highway 191 from Vernal. It was my virgin visit to the park – and it was awesome.

Book Report: Travels with Maggie, 49,387 words.

The Wondering Wanderer's blog pick of the day. Bean’s Pat: 23 Thorns http://23thorns.wordpress.com/2012/09/16/frog/ Ribbit. A long blog, but I loved it. I was hooked when the writer began to explain why his family wasn’t like other families.

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Good-Bye Ogden, The Road is Calling Again

Posted in Birds, Favorite Hikes, Favorite Places, Nature, Travel, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , on September 12, 2012| 4 Comments »

            “A journey is best measured in friends rather than miles” Tim Cahill

My morning walk with old birding friends on Two Rivers Trail began here beneath Ogden’s 21 Street Bridge across the Ogden River. — Photo by Pat Bean

But First, Bird Watching on Two Rivers Trail         

Along with seeing that great Southwest bird overhead, everyone also got a very close-up view of this juvenile great blue heron. — Photo by Pat Bean

    “Hey! Did you see that big bird with silver wings and a red tail?” asked Jack Rensel, whom I know is as old as this wondering wanderer, but whom looked as young as ever and was still carrying his birding scope and tripod over his shoulders as we walked the Two Rivers Trail early this morning.

“You mean the Southwest bird,” someone quickly jibed.

It felt ever so good to be back among my old bird-watching friends after a year’s absence.  Jack and Keith Evans, whom I also got to see this morning at the bird-walk breakfast, were my mentors and my reference sources back when I was writing a birding column for the Ogden newspaper.

It’s a good thing one or the other of them was always available, as I was a novice birder at the time and hated making a fool of myself in print.

My birding skills have improved since those days, and so has Ogden’s trail system.

The river was still this morning, making it the perfect canvas for landscape reflections. I especially liked this double bouquet of yellow blossoms. — Photo by Pat Bean

Good for me and good for Ogden.  The city has grown since I left it eight years ago, but the Wasatch Chapter of birders that I left behind hasn’t changed at all. It’s still the best Audubon group I’ve ever had the privilege of birding with.

I hated to leave this group of awesome birders early,  but I had miles to go before I could sleep.  I’ll tell you a bit about those miles tomorrow.

Book Report: Travels with Maggie is now up to 44,916 words. Still inching along like a snail.                

The Wondering Wanderer’s blog pick of the day

Bean’s Pat Cliffy http://tinyurl.com/8e4ghhd  Today’s arm-chair travel blog made it to the top of my list today simply because it looks like an intriguing place to sit and drink a Jack and Coke. Should I put it on my ever-growing to-do list?

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Favorite Places: The Ozarks

Posted in Birds, Dogs, Favorite Hikes, Favorite Places, Nature, Travels With Maggie, tagged , , , , , on August 9, 2012| 2 Comments »

“The joy of living is his who has the heart to demand it.”  — Teddy Roosevelt

Roaring River State Park           

Missouri’s Roaring River wasn’t roaring when Maggie and I visited. — Photo by Pat Bean

Finding Oklahoma state parks to be my kind of place, I wondered if Missouri parks would be, too. I decided to find out on my way to St. Louis, even if it meant doubling the distance I had to travel to get there.

I considered the extra miles well worth it when I pulled into Roaring River State Park, where I had a fantastic site that backed up to a tiny creek.  Maggie and I also had our choice of several trails to hike. I chose the Pibern Trail, a narrow path that meandered in a loop through trees and thick vegetation for about a mile and a half. About halfway along our hike, I spotted my first Louisiana waterthrush, a small bird with a streaky breast and a prominent white eyebrow.

A patch of yellow flowers brightened the view near my RV site at Missouri’s Roaring River State Park. — Photo by Pat Bean

But early the next morning, when Maggie and I went looking for the “roaring river,” what we found instead was a purring stream whose banks were dotted with fly fishermen hoping to snag a trout.

We strolled beside it for a while, then made a visit to the park’s nature center, where two young boys were oohing and aahing over the bugs and snakes on exhibit there. I didn’t stay long. I was still recovering from my too-close encounter with an Ozark critter that found me during the Pibern Trail hike.

Both Maggie and I had each returned to the RV with a tick. Hers was dead already, I assumed from her monthly flea and tick killer application. Mine, however, was alive and sucking blood from my lower leg. It was the last time I went hiking in the Ozarks without a liberal dose of insect repellant on my body.

