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Archive for the ‘Lakes’ Category

Weekly Photo Challenge: Two Subjects

Posted in Lakes, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , on April 16, 2012| 7 Comments »

“I never saw a discontented tree.  They grip the ground as though they liked it, and though fast rooted they travel  about as far as we do.  They go wandering forth in all directions with every wind, going and coming like ourselves, traveling with us around the sun two million miles a day, and through space heaven knows how fast and far!”  ~John Muir

Two Trees

I think of these two live oak trees that grow in a park on the Texas Gulf Coast as two old companions who grew up together and whose roots are now entwined like a rare couple who has been able to weather the hard times and age gracefully together. I suspect they are now so joined that they can not survive without each other. -- Photo by Pat Bean

And is this one tree or two?

And this great willow, that sits beside Lake Walcott in Idaho, reminds me of a couple who married young and then split asunder so that they appear as two trees. -- Photo by Pat Bean

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Favorite Places: Grand Teton National Park – For One

Posted in Favorite Hikes, Favorite Places, Lakes, Nature, Travels With Maggie, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , on February 19, 2012| 13 Comments »

“Give me the comma of imperfect striving, thus to find zest in the immediate living. Ever the reaching but never the gaining, ever the climbing but never the attaining of the mountain top.” — Winston Graham

While this tiny creek is too small to make most maps, it makes it on the list of my favorite places. -- Photo by Pat Bean

Travels With Maggie

Wyoming's Grand Teton, photographed at the end of a hike to Taggart Lake, makes my long, long list of favorite places. -- Photo by Pat Bean

I get tongue-tied when people ask me what’s my favorite place among those Maggie and I have visited in our RV travels.

How do you name one among so many?

I’ve discovered beauty and awesomeness everywhere I’ve gone, from coast to coast and border to border.

I’ve ridden to the top, in a tiny cramped ball, of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, crossed the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, stood beneath Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln at Mount Rushmore, and gazed down on New York City from the top of the Empire State Building.

All these places were awesome.

But just as grand and beautiful in the eyes of this nature-loving old broad have been all the nature refuges, lakes, mountains, rivers big and small and even the trees, especially the redwoods, that Maggie and I have visited.

Yes. Perhaps that’s the answer. My favorite place is where Mother Nature resides. 

Bean’s Pat: 20 Minutes a Day: Saturday Morning http://tinyurl.com/6w8ce3h A writing prompt that had me laughing all the way through.

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A Morning Walk Around a Lake With the Vultures

Posted in Birds, Favorite Hikes, Favorite Places, Lakes, Nature, Travels With Maggie, tagged , , , , on February 7, 2012| 9 Comments »

 “As you sit on the hillside, or lie prone under the trees of the forest, or sprawl wet-legged by a mountain stream, the great door, that does not look like a door, opens.” Stephen Graham, “The Gentle Art of tramping.”

Black vultures claimed the deck that jutted into Creekfield Lake -- Photo by Pat Bean

Travels With Maggie

Come. Take a walk with me around Creekfield Lake at Brazos Bend State Park. Bring your binoculars and camera.

It’s a cool, gray morning here at the park, where Maggie and I are spending a couple of days to hike and bird-watch.

The walk begins, continues and ends with cawing crows and dee-dee-deeing chickadees providing background music. Their not unpleasant cacophony is occasionally punctuated by the rat-a-tat-tat of a downy woodpecker.

I was surprised at how close this great blue heron let me get before it flew off. -- Photo by Pat Bean

I was surprised at how close this great blue heron let me get before it flew off. -- Photo by Pat Bean

The robins, titmouses, warblers and mockingbirds also occasionally add a note or two to the melody.

There’s a sign at the beginning of the loop around the lake that says “Don’t feed or molest the alligators.” You can be assured I won’t. I hope someone told the alligators not to molest the hikers. At least Maggie wouldn’t be their dinner. I left her back in the RV after taking her for an earlier morning walk.

Near the swampy, dark-water shore, three white-ibis are feeding. In deeper water, common moorhens are holding a large meeting, their shrill, screeching making it sound as if a dispute is going on.

