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Archive for the ‘Nature’ Category

Blue Ridge Parkway: Chestnuts and Rakes Pond

Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Favorite Places, Journeys, Nature, Travel, Writing, tagged , , , , , , on October 29, 2012| Leave a Comment »

“Under a spreading chestnut tree, the village smithy stands …” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

One of hundreds of inviting places to have a picnic along the Blue Ridge Parkway. I loved the way the light shown through the trees on this shady spot. — Photo by Pat Bean

Adventures with Pepper: Day 32 Continued

The Blue Ridge Parkway is not just about the fantastic landscape, it’s also about the people who made or make the Blue Ridge Mountains, which stretch from Pennsylvania to Georgia, their home.

Except for this couple, I had Rake’s Mill Pond site to myself. — Photo by Pat Bean

My companion on the journey, , besides Pepper,  was ranger and naturalist William Lord’s mile-marker guide published in 1982 by the American Chestnut Foundation. The American Chestnut, whose numbers in the Appalachian Mountains once numbered about three billion, were decimated by a blight in the early 1900s. Today one would be hard pressed to find a hundred mature American chestnuts.            The parkway, however, is home to a few immature trees as the battle to save them continues. Few chestnut trees today grow to more than about 20 feet before the blight fugal disease take them. The people working to save this species, like the chestnut foundation, is part of today’s story along the parkway.

I loved the markers along the Blue Ridge Parkway that helped me make sense of what I was seeing.

One person from the past was a miller named Rake, who built a small pond to have ready water for his grist mill. His advertising gimmick was to allow customers to fish in the pond while they waited for their meal to be ground.            I’m glad I stopped at this small, peaceful place, because the Marby Mill, the show mill of the parkway just up the road a bit, was too crowded for me to park Gypsy Lee, and she ain’t big

I was forced to pass this stopping spot up and continue on to Meadows of Dan, where I would spend the night.

Book Report: I’m in Nashville now, and while I’ve stuck around for a few days, I’ve taken tours and listened to country music, and Travels with Maggie got stuck again.

The Wondering Wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

Bean’s Pat: Marc and Angel http://tinyurl.com/95gpobj 10 Ways to Live Life with No Regrets. I’m not fond of promoting big blogs like this, but the advice these two hand out is just too good to pass up. I read their blog a lot.

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Blue Ridge Parkway: Roanoke River Crossing

Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Favorite Places, Journeys, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , on October 28, 2012| 4 Comments »

             “Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it.” – Henry David Thoreau.

Pepper pulled me down the trail, and I was hard pressed to keep up and not stumble. But when she pulled me back up the trail, I thought: “Oh what a good dog you are.” — Photo by Pat Bean

Adventures with Pepper: Day 32

Oh goodie! I’ll be able to get a good picture of the Roanoke River. — Photo by Pat Bean

I’m suffering a distorted kind of writer’s block as I try to blog about my 466-mile journey down the Blue Ridge Parkway. It’s not that I don’t have things I want to tell you about this amazing adventure, but that I have too much to tell you and too many pictures to choose from that I took along the way.

My thoughts seem quite jumbled. I think I need to stop thinking so much about trying to put things in order and just get on with the writing, tackling it piece by piece for the next few days, or as Anne LaMott said so well, “Bird by Bird.”

I got a great shop of the bridge that crossed the Roanoke River, but the view of the river itself from the viewpoint was blocked by foliage. — Photo by Pat Bean

This day Pepper and I crossed the Roanoke River, and had a fantastic view of it from the bridge high above it. Of course there was no place to stop and take a picture, which was why I was happy to see a trail head leading down to a viewpoint right after we exited the bridge.

It was a great little hike, in which I was pulled both up and down the trail by Pepper, but no decent view of the river. I’d have to make sure I filed the bridge-crossing view somewhere in my little gray cells, I thought.

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Blue Ridge Parkway: Natural Bridge Disappointment

Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Journeys, Nature, Travel, Writing, tagged , , , , , on October 26, 2012| 7 Comments »

“If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.” — Frances Hodgson Burnett, “The Secret Garden”

Natural Bridge as painted by David Johnson in 1860.

Adventures with Pepper: Day 31 continued 

A 2005 photo of Natural Bridge — Wikipedia photo

I had a fantastic day’s drive this first day of my journey on the Blue Ridge Parkway, despite one big disappointment.

