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Two More Oklahoma State Parks

Posted in Books, Favorite Places, Lakes, Nature, Travel, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , on August 6, 2012| 9 Comments »

 “I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore … I hear it in the deep heart’s core.” – William Butler Yeats.

“I’m an old-fashioned guy … I want to be an old man with a beer belly sitting on a porch, looking at a lake …” – Johnny Depp (Ditto, except instead of a beer belly it will be tits down to my waist.”

Sleeping by Water

The view out my RV window at Grand Lake o’ the Cherokees at Bernice State Park in Northeastern Oklahoma. — Photo by Pat Bean

While my route only took me through a northeastern sliver of Oklahoma, I found three state parks in which to camp. In addition to Natural Falls, where the movie, “Where the Red Fern Grows,” was filmed, there were Lake Wister and Bernice, both of which are attached to lakes: Lake Wister, a 7,300-acre reservoir created by a dam on the Poteau River, and 46,500-acre Grand Lake o’ the Cherokees formed by the Grand River at Bernice.

The peacefulness and beauty of my nights by these lakes led me to continue seeking out similar campgrounds as I continued my travels – and parking my RV as close to water as I could get .

If you like Winslow Homer’s painting of the “Fox Hunt,” you should most certainly check out today’s Bean’s Pat.

Often I would find myself falling to sleep listening to the soft murmur of water sloshing up against one bank or another. It seemed fitting that one of the many books I read on my journey was “River Horse” by William Least Heat Moon, whose “Blue Highways” was one of my traveling role models.

In this later book, Moon, made his journey across America from the Atlantic Ocean at the New York Harbor to the Pacific Ocean near Astoria, Oregon, in a boat called Nikawa, or river horse in the Osage language.

Travels With Maggie: 27,682 words. The original draft was about 60,000 words, so I’m nearing the halfway point, although I’m thinking it might be closer to 70,000 words when I finish, despite the many cuts I’m making. The task of adding my voice to this travelogue is, I think, requiring more than eliminating the redundancies and any boring parks. I might have been farther along at this point except computer woes, which still have not been totally resolved, ate up the better part of two days.

Bean’s Pat: Golden eagle attacking a fox http://tinyurl.com/c29uogk Winslow Homer painted ravens harassing a fox, and I’ve seen ravens doing just that, but this photo is way more fantastic.

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Growth

Posted in Favorite Places, Nature, Travel, Weekly Photo Challenge, tagged , , , on August 4, 2012| 4 Comments »

 “You’ve got to do your own growing, no matter how tall your grandfather was.” – Irish saying.

Great Sand Dunes National Park

 

Think of it. Grain by grain is how these great sand dunes grew. — Photo by Pat Bean

 

“The more sand that has escaped from the hourglass f our life, the clearer we should see through it.” — Niccolo Machiavelli

Great Sand Dunes National Park, Colorado. — Photo by Pat Bean

“There are no great limits to growth because there are no limits of human intelligence, imagination and wonder.” Ronald Reagan.

 

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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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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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The Snake River

Posted in Birds, Favorite Places, Lakes, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , , on July 26, 2012| Leave a Comment »

“The moments of happiness we enjoy take us by surprise. It is not that we seize them but that they seize us.” – Ashley Montagu

Special Moments  

If there is anything of value that the years have taught this wondering wanderer, it’s how fleeting time is, and how important it is to be ready to catch the special moments that may never come our way again.

Life is not measured by the breaths we take, but the number of moments that take our breath away. Someone else said that first, but I don’t know who, just that it’s so very true.

The Snake River just below the Minidoka Dam in Southern Idaho. — Photo by Pat Bean

The Snake River has been responsible for taking my breath away hundreds of times, from it literally doing that when I rafted its white-water rapid sections – I’ve been in a raft that this river’s flipped and it’s flipped me out of a raft more than once – to the beauty it’s provided me every time I stand by its banks.

I saw my first magpies – we don’t have them in Texas where I grew up – playfully swooping above its waters that flowed through a farm in Glenn’s Ferry, Idaho.

Just a few of the hundreds of white pelicans that cluster on the river below the dam. — Photo by Pat Bean

And I’ve watched osprey dive into its depths in Wyoming and come up with a fish, and bald eagles flying over it in Washington, and hundreds of white pelicans fishing its waters just this summer.

It’s thankful I am to be spending the summer right next to the Snake River, the mother of Lake Walcott State Park where I’m a volunteer campground host. While I can only see the lake out my RV windows, a 10-minute walk puts me above or on the banks of this great river, which began its twisting journey through Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon and Washington at a hot spot in Yellowstone National Park.

