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Archive for the ‘Lakes’ Category

Favorite Places: Lake Walcott

Posted in Art, Birds, Favorite Places, Lakes, Nature, Travel, Travels With Maggie, Uncategorized, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , on August 31, 2012| 5 Comments »

            “To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring.” George Santayana

            The above quote fit my blog, but the one below made me laugh.  I couldn’t decide which one to post with my column, so I’m sharing both.

            “A perfect summer day is when the sun is shining, the breeze is blowing, the birds are singing and the lawn mower is broken.”—James Dent.

The sage brush in an area adjacent to the Lake Walcott campground is beginning to think it’s already autumn. — Photo by .Pat Bean

Summer Comes, Summer Goes

The brown-headed cowbirds that earlier thronged my bird feeders have already migrated elsewhere — Sketch by Pat Bean

            I can’t believe my summer at Lake Walcott State Park in Southern Idaho is coming to an end. But then they do say time flies when you’re having fun.This green, manicured park that sits beside the lake and the Snake River is an oasis in a dry high desert region that this year has been plagued by wildfires. While it was a hotter summer here than last, it was still heaven compared to central and south Texas weather, where I usually spend the winters. There, they not only have the heat but high humidity as well.

I have three children in those regions who frequently remind me how lucky I am not to be there.

But the house sparrows, as noted from the ones feeding beneath my bird feeder just this morning, are still sticking around. — Photo by Pat Bean

Last year when I arrived at the park, it was still winter and the trees were bare. This year, on the exact same day, May 15th, it was 90 degrees when I arrived and the trees were already full of leaves. It cooled off, however, and it was almost July before I had to start using my RV’s air conditioner daily.

Now, I’m seeing signs of fall creep into the park. Many of the park’s birds, like the colorful Bullock’s orioles and the American goldfinch are already migrating south. Most robins, as well. Instead of seeing dozens of these birds on my walks through the park, I’m now lucky to see one.

Book Report: Travels with Maggie, 41,820 re-edited words. Not much progress but I’m hoping to spend all afternoon working on the book. I decided to blog earlier today and clear my decks. A young blogger asked today what was the best writing advice his readers had ever received. I told him, it’s “Write! Write! Write!”  

The wondering wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

          Bean’s Pat: Lifescapes: The Texas Hill Country http://dld.bz/bJNbr The sounds of summer. This is a blog for nature lovers written by Susan Wittig Albert, author of the China Bayles mystery series written for herb and plant lovers. .

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Favorite Places: New York State Parks

Posted in Books, Favorite Places, Lakes, Travels With Maggie, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on August 29, 2012| 6 Comments »

“Memory … is the diary we all carry around with us.” – Oscar Wilde

Everyone was off watching the Revolutionary War reenactment so I had the beach to myself when I visited Hamblin Beach State Park on Lake Ontario in upper New York. — Photo by Pat Bean

One Brought Memories, One Created Them

Once upon a time, I pictured the state of New York as being one Big Apple. That picture changed the day I drove the parkway that runs along the south shore of Lake Ontario. Upper New York, I discovered this region is quite rural – with fantastic parks.

The board game, Krull, which my young grandson and I played often during his six-month stay with me.

I passed at least a half-dozen of them during the 75 mile drive from Niagara Falls to Hamblin Beach State Park,” a day that is remembered in the travel book I’m writing.

One of these awesome public recreation areas, the Joseph Davis State Park that sits on the Niagara River near its mouth with Lake Ontario, was the setting for the end of the 2005 Amazing Race. I didn’t know it at the time, however, and so didn’t stop. The Amazing Race is my all-time favorite Television Show.

I also didn’t stop at Krull Park, which came in second in Coca Cola’s search for America’s Favorite State Park. But just passing by this park and seeing its name brought back pleasant memories that had nothing to do with parks.

 

A poster from the 1983 movie, Krull. — Wikipedia photo

During the 1980s, my young grandson, David, lived with me for six months. We played endless games of Krull, a popular board game created from the movie “Krull,” which we went to see together. There’s now a video version of Krull out, while the original board game is selling for up to $75 on eBay.

While the name of Krull Park sparked pleasant memories from the past, Hamblin Beach State Park, where I camped for the night, created new memories for my brain bank. These included a walk along the beach and taking in a Revolutionary War reenactment that was taking place at the time.

Pat Conroy explains this side benefit of travel best: “Once you have traveled, the voyage never ends.”

            Book Report: I took a day off from all writing yesterday and did nothing but read. I think this is something I simply have to do every once in a while. A stormy day is best, but a hot day, as it was here at Lake Walcott, worked well, too, as I read in air-conditioned comfort. But I was back at work this morning and “Travels with Maggie” is now up to 40,322 words, some of which describe my visit to upper New York.