In my perusal of sights along the parkway, I had seen pictures of Natural Bridge and wanted to see it for myself. I didn’t know it was a tourist trap. The entrance to the bridge was on the inside of a gift shop, and a walk down to see it would cost me $20.

The cost of the ticket included some extras, but all I wanted was to see Mother Nature’s creation in a natural setting. When I saw the crowds, and realized the setting would be staged, I passed.

Instead, I back-tracked to Yogi Bear’s Jellystone Natural Bridge Campground, where I had reservations, and checked in early. I like the family atmosphere of Yogi’s campgrounds — and the 50 percent discount I got from this one as a Passport America member.

After hooking up, I had plenty of time to take Pepper for a nice walk down to the James River, which ran along one edge of the park. I had the river to myself, and sat for a while beside it at a picnic table watching Pepper chase fall leaves.

Book Report: Travels with Maggie is now up to 58,302 words.

Bean’s Pat: Discovering Myself http://tinyurl.com/9kfpuuk I’ve been traveling through fantastic fall color country. But this blogger has some fantastic shots of Minnesota’s fall colors. Take a look.

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Blue Ridge Parkway: Fences

Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Art, Nature, Travel, Writing, tagged , , , , , , on October 24, 2012| 1 Comment »

            “There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.” – Will Rogers  

Stone Fence exhibit along the Blue Ridge Parkway. — Photo by Pat Bean

Adventures with Pepper: Day 31

            Today was my first day of driving the Blue Ridge Parkway. Of course I began it by stopping at every overlook and exhibit along the 466-mile scenic drive.

One of the many stone fences along the Skyline Trail. Am I the only on who sees beauty in them? — Photo by Pat Bean

One of these first sites talked about the rock walls, some of which had been built by slaves, in the area. The ones on exhibit at this site were hog walls, designed to keep out wild hogs that foraged for accords and chestnuts.

I had also seen a lot of stone fences on my drive on Skyline Drive.The way the natural rocks had been fitted together to form low walls around narrow road drop offs fascinated me.

And what kind of wall do we get today? The ugly, too tall, cement Jersey barrier, which if the thousands I see as I drive across this country are any indication, somebody is probably getting very rich. — Wikipedia photo

Most of these walls had been built by the Civilian Conservation Corps work relief program during the Great Depression. I’ve seen handiwork of the CCC almost everywhere I’ve traveled, including Lake Walcott State Park in Idaho.I saw a lot of rock fences, and wooden ones as well, along the parkway as I slowly made my way south along the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains at the rate, including stops, of about 15 mph.

The fences, of course, made me think of Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall,” which I later looked up and read. I thought you might enjoy a few verses, too.

This fence builder, in my opinion, was an artist. — Photo by Pat Bean

Mending Wall

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast….

But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.

 He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says “Good fences make good neighbors.”

Book Report: Travels with Maggie is now at 57,928 words.

The Wondering Wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

Bean’s Pat: Tripperspot http://tinyurl.com/8zgxa7q This blogger got me with her conclusion on how we judge a person. Passion for something positive in life is priceless. Just save us all from ever being judgmental of others.

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Remember that Purple Cow

Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Nature, Travel, Uncategorized, Writing, tagged , , , , , on October 23, 2012| 8 Comments »

“Hitler didn’t travel. Stalin didn’t travel. Saddam Hussein never traveled. They didn’t want to have their orthodoxy challenged.” — Howard Gardner

The purple cow at Highway 340 North Campground near Waynesboro, Virginia. — Photo by Pat Bean

Adventures with Pepper: Days 29-30

            Only a few days have passed since my mind wondered and wandered during a drive through Indiana in which I quoted “I never saw a purple cow, I never hope to see one …” to my canine traveling companion, Pepper.

Just in case you’re not into purple cows, what do you think about butterflies. I photographed this near the purple cow. — Photo by Pat Bean

Well, at the end of my gorgeous day’s drive through Shenandoah National Park, I was confronted with a purple cow. How funny, I thought, as I checked into the Highway 340 North RV Park just outside of Waynesboro, Virginia.