From its junction here at Lake Walcott, the Snake will makes its way down to Twin Falls Gorge (where Evil Knievel attempted a motorcycle jump), then continue on through Hell’s Canyon and eventually join the Columbia River.

It takes my appreciation for all the joy its brought into my life with it.

Bean’s Pat: Sun Fire: http://tinyurl.com/bu29s98 One of those special moments that might never come your way again. Blog pick of the day from the wondering wanderer.

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Favorite Places – and People

Posted in Birds, Favorite Places, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , , on July 25, 2012| 2 Comments »

 “Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.” – Albert Einstein

Entrance to the Virginia Beach Aquarium. — Photo by Pat Bean

Virginia Beach Aquarium and Albert Einstein

These redheads attracted my attention as I strolled along the boardwalk of the aquarium’s Owls Creek Aviary. — Photo by Pat Bean

I’ve been amazed, in my search to find appropriate quotes to accompany my blog, how many times I’ve come across meaningful ones by Albert Einstein. And we’re not necessarily talking brainy here.

I’ve discovered that when it comes to Mother Nature, and the desire for a better world, he and I are on the same wave length. Never mind that he’s been dead now for 57 years. Or that his geeky-scientist brilliance is mostly beyond my brain.

I found the above quote when I was looking for something to go with my choice of the Virginia Beach Aquarium as one of my favorite places. It’s so much more than an aquarium, just as Einstein was so much more than a scientist.

A family of otters also made their home at the aquarium. — Photo by Pat Bean

So along with sharing a few photos of the aquarium, here are a few more quotes from Einstein:

“Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted.”

“The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is incomprehensible.” – Albert Einstein

“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”

“The important thing is to not stop questioning.”

“Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.” – Albert Einstein

Bean’s Pat: A Tribute to Sally Ride http://tinyurl.com/bux5djj I was fortunate that as a journalist I once had the opportunity of interviewing this gracious scientist. It’s sad that the world has lost her.

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Inside

Posted in Birds, Favorite Places, Nature, Travel, Weekly Photo Challenge, tagged , , , , , , , on July 21, 2012| 6 Comments »

Roseate spoonbills in the aviary built for the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis. — Photo by Pat Bean

“If  most of us are ashamed of shabby clothes and shoddy furniture, let us be more ashamed of shabby ideas and shoddy philosophies … it would be a sad situation if they were better than the meat wrapped inside it.” — Albert Einstein

World’s Fair Aviary, St Louis Zoo

The swamp inside the aviary was the real thing — well almost. — Photo by Pat Bean

“Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.” — Norman Cousins

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Lake Walcott: What Happened?

Posted in Birds, Favorite Places, Journeys, Lakes, Nature, Travel, Wildflowers, tagged , , , , , , , , on July 18, 2012| 8 Comments »

 “The man who never alters his opinion Is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.” William Blake.

These flowers bloomed while I was gone. There were big bunches of them all along a short section of the bank in the upper tent campground. — Photo by Pat Bean.

Life Goes On

And the milkweed plants, which the butterflies love, here at the park went from this … — Photo by Pat Bean

I’m Back now at Lake Walcott, after leaving for four days to fly to Texas for a granddaughter’s wedding. I had a marvelous time. I got to see a new great-grandson, now almost seven months old, for the first time. And I’m still feeling the love from all the family hugs I received.

Homecoming, when it involves loved ones, is always sweet after an absence. It’s a benefit that helps make up for the distance my chosen on-the-road life and the scattered residences – from Texas to Florida, Illinois to Arizona, with Argentina thrown in for good measure – of my children and grandchildren.

But while I was gone, this southern Idaho state park where I’m volunteering for the summer continued its ever-changing life cycle, welcoming me back with new wonders.

My hummingbird feeder was empty and the bird seed feeder, which I had filled to the brim before taking off, had only a few sunflower seeds remaining in it. I had left both full, not wanting to disrupt the continuity of the birds that visit my RV site.

A black-headed grosbeak and an American goldfinch – a study in orange and yellow – were at the feeder when I pulled in. It was the first grosbeak that had visited and I was delighted to see it. I suspected that the Bullock’s orioles had emptied the hummingbird feeder as I’ve only had a few hummers visit this year.

Black-headed grosbeak — Wikipedia photo

My first walk around the park after being back was full of changes too. Along with coming across branches that had blown down from the weekend storm I missed, I noticed that the milkweed had matured, and that some bank plants had come into bloom while I was gone.

It was fun to see the changes, which so often are missed on a day-to-day basis. Life goes on where ever one goes.

Bean’s Pat: Katmai National Park http://tinyurl.com/765d97z Fishing bears. I couldn’t resist sharing this. Blog pick of the day from the wondering wanderer.

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