The wondering wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

Bean’s Pat: Writing in the Water http://tinyurl.com/9334rbwThe case of the “you shoulds.” Perhaps you shouldn’t. A blog for writers.

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Idaho Wildfires

Posted in Lakes, Nature, Travel, Writing, tagged , , , , , , on August 20, 2012| 8 Comments »

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream Discover.” – Mark Twain.

A Safe Refuge is an Impossible Dream 

Yesterday’s sunrise here at Lake Walcott taken from my camp site. Smoke from Idaho’s wildfires has turned the sun quite red. — Photo by Pat Bean

I’ve been asked three times this morning if I’m safe from the wildfires that are currently ravaging Idaho. I am. Lake Walcott is an oasis surrounded by a very dry high desert.

But the fires are on everyone’s mind. The park’s flags flew at half-mast Saturday for the 20-year-old female firefighter who was killed by a falling tree while fighting a wildfire near Orofino.  And the news this morning was that the small town of Featherville, Idaho, which sits between the Boise and Sawtooth national forests, is being evacuated because a wildfire there is out of control.

I’ve watched a fire-fighting helicopter fill up its water bucket out of the lake here to fight some nearby fires started by lightning strikes, while firefighters turned the park’s boat dock area into a staging front for those earlier fires.

But so far, no wildfires have threatened the park. Lake Walcott has even attracted campers whose favorite camping spots elsewhere have burned or been evacuated.

The same sunrise a few minutes later. — Photo by Pat Bean

Meanwhile the morning sunrises and sunsets here at the lake have been red because of all the smoke in the air. I captured the two photos included here of yesterday’s sunrise.

As much as I love Mother Nature, I must say she is not playing nice right now. High temperatures and little moisture have left the landscapes a sitting target for lightning strikes. Idaho has been hit extremely hard, with over one million acres burned so far this year.

I long ago realized that safety is a fantasy. Hurricanes strike those who live next to the oceans, tornadoes strike those who live on the plains, avalanches strike those who live in the mountains, fires, earthquakes and evil humans can cause havoc everywhere. While it’s wise to take precautions to protect oneself from both nature and evil, it’s also foolish not to continue living life to the fullness of one’s dreams.

Book Report: Travels with Maggie, 36,372 words. Lot of editing and cutting here, so this is more impressive than it looks, since at last report I was up to 35,726 words. Besides which, I worked in the visitor kiosk here at Lake Walcott on Saturday and Sunday, and had very enjoyable company Saturday evening. The good news is that the rewrite of my travel book is still progressing.

Bean’s Pat: Turtles at Dawn http://tinyurl.com/cn34ftj Despite the fires, life goes on, and these tiny turtles headed out to sea cheer me.

This new illustration for Bean’s Pat is courtesy of Laura Hulka, who like me is a member of Story Circle Network, an organization of female writers which has enriched my life. Check it out at: www.storycircle.org Thank you Laura.

I encourage recipients of the Bean’s Pat to copy and paste it on their blogs. The Pat is this wondering wanderer’s choice for best blog of the day. I created it to play it back for the awards readers have given me.

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Lake Walcott Birds

Posted in Birds, Lakes, Nature, tagged , , , , , , , on August 14, 2012| 4 Comments »

            “Be as a bird perched on a frail branch that she feels bending beneath her, still she sings away all the same, knowing she has wings.” –Victor Hugo

Minus One Sharp-Tailed Grouse

 

Only occasionally do I see western tanagers at Lake Walcott State Park. — Photo by Pat Bean

           I keep bird lists. These include a life list for all the bird species I’ve seen, a yearly bird list and a list of Lake Walcott birds. My life list stands at 702 bird species, the one for the year currently at 203 and the one for Lake Walcott, minus 1.

That one bird is the sharp-tailed grouse. Of all the birds that have been seen in the Lake Walcott area, it’s the only species not on my world list. Admittedly, it’s a rare bird for here, normally preferring more northern habitat, but I keep hoping.

Lake Walcott has, however, given me two lifers. A rare migrating Sabine’s gull that winters at sea, primarily off the West Coast, and a gray partridge, that calls Lake Walcott home year-round and which I’ve seen, among other places here, out the rear window of my RV.

Yesterday evening, the lake hosted a flock of Franklin gulls, a bird I’ve frequently seen but this was my first sighting of it here at the park. I think the flock was  just passing through because there were none of these gulls still around when Maggie and I took our walk this morning.

But white pelicans are on the daily bird-watching menu here. — Photo by Pat Bean

The visiting gulls, which both look and sound a lot like laughing gulls, were far enough out on the lake when I saw them that I had to use my binoculars to make an identification.