But by far the most numerous bird I see this day is the black vulture. They have claimed a small island in the lake, many trees, a deck that juts into the water, the top of the park observatory and even the paved trail. They wait until I am almost upon them before they move, then only reluctantly and only to the closest tree, where they sit and watch me pass beneath them.

It’s a bit eerie, but not discomforting. I know they prefer dead things for dinner and I am very much alive.

That the vultures didn’t budge until I was almost upon them didn’t surprise me. The lone great blue heron that let me get closer than normal before flying off did surprise me. They usually fly at the first appearance of a human.

I had the trail to myself, and I was constantly lingering to look about at everything about me, the lingering red leaf, the mushrooms growing on a fallen tree, the feather floating in the water.

A small bench nicely situated beneath a large live-oak tree beckons to me. I sit and soon am being entertained by a small flock of bluebirds that just happen to be passing by. When they move on, I get up to follow. The bluebirds stick together in male and female pairs and I decide they are courting. As I watch a crow flies to a nearby tree with a stick in its beak. I assume it’s for starting a nest.

All too soon, I’ve completed the walk around the lake. What a great morning.

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Custer State Park: One of the Beautiful Unlisted Places

Posted in Favorite Places, Lakes, Nature, Travel, Travels With Maggie, tagged , , , , , , , on January 20, 2012| 5 Comments »

 “A woodland in full color is awesome as a forest fire, in magnitude at least, but a single tree is like a dancing tongue of flame to warm the heart.” – Hal Borland

Travels With Maggie

I came across an awesome blog this week. The Cool Hunter, http://tinyurl.com/7uop6kk .

Sylvan Lake in Custer State Park located in South Dakota's Black Hills. -- Photo by Pat Bean

 It’s creator listed, with photos, some of the places he thought most beautiful in the world. I was delightedly satisfied that I had seen four of the five places that were on the North American continent, and thrilled that the fifth, The Hamilton Nature Preserve, is located in Texas’ Hill Country near Austin. .

I’ve added it to my travel agenda for April, when I will be attending Story Circle Network’s “Stories from the Heart” http://tinyurl.com/yzc585o memoir writing conference for women in the city.

A nursing buffalo calf halted traffic when I visited Custer State Park. I thought it was a "beautiful" sight. -- Photo by Pat Bean, taken through the front windshield of Gypsy Lee as rain drops began to fall.

The other four awesome places in North America favored by the Cool Hunter are Lake Moraine’s Valley of the Ten Peaks in Alberta, Canada; Multnomah Falls east of Portland in Oregon; The Wave in Arizona’s Vermillion Cliffs; and the Lower Lewis River Falls in Washington.

I agree 110 percent with Cool Hunter’s choices, but I could also name a hundred plus other places in America that are just as beautiful. If I could, I would make “America, the Beautiful,” this country’s national anthem. The lyrics move me every time I hear them.

While I would love to visit some of the many places around the globe whose photos I drooled over when I read Cool Hunter’s blog, I do know that my own backyard is every bit as beautiful – and I’m thankful that I can still hear Dr. Seuss’ words – “Oh the places you’ll go and the things you’ll see” — singing in my mind every time Maggie and I take off down the road in our RV, Gypsy Lee.

Like Custer State Park in South Dakota’s Black Hills, located not far from Mount Rushmore.

 

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Looking Back at 2011

Posted in Birds, Favorite Hikes, Lakes, Nature, Travel, Travels With Maggie, Wildflowers, Writing, tagged , , , , , , on December 29, 2011| 16 Comments »

I stood at the top of Tioga Pass in 2011 and looked out at Yosemite's Half Dome. -- Photo by Pat Bean

 “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” —Mary Oliver

Travels With Maggie

Been thinking about my New Year’s Resolutions. I always make them and I always break them’

This past year, however, I did almost keep one. And that was the goal to blog daily. I came up about a dozen blogs short. Just one slip a month.

Too bad I thought, when I counted them up.