Book Report: Two days lost because the new keyboard for my #@%$** computer, which was only a little over a year old but which had given me problems almost from the day I bought it, didn’t fix the problem. The tech said it was probably the mother board. I’d had it!!!! I wasn’t going to put a single penny into that piece of  manure, an HP DV7 just in case anyone is interested, that I had come to hate. I bit the bullet and bought a new laptop, my first non HP one. It’s a Toshiba Satellite.  I spent the past two days playing with it. But it was back to business this morning, and I added another 2,000 rewritten words to my travel book. That seems to be my daily output when I don’t goof off.

Bean’s Pat: Every Day Wisdom http://tinyurl.com/96rkgw3 Advice I truly try to follow.

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Favorite Places: Campgrounds With a Waterfall

Posted in Favorite Hikes, Favorite Places, Lakes, Nature, Travels With Maggie, Writing, tagged , , , , , on August 3, 2012| 3 Comments »

 “The point is that when I see a sunset or a waterfall or something, for a split second it’s so great, because for a little bit I’m out of my brain, and it’s got nothing to do with me. I’m not trying to figure it out, you know what I mean? And I wonder if I can somehow find a way to maintain that mind stillness.” – Chris Evans

And Lots of Birds and Scenic Trails

A walk among the tree branches at Natural Falls State Park in Oklahoma. — Photo by Pat Bean

Natural Falls State Park had it all, a waterfall, scenic trails and lots of birds. And I wasn’t the only one who thought so.

Producers of the heart-warming, “Where the Red Fern Grows,” based on the book of the same name by Wilson Rawls, used the park as a setting for the movie.

Natural Falls was my fourth stopping place on the six-month journey I’m detailing in “Travels With Maggie.”

My favorite hike while there meandered around a small lake and through the woods to a view of the park’s 77-foot namesake. At one point along the trail, a wooden footbridge took me up to tree branch level, where I paused awhile to listen to birds.

77-foot tall Natural Falls. — Photo by Pat Bean

By tracking the melody, I located a  northern cardinal and then a song sparrow that sang a duet from the same tree.

Nearby a yellow-rumped warbler, or butter-butt as birders call it, added its drum-beat chirp to the chorus. I identified it when it flashed its yellow rump at me.

Of course I lingered at the park for a couple of days. How does one leave such perfectness too quickly?

Book Report: Murphy’s haunting me. I spilled coffee on my computer yesterday, which is why I didn’t post. I had written my post and had added about 500 words to my book, Travels With Maggie, before the catastrophe hit, and I had to make a 100-mile round-trip to Best Buy in Twin Falls, Idaho. The fix is only temporary until I get the new keyboard in I ordered, and I’m still dealing with delaying quirks. I’ve been saying the S word a lot. Dookie computers. Can’t live without them, at least I can’t, and it’s hard as hell to live with them. The silver lining, which I always look for and usually find, is that I didn’t lose anything. I keep promising myself I’m going to back up, and I keep not backing up.

Bean’s Pat: http://tinyurl.com/cflc44d The deadly results of playing the comparison game. The wondering wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

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What Queen Wilhelmina Missed

Posted in Favorite Hikes, Favorite Places, Nature, Travels With Maggie, Writing, tagged , , , , on July 31, 2012| 2 Comments »

 “A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.” Lao Tzu

Best Cheeseburger of My Life

One of the park’s trails let to this vista overlooking a sea of green. It was called the Lover’s Leap viewpoint, the first of three so named vistas I would encounter during this journey. — Photo by Pat Bean

My canine traveling companion, Maggie, and I had barely started our journey, like it was the second day out, when we stopped for four days at Queen Wilhelmina State Park. Located on a ridge high in Arkansas’ Ouachita Mountains, the park was named after Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands in hopes that she would visit.

The four days I stayed here still float pleasantly through my head. In addition to the beautiful scenery, I had the best cheeseburger of my life as I sat in the park’s high vista lodge, looking out a huge picture window at dark clouds moving in.

Crimson hollyhocks brightened another of the park’s trails. — Photo by Pat Bean

There’s something in me that loves a storm. I was glad, however, that I made it back to the coziness of my RV, with my last bite of cheeseburger wrapped in a napkin for Maggie, before the downpour began.

Queen Wilhelmina didn’t know what she had missed.

Book Report. Today’s one of my twice monthly trips from Lake Walcott into town to stock up on supplies and do laundry. But knowing that I had committed to making a book report of my travel book progress kept me on track. “Travels With Maggie” grew by 1,750 words this morning, bringing its rewritten total to 25,261. Thanks y’all for being here for me.