Birds I see here at the lake almost daily include white pelicans that make their nests on the opposite shore from me and which gather in great numbers below the dam where the Snake River froths up white as it flows down and over some rock ledges.

House sparrows, American goldfinches, black-headed grosbeaks, house finches, house sparrows, white-crowned sparrows, brown-headed cowbirds, Brewer’s blackbirds, red-winged blackbirds, mourning doves, robins, killeer, and broad-tailed and black-chinned hummingbirds visit my camp site almost daily.

And black-headed grosbeaks make daily visits to the bird feeders I put out. — Photo by Pat Bean

Common nighthawks and a variety of swallows fly overhead each evening. A red-tailed hawk frequents a huge nearby cottonwood tree; I wake to the hooting of a great-horned owl and the cooing of doves.  I watch western grebes, Canada geese, quacking mallards and an occasional pied-billed grebe and northern pintail swim about in the water.

Life is good for this wondering/wandering birder here at Lake Walcott. If I were to send a postcard, I’d say: “Wish you were here.”

Book Report: “Travels with Maggie” now stands at 31,331 words. While that’s just about 600 more words than yesterday’s final count, I did a lot of slashing and rewriting to make things read smoother. Rewriting can be both easier and more difficult than the first time around, which I already knew. The good news is that I’m having fun with it.

Bean’s Pat:  10,000 Birds http://tinyurl.com/8t62xry Check out these bee-eaters.

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Posted in Favorite Places, Lakes, Nature, Writing, tagged , , , , , , on August 13, 2012| 7 Comments »

Lake Walcott State Park

“To find the universal elements enough; to find the air and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed by a morning walk or an evening saunter; to be thrilled by the stars at night; to be elated over a bird’s nest or a wildflower in spring – these are some of the rewards of the simple life.” John Burroughs.

Yet Another Amazing Morning Walk

Early morning on Lake Walcott — Photo by Pat Bean

            It’s been a busy past week: Computer problems and two 100-mile round-trips to try to get it fixed before buying a new one to end my frustrations, out-of-town visitors to my camp site here at Lake Walcott, unsuccessful struggles to meet a writing goal although I did add 5,000 new words to my travel book, falling way behind on correspondence, etc. etc.

            All of the above obstructions to my peaceful existence disappeared this morning when I took Pepper for an early morning walk. I let Mother Nature take the weight off my shoulders and simply let my mind an senses revel in the reflection of the sun on the lake, the sight of apples growing in a tree next to the trail to the boat docks, two perfect yellow flowers growing in the cranny of a rock wall smiling at the sun.

I returned to my RV refreshed and ready for the coming week, confident that whatever this week throws at me, I will embrace it and survive.

Thank you Mother Nature.

Book Report: My goal this week is 10,000 words on my travel book. Encourage me keep my fingers and brain moving.

Bean’s Pat: http://tinyurl.com/d9lsjxf Some days it’s just Monday. Blog pick of the day from the Wondering Wanderer

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Maggie and Me in Missouri

Posted in Favorite Places, Lakes, Nature, Travels With Maggie, tagged , , , , , , on August 10, 2012| 1 Comment »

           “Not all those who wander are lost.” J.R.R. Tolkien

Table Rock State Park

A view of Table Rock Lake and the marina from out the back of my RV. — Photo by Pat Bean

On the outskirts of Branson, which reminded me of Las Vegas, especially after it took me an hour to travel five miles down the town’s Main Street, is Table Rock State Park. This quiet oasis from the tourist trap, where the Titanic and Elvis still live and where legendary singers past their prime perform to appreciative audiences past their prime, was my home for four days.

I didn’t miss the city life at all. I only got caught up in the hour-long traffic jam because I wanted to see what the Branson hullabaloo was all about.

If you’re ever in the area, my suggestion is that you visit the park and not the city.

A section of the walking path that ran from the marina to the Belle Showboat that Maggie and I walked daily. — Photo by Pat Bean

My camp site backed up to Table Rock Lake and a three-mile long paved walking trail that went across a couple of wooden bridges to a marina in one direction and the Branson Belle Showboat in the other.

I walked the path early every morning with my canine traveling companion, Maggie, but pretty much kept to myself reading or  writing in the RV the rest of the time. I was content to simply watch the lake and campground goings on out my window.

I thought about taking in the show on the Belle but decided I didn’t want to spoil my lazy solitude. That’s one of the joys of traveling alone, not having to meet someone else’s travel expectations.

Book Report:  30,731. Only about 1,500 rewritten words today, but then I cut a couple of chunks of boring from the original. Leaving the boring parts out is some writing advice I’ve long tried to follow.

Bean’s Pat: http://tinyurl.com/dxyz5s8 A look back to the 1908 Olympics. Wow! Have things changed.

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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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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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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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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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