Sand and snow at Great Sand Dune National Park in Colorado was an April view for me. -- Photo by Pat Bean

There was a lesson in the tallying, however. I realized how a mere slip here and there adds up. Next year I’m going to meet the goal of blogging daily, which has been a great way to keep track of my life, make new friends, share my travels, as well as my defeats and achievements. It’s also helped me gain a voice in my writing.

What I did last year, meanwhile, was to compete (after five years of failing) the NANO challenge of writing a first draft of a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. That’s the 2011 achievement I’m most proud of accomplishing. It wasn’t a New Year’s resolution, however.

I also knocked off a few places on my travel list this past year, including first visits to Yosemite and great Sand Dune national parks and to Mono Lake.

 

I volunteered for the summer as a campground host at Lake Walcott State Park, and plan to return there this coming summer. I was elected to the Board of Directors for Story Circle Network, the national writing group to which I belong. I had a photo of mine published in the Fodor’s African Safari Guide and my world bird list hit the 700 mark, of which about 500 are North American species.

And Maggie and I made sure to take time to smell the flowers that grew in 2011. -- Photo by Pat Bean

All in all, I think it was a pretty good year.

 It’s finally time, I’ve decided, to stop beating myself up for all the things I didn’t do and give myself credit for what I did do. I truly hope you will do the same.

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Birding Reward for Dumping Gypsy Lee

Posted in Birds, Favorite Hikes, Favorite Places, Lakes, Nature, Travel, Travels With Maggie, tagged , , , , , , , on December 19, 2011| 7 Comments »

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

 

American woodcock. The one we saw at Brazos Bend had a beautiful red belly but flew away too quickly for me to get a photograph. -- Wikipedia photo

 

Travels With Maggie

The best option I’ve found to dump the holding tanks in my RV when I’m visiting my son in Lake Jackson is Brazos Bend State Park. The compensation for making the 80-mile round-trip drive is that the Texas park, known for its alligators, is one of my favorite places to bird.

I announced my intentions of making the drive to my son, Lewis, asking if he would like to make the trip with me. He passed the word along to his wife, Karen.

“Mom needs to take a dump at Brazos Bend,” is how he put it, which suddenly became a standing joke among us.

Saturday, the two of them, also birders, joined me for the adventure. Arriving at the park, I renewed my annual Texas State Park pass, then took care of Gypsy Lee’s business while Karen and Lewis walked Maggie and watched a flock of cedar waxwings.

 

But this red-eyed fellow, a black-crowned night heron, posed nicely for me. -- Photo by Pat Bean

Ten minutes after I had put on plastic gloves, hooked up a sewer hose and pulled levers, Gypsy Lee’s holding tanks were empty and I was ready to join the birding party.

We decided to hike the Hoots Hollow trail near the park entrance. It was a good choice.

One of the first birds we saw as we entered the moss-dripping forest was an American woodcock. It was cause for great joy as the bird was a lifer for all three of us. It brought my list of species seen up to 699.

But the benefits of having to drive to Brazos Bend to dump didn’t end there. Just as we were about to exit the trail, I got my 700th species, a Swainson’s thrush. It had been quite awhile since I had added any new bird species to my life list, and to get two in one day was fantastic.

Our continued birding around Forty Acre Lake was also great. We ended the day with 57 species, our final one being a black-crowned night heron that posed for my camera.

The day left me looking forward to my next “dump.”

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Bastrop State Park Called. I Didn’t Pick Up

Posted in Lakes, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , , , on December 3, 2011| 2 Comments »

“Learn everything you can, anytime you can, from anyone you can – there will always come a time when you will be grateful you did.” – Sarah Caldwell

 

Bastrop State Park is home to the endangered Houston Toad. -- Wikipedia photo

Travels With Maggie

As I suspected, yesterday’s 200-mile drive from Austin to Lake Jackson was mostly done in rain. And because I knew that. Gypsy Lee, my RV, takes her time stopping on slippery roads I drove a bit slower than normal.

I also let the rain and the slower speed that put me behind scheduled alter my plans for the day, which was to take an hour off from driving and explore Bastrop State Park. The park, located off Highway 21/71 southeast of Austin, is known as the home of the “Lost Pines” because it’s separated by about a 100 miles from the Piney Woods of East Texas.