As almost all the places I had stayed at during the trip, it was quite nice with lots of friendly people. I decided to stay over a day and catch up on laundry and writing before I began my drive down the Blue Ridge Parkway

Book Report: I didn’t travel today and Travels with Maggie benefitted. The book is now up to 56,782 words.  It was a fun rewriting day as I got to relive my trip to Hawk Mountain with my oldest granddaughter, Shanna.

The Wondering Wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

Bean’s Pat: Fall colors in Minnesota http://tinyurl.com/9d3wjfq I never tire of Mother Nature’s autumn. How about you?

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Skyline Trail through Shenandoah

Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Favorite Places, Journeys, Nature, Travel, Uncategorized, Writing, tagged , , , , , , on October 22, 2012| 9 Comments »

Layers and layers of colors ending in blue. — Photo by Pat Bean

“Heroes take journeys, confront dragons, and discover the treasure of their true selves.”
—Carol Pearson

Adventures with Pepper: Day 29

The wildflower season along Skyline Trail had ended, but their were still a few flowers, like this small beauty with drops of rain still coating its leaves, to be seen. — Photo by Pat Bean

While the rain had stopped, the morning was still overcast. It was going to be a dreary drive through Shenandoah National Park, I thought.

But then Mother Nature took pity on me. I had just barely started my day’s drive down the park’s 105-mile Skyline Trail when the sun came out and bathed the landscape with its light.

Rain drops on leaves glistened in the sunlight and the passing foliage took on a warm glow.

The leaves of the maples, oaks, elms, beeches, aspens and many others, were a variegated palette of color. They reminded me of the mixed-color yarn my mother often used in making afghans. If she were using Mother Nature’s half-summer/half-autumn colors this day, her crocheted blankets would range in hues from green to lemon yellow with shades of orange, plum and scarlet in between.

Rag Mountain framed by an old dead tree I found interesting. — Photo by Pat Bean

Shenandoah National Park is a long, narrow mixture of lands and forests woven together in a landscape protected for both its beauty and its wildness. Its Skyline Trail is a narrow, winding, hilly road with a 35 mph speed limit designed as the way for people in cars to enjoy it.

With 75 overlooks – I know I stopped at least half of them – and inviting trails leading away from the smell of the road,  Pepper and I found many reasons to at least briefly abandon Gypsy Lee, out home on wheels. .

It took me over seven hours to get through the park.  It would have been longer if I hadn’t have wanted to get off the road and Gypsy Lee hooked up to civilization before dark.

Book Report: Just to keep it moving forward, I added another few words, bringing Travels with Maggie up to 56,103. I think for the next two weeks, until I get off the road for a bit, the book is truly going to be moving at a snail’s pace. I have writing commitments for Story Circle Network of which I’m a board member and other priorities this coming week, plus other priorities on this current journey. I hope I’m not just making excuses.

The Wondering Wanderer’s blog pick of the day

Bean’s Pat: Unusual Travel Tradition http://tinyurl.com/9f3amqx This blogger sees the funny side of travel. A new find for me.

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A Hard Day’s Drive and Church Steeples

Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Journeys, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , on October 18, 2012| 5 Comments »

            “There’s a church in the valley in the wildwood. No lovelier place in the dell. No spot is so dear to my childhood, as the little brown church in the vale. Oh come, come, come, come. Come to the church in the wildwood. Oh, come to the church in the dell. No spot is so dear to my childhood as the little brown church in the dell.” – William S. Pitts

Adventures with Pepper: Day 27

            It was with a bit of reluctance that I left Carthage Gap and the family that had adopted me, but I was on the road in time to watch the sun come up.

The little brown church in the vale is in Nashua, Iowa. — Wikipedia photo

It never did. While the weather was calm, it was a completely overcast day.

But the roadside scenery, when I had time to look at it, more than made up for the missing sun.

But it was a hard day’s drive on Highway 50, through the Appalachian foothills, and the road got most of my attention. The route was mostly narrow, mostly winding, and the primary two directions it traveled was either up or down.

It wouldn’t have been too bad if I were going my usual 100 to 150 miles, but I was facing a journey of 270 miles. The distance wasn’t by choice, but because I couldn’t find a decent campground to spend the night until I reached Front Royal, Virginia.