Bean’s Pat: Gypsy Mama http://tinyurl.com/bwbb8og Ordinary days. I think they’re great, too. The wondering wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

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An Overcast Morning at Lake Walcott

Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Dogs, Favorite Hikes, Lakes, Nature, Travel, Wildflowers, tagged , , , , , , , on July 24, 2012| 10 Comments »

 “The town was glad with morning light; places that had shown ugly and distrustful all night long now wore a smile; and sparkling sunbeams dancing on chamber windows, and twinkling through blind and curtain before sleepers’ eyes, shed light even into dreams, and chased away the shadows of the night.” – Charles Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop

These Canada geese floated away from the shore as Pepper and I approached. — Photo by Pat Bean

It Couldn’t Have Been Any More Perfect

The stone wall is a CCC legacy, and the basalt rocks used to build it a legacy of the area’s volcanic past. In the background is Hole 12 of the park’s disc (Frisbee) golf course, a specialty here at Lake Walcott. — Photo by Pat Bean

I varied my walking route this morning, which usually sees me taking the trail from my RV to the boat dock. I chose instead to visit the fishing decks at the other end of the park, then immediately realized why this was a hike usually saved for the evenings.

Early mornings were when the sprinklers came on in this section of the park.

I managed to dodge all but one big spray, while my canine traveling companion, Pepper, purposely splashed through the raining water and any puddles she came across. Her joy at doing so delighted my heart.

A lone western grebe floats on the lake, whose reflective surface is muted this morning by an overcast sky. — Photo by Pat Bean

The overcast day spread a kind of magic over the landscape and lake, whose watery reflections were muted and quiet.

Running ahead, Pepper startled a flock of yellow-headed blackbirds that took to the sky from several Russian olive trees, their golden heads flashing before their dark bodies like large fireflies lighting their way.

A half-dozen nearby magpies were slower to flight as we approached. With their long tails swishing, these black and white birds didn’t go far, landing out of reach but near enough to keep an eye on us as we passed.

A goose family, also wanting to get out of reach, floated farther out from shore.

Sweet pea blossoms beneath a Russian olive tree added to the morning’s perfection. — Photo by Pat Bean

As they did that, a couple of mallards quacked from behind some bank bushes. I never did see them, but a mallard is one of the few North American ducks whose voice I can recognize. It’s the only one that quacks like Donald Duck.

Pepper and I took the long way back to our RV, taking the route that led past the park’s day-use grounds and visitor center. I noticed that a patch of sweet pea blossoms had sprung up beneath a tree and at the edge of some sagebrush that the sprinklers catch. They fragrant pink flowers hadn’t been there the last time I had walked this way.

I don’t think, even with the sprinkler dousing I took, that my walk with Pepper could have been any more perfect.

Bean’s Pat: Stewards of Earth http://tinyurl.com/cu36rtm Butterfly House. Fantastic photos. Blog pick of the day from the wondering wanderer.

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An Easy Trail With a View

Posted in Favorite Hikes, Nature, Travel, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , on June 22, 2012| 10 Comments »

“As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.” – Henry David Thoreau

The start of the trail from the Grotto shuttle bus stop. Come hike me the trail called to me. — Photo by Pat Bean

 

Walk the Kayenta/Emerald Pools Trail With Me

Rocks form a mysterious tunnel shortly before the trail descends to the Emerald Pools. — Photo by Pat Bean

A two-mile trail between the Grotto and Zion Lodge, the Kayenta/Emerald Pools Trail in Zion National Park is ideal for wandering/wondering old broads like me. It has only a mild, 150-foot-elevation gain but there is something to see around every bend in the road.

The May day I walked it, I had a playful squirrel, hoping for a handout which it didn’t get, follow me for a while, saw a magnificent blue-bellied lizard, and had excellent views of the Virgin River Valley 150 feet below me.

Of course there were flowers: Indian paintbrush, columbine, shooting stars, wall flowers and daisies, just to name a few.

These were expected. What wasn’t was the short tunnel formed by rocks that one had to pass through and the opportunity to walk behind a waterfall.

The waterfall was only a trickle this day, but it was still cool to walk behind it. — Photo by Pat Bean

I wish you had been with me.

Bean’s Pat: Darla Writes http://tinyurl.com/7bl7zo6 The best writing advice ever. I promise. Tell me if you agree.  This wandering/wondering old broad’s blog pick of the day.

 

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