My travel agenda almost always includes planned stops like this because they usually provide good photographic fodder for my blog and satisfy my cat’s curiosity. I have a button, saved from a journalism conference I attended when I was a city editor, that states: “I Want It All.” That’s actually true, and “I Want to See It All,” too.

 

The lake at Bastrop State Park -- Wikipedia photo

But I let time and rain wimp me out this day, giving my wimpy excuses encouragement because my Texas State Park Pass had expired and I would have to pay to enter the park. As I drove past the park entrance, Maggie snored softly in her co-pilot seat. She reminds me of my kids when they were young. They either slept or stuck their noses in comic books when we traveled long distances. Some of my grandkids, sad to say, do the same, except instead of reading comic books they play games on their cell phones. .

This morning, while scratching my head over a blog subject, I decided to explore online what I missed seeing personally.

What I discovered was that Bastrop State Park was closed after this past summer’s Texas wildfire damage. Only yesterday, according to the online news story I found on the park’s web page, were parts of it actually opened again to the public. For more information about what I would have missed I checked out a video of the park on You Tube, You can, too. http://tinyurl.com/3mxnywq

In addition to pine trees, peaceful lake, golf course, hiking trails and camping opportunities, Bastrop State Park is also home to the endangered Houston Toad.

Darn it! A rainy day might have been the perfect toad-watching day.

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What Next After NaNoWriMo

Posted in African Safari, Lakes, Nature, Travel, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , on December 1, 2011| 8 Comments »

  “Than indecision brings its own delays, and days are lost lamenting o’er lost days. Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute; What you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

 

My travel book would include details about my search for Mother Nature in places like the New Hampshire woods where I came across this peaceful creek. -- Photo by Pat Bean

Too Many Unfinished Projects

Writing a first draft of a 50,000 word novel in 30 days has given me confidence for the old-broad writing days that still remain to me. There’s no question that I will write, for doing so is for me the same as breathing. I was fortunate that I found a way as a journalist to do it almost daily and get paid for it for 37 years.

When I retired from the job, however, I never saw myself retiring as a writer. I thought I would continue as a free-lance writer of travel and birding articles.

The Internet changed all that, however. The sources I had, including writing for my own former newspaper, dried up after a couple of years.

Suddenly it was a whole new world out there, and I faced either changing or being satisfied with writing only for myself. But it’s never worked that way for me. I both want to be read and to be paid for my writing as a way of personal validation

 

The photo of this hippo I took while on my African safari appears in Fodor's recently released "African Safari Guidebook." -- Photo by Pat Bean

The other change in the world of writing has been that self-publication is no longer considered a vanity, as it was during earlier days. In fact, many writing guides and teachers are encouraging wanna-be authors to go this route.

I’m seriously considering the possibility.

My immediate problem, however, is which project should I tackle first. Until NaNo, I failed to complete any major projects that didn’t have a pay-off deadline. The reasons are many, beginning with my own self doubts about a project’s worth. As former NaNo winners predicted, this inner questioning hit during my second week of the novel challenge. Working past it felt great.

 

The bear at Lake Walcott State Park in Idaho -- Photo by Pat Bean

So, with this said, let me explain my options – at least as I see them. Actually, I think I’m writing this blog as a way to get my own head straight.

First, there is the NaNo novel, which my ego says has good possibilities. Ever since I was a teenager reading Nancy Drew, I’ve wanted to write a mystery. The NaNo one is my second. The first is one of those uncompleted projects that never went beyond the first draft.

Then there’s the travel book I’ve already written, which needs a bit of rewriting. It has been read by critics who gave it mostly thumbs up, although all said it needed my voice. I now think I’ve developed my voice.

It would be the quickest project to finish. It’s called “Travels With Maggie.” I said in an earlier hunt for an agent that I thought it would fit nicely on the book shelf between Steinbeck’s “Travels With Charley” and Kuralt’s “On the Road” with a little bit of Tim Cahill thrown in and written with a feminine voice. .

Then there is the African safari travel/picture book that I started and which now begs to be finished.