I’m not sure why, but I suspect it was the many church steeples I was seeing as I drove through  West Virginia that caused me to start singing “The Church in the Wildwood” to Pepper. I hope she is tone-deaf because I couldn’t carry a tune if my life depended on it. Usually the only time I ever sing is when I’m driving, and usually only because I want to stay awake.

After many twists and turns and fall colors around most of them, I ended my day at Front Royal, Virginia. — Photo by Pat Bean

The hymn, written by Iowa school teacher William S. Pitts in 1857, was my grandmother’s favorite song.

When I did some research this morning, because I wondered if I had the lyrics right, I discovered an amazing story in the Des Moines Register about the song.

The article said Pitts wrote the song following a coach ride that stopped in Bradford, Iowa, where he saw a wooded valley in which he envisioned a little brown church.

Five years later, when he returned to that same Cedar River valley, the church he had imagined had been built, down to its brown color.

. During the winter of 1863-64, Pitts taught a singing class at Bradford Academy, and  had his class sing the song at the dedication of the new church in 1864. This was the first time the song was sung by anyone apart from Pitts himself, according to the newspaper article.

The second amazing thing is that the little brown church still exists. It’s a popular tourist attraction in Nashua, Iowa.

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A Missed Turn Finally Put Me on the Right Road

Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Journeys, Nature, Travel, Writing, tagged , , , on October 16, 2012| 1 Comment »

            “If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the opposite direction.” —  Dietrich Bonhoeffer      

Adventures with Pepper: Day 25  

A picnic site along the Ohio River Scenic Byway. — Photo by Pat Bean

          Once again I decided to take the scenic route instead of the shortest route. I would continue following the Ohio River Scenic Byway, Highway 52, south. It would eventually turn north and become Highway 7, which would take me to my Carthage Gap destination near Coolville, Ohio.

But once again, I found myself on a scenic byway that wasn’t untraveled. That wasn’t too bad, I thought in the beginning. I needed a post office, and since I was driving down the main street of all these small towns, surely I would see one.

I knew to look for an American flag out in front. Well, I saw lots of American flags, indicating this was a pretty patriotic part of the country, but none of them were in front of post offices. I finally thought I had found one when I spotted a postal truck in downtown Gallipolis.

It wasn’t, but I did catch up with the postman hand delivering mail in the vicinity, and he took my envelope to mail.

I frequently saw pumpkins and mums for sale along the Ohio River Scenic Byway. — Photo by Pat Bean

The post was important to me because it contained my signed contract to blog three times a week for American Profile magazine. This was a writing job that I was thrilled to have gotten, especially since I would be blogging about this beautiful country I live in.

The blog is called Discovering America, and you can check it and the magazine’s other blogs out at: http://blogs.americanprofile.com

I guess I was still thinking about this great opportunity when I missed my turnoff to Carthage Gap.

I knew I had done something wrong when I found myself crossing the Ohio River into Ravenswood, West Virginia.

I immediately I got stopped by a Fall Harvest Parade being held in the town, but at least  that gave me some time to study my map to discover where I had gone wrong, and what to do about it.

The answer was to go back across the bridge to Ohio and take Highway 124 to Carthage Gap, which is exactly what I did when I could finally pull a U-turn.

Highway 124 was narrow, winding, sometimes steep and it followed closer to the Ohio River than I had been all day. And I had it practically to myself.

I’m sure glad I took that wrong turn.

            Book Report: No progress yet today. Too much other stuff to catch up on. I’ll get to Travels with Maggie later today – I hope.

The Wondering Wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

Bean’s Pat: Photovia http://tinyurl.com/cnung67 I May Die: I’ve been here a few times  in my travels, and know exactly how relived one is to find they’re right where they should be, and that the scary isn’t scary at all – just different. This post made me smile. Perhaps it will you, too.

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Glorious End to a Day’s Drive Beside a River

Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Books, Journeys, Nature, Travel, Writing, tagged , , , , , , on October 15, 2012| 5 Comments »

            “I venerate old age; and I love not the man who can look without emotion upon the sunset of life, when the dusk of evening begins to gather over the watery eye, and the shadows of twilight grow broader and deeper upon the understanding” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

This is how the sky looked when Pepper and I first went outside to watch the sun go down. — Photo by Pat Bean

Adventures with Pepper: Day 23-24

I left readers wondering about whether I would drive on the Kentucky or the Ohio side of the Ohio River today.  But the big question I had to answer first was whether I was going into Cincinnati to do a little sight-seeing, or was I going to skirt it.

And this is how it looked a few minutes later, when I thought it could get no more colorful. — Photo by Pat Bean

While I truly can enjoy big cities, I prefer to do so without an RV as my mode of transportation, and without a dog. Since I was stuck, happily I might add, with both, I decided to skirt the Queen City by taking Interstate 275 across the Ohio River and through Kentucky – Yes I know, I hate freeways but it was the easiest and quickest way to get away from city traffic.

Thankfully I was only on 275 for about 35 miles before I crossed back over the Ohio River on the other side of its big curve. Ohio came out the winner as the state of choice for the majority of today’s travel.

Once in Ohio, I veered south onto Highway 52, also known as the Ohio River Scenic Byway. I was seldom out of sight of the river the entire day.

But then it did. — Photo by Pat Bean

My route took me past Ulysses S. Grant’s birth place, where of course I stopped to investigate, but didn’t linger long.

I think I had wondered my brain out yesterday, for when I reread the notes I had jotted down on the drive to put into my journal later, there were none.  But I didn’t need notes to remember that the best part of the day was the evening, which I spent backed up to the Ohio River at Wolford’s Landing outside Portsmouth.

The day’s biggest thrill came when my canine traveling companion, Pepper, and I watched the sun go down over the Ohio River. I stayed an extra day at Wolford’s in hopes of a replay.

Book Report:  Travels With Maggie up 55,902 words.

The Wondering Wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

Bean’s Pat: Travel Books http://tinyurl.com/cng8jzl This blog intrigued me because I’m a big fan of travel books, and of the five favorites this blogger mentioned, I hadn’t read four of them. Of course I’m going to check those four out. How about you?

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A Wondering Day for this Wanderer

Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Books, Favorite Places, Nature, Travel, Writing, tagged , , , , , on October 12, 2012| 8 Comments »

            “It’s no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.” – Mark Twain

Adventures with Pepper: Day 22

I didn’t wonder at all about this willow tree. I just enjoyed how it gracefully hung over the pond at the Indian Springs Campground near North Bend, Ohio. — Photo by Pat Bean

Today’s drive, mostly on Highway 50, was a wondering one for this wanderer.

The first city I passed through, a tiny town called Gnaw Bone that had lots of flea markets, got me wondering how a town got to be named Gnaw Bone.

Perhaps it wasn’t.

I learned that the area was originally a French settlement called Narbonne, which English settlers might have mistranslated as Gnaw Bone.

I didn’t stop at any of the flea markets, just in case you wondered.  No room in Gypsy Lee for stuff.

It was an overcast drizzly day, and although 50 was certainly a backroad, it wasn’t untraveled. My brain wasn’t untraveled either. My thoughts were all over the place.

Just as a storm of leaves blew across the highway east of North Vernon, a lavender semi drove through them. Now I’ve seen purple semis but never a lavender one. It left me wondering about the driver. Man or woman? I couldn’t tell as the large vehicle passed me on a curve.

But then I found myself wondering why one of these geese on the pond wasn’t like the others. — Photo by Pat Bean

And then I found myself quoting out loud to my canine traveling companion, Pepper. “I never saw a purple cow. I never hope to see one. But I would rather see, than be one.”

Well, OK. It was just that kind of day.

And then there was the old green truck with a rear sticker that asked: “Who is John Galt?” That question got me thinking about how life is lived at either end of the pendulum. I read Ayn Rand’s book, “Atlas Shrugged” at a pivotal time in my life, and got a lot from it. It wouldn’t mean the same thing to me these days.

And so the day went until I finally pulled into the Indian Springs Campground near North Bend, Ohio.

Then I spent the evening wondering which side of the Ohio River I was going to travel down tomorrow. Tune in Monday to find out..

Book Report: I was up before 6 a.m. to work on it, but most of the time was spent unraveling the back roads I took from Brimfield, Massachusetts, to Monroe, New York. But I got it done. Travels with Maggie is now up to 55,617 words.

The Wondering Wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

Bean’s Pat: Live to Write http://tinyurl.com/9efoarz Tarzan or Jane? A fun question to make you think. My answer is Jane, because she got to experience two worlds.

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