Then there is a commitment to put together a nature book about Lake Walcott State Park in Idaho, where I spent last summer as a campground host and where I will return again this coming summer.

And finally there is a the memoir that is beginning to demand I write. It would be a story of a high school honor roll student who dropped out of school at 16 to get married and who had four children by the time she was 21, and who went on to become a reporter, city editor and finally associate editor of a 66,000 circulation newspaper. There’s a lot of skeletons, heartache, joys and growing up in between.

I’m giving myself a break until Monday to come up with an answer, after which I’m counting on the discipline of NaNo to help keep me to whatever deadline I set for myself.

I’m leaning toward the travel book as my next project.. What do you think? I really want to know.

 

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Maine Moose and NaNoWriMo Update

Posted in Favorite Places, Lakes, Nature, Travel, Writing, tagged , , , , , , on November 25, 2011| 6 Comments »

 “Write even when you don’t want to, don’t much like what you are writing, and aren’t writing particularly well.” – Agatha Christie

 

The view out my RV window at Wassamki Springs in Maine. I wanna go back. -- Photo by Pat Bean

NaNoWriMo Update … 40,035 words

First Maggie got the doggie runs. She needed to go out every hour on the hour for the entire night. The consequences of not crawling down from my bed over the cab of my small RV was enough to make sure I kept getting up hour after hour.

So I awoke with very little sleep, and so my writing suffered. My best writing occurs when I am in bed by 10 p.m. and get up and get in front of my computer by 5 or 6 a.m.

Second it was Thanksgiving, and there was family around that needed my attention, or I needed theirs, or whatever. And calls from family far away, and too much eating going on, followed by several games of Settlers, none of which I won.

And so my writing suffered.

Today, with the end of NaNo only five days away, it was back to the keyboard. My decision to demand everyone leave me alone, however, has probably earned me a few black marks in my ledger. It’s the big Christmas decorating-day here at my son’s house in Harker Heights.

My daughter-in-law looked shocked when I refused the call to arms.

The upside, however, is that today I got past the 40,000 word mark. if I write 2,000 words a day for the next five days, I will meet the 50,000-word goal.

What I have going for me is that I think I’ve figured things out in my head on how my story is going to end. And that in my 37 years as a journalist I never missed a deadline.

I’m also thinking that my conclusion might not take the book all the way to 50,000 words, but I’m hoping that’s the case. I have lots of extra scenes in mind to flesh out what is already written. The trick will be to add these scenes without deleting all the unnecessary and redundant words that go into all my first drafts.

It takes much longer to write short than it does long.

So now if you’ll excuse me, I still have writing I can do today. I don’t want to push that deadline beyond my capability.


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An Alabama Lake and NaNoWriMo Update

Posted in Books, Favorite Places, Lakes, Nature, Travel, Writing, tagged , , , , , , on November 10, 2011| 5 Comments »

 My Favorite Places: Lake Claiborne

Lake Claiborne, Alabama, in the fall. -- Photo by Pat Bean

“Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go.: –E.L. Doctorow

NaNoWriMo Update – 17,309 words

Only about 1,500 words today, but they felt like good, words and I feel I’m back on track with places to go in my book. A couple of new plot lines finally hit my brain cells. .

I also don’t feel too bad about the fewer words because I had several errands to run and two hours of physical therapy for my neck. I also did an extra blog to promote Rana DiOrino’s “What Does It Mean to Be Safe,” a children’s picture book, but one that has good advice for adults as well.

The other reality I’m facing is the fact that I can’t sit and sit in front of the computer as I want. It’s most likely what got my neck so horribly stiff in the first place. I need to get up and move about every 30 minutes.

So what I’m now doing is writing my book in short scenes, and then taking a short break. I walk the dog, put a load of clothes in the washer, do my neck and shoulder exercises or whatever. The key is to get right back to the computer and go into the next scene. It helps if I get up in the middle of a sentence so I can get right back into it. A timer’s helping me do that.

I’m also trying to convince myself that I really can write after the sun goes down. I don’t like it, but I can see it’s going to have to happen if I’m to meet the 50,000 word goal without screwing up my neck any more than I already have. Can I say my favorite “S” word right now?

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