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Archive for the ‘Nature’ Category

You Can’t Get There From Here

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

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

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

Adventures with Pepper: Day: Day 20-21

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

It wasn’t.

Time to back-track and follow the detour signs.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Back Roads and Lincoln Trail Park, Illinois

Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Birds, Favorite Places, Lakes, Nature, Travel, Writing, tagged , , , , , on October 10, 2012| 8 Comments »

            “The everyday kindness of the back roads more than makes up for the acts of greed in the headlines … It does no harm just once in a while to acknowledge that the whole country isn’t in flames, that there are people in the country besides politicians, entertainers, and criminals.” – Charles Kuralt

A lone great egret on Lincoln Trail Lake —  Photo by Pat Bean

Adventures with Pepper: Day 18-19

            I got it all figured out on the map, just exactly the best way to get to Lincoln’s Tomb in Springfield. But in the end, I decided I’d rather spend my day traveling down Illinois’ backroads.

A young deer in the sunlight while the mom stays more hidden in the shadows. The park was full of deer. A staff worker said they had fawned late this year. — Photo by Pat Bean

So, with a cheat sheet of right and left turns to compensate for my lack of directional sense, I set out to drive from Chatham to Lincoln Trail State Park.

You guessed it. I got turned around numerous times. It seems my map and reality were  two different things. Too often sign markers were missing, and once even turned around the wrong way.

But it was a beautiful drive and I eventually found my way over numerous state and county roads to Lincoln Trail State Park, which was awesome.

I camped on a high lookout point with stairs leading down to the small lake that was painted by the colors of fall.

I had breakfast at the park’s marina restaurant before I left. The food was ho-hum, but the view was magnificent. — Photo by Pat Bean — Photo by Pat Bean

The large park is just west of the 1,000-mile Lincoln Heritage Trail, which marks Lincoln’s passage from Kentucky, through Indiana to Illinois.Heavily forested, the park is home to beech, oak, maple, hickory, sweet gum and sassafras trees. among many others. The air was clean and fresh, the days warm and sunny, and the nights cold and crisp, just perfect for snuggling beneath the covers with my canine traveling companion Pepper, and having pleasant dreams.

            Book Report: Travels with Maggie is now at 55,212 words. Not much time to write with traveling and other commitments, but I’m trying to at least keep it moving forward every day.    

The Wondering Wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

        Bean’s Pat: Focus on the Eyes http://tinyurl.com/8rd5zjr Good advice for picture taking. I never thought of this very helpful hint. Perhaps other amateur photographers haven’t either.

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Three States and an Unanswerable Question

Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Favorite Places, Lakes, Nature, Travel, Writing, tagged , , , , , on October 1, 2012| Leave a Comment »

            Wonder rather than doubt is the root of all knowledge: Abraham Joshua Heshel

Adventures with Pepper: Day 1

Ring-billed gulls and a couple of coots at Swanson Reservoir State Recreation Area. — Photo by Pat Bean

         I started my day in Wray, Colorado heading south on Highway 34, and soon crossed into Nebraska where I was greeted with a sign that welcomed me to “The Good Life.”

It was a ho-hum kind of drive. Except for a few passing empty cattle trucks and an occasional vehicle, I had the highway to myself. The kind of drive where my mind is free to ask itself important questions: like what’s the difference between a creek and a river?

That thought popped into my mind when I crossed over the Republican River, named for a branch of the Pawnees and not the political party, just in case you’re interested. The river was dry, unlike a full creek I had recently crossed over.

Monument to the Massacre Canyon Battle, where 69 Pawnee were killed by Sioux warriors. The site is just off Highway 34 between Swanson Lake and Trenton, Nebraska. I passed the historical marker denoting the turnoff and, belatedly, wish I had made a u-turn to go back and check it out. — Wikipedia photo

It was a question that stayed with me, so I later tried to find the answer.            Yahoo’s best answer was:  “A river is bigger, but the measurement is subjective. There is no standard, so it is really a matter of local opinion. The people who name it decide whether to call it a creek or river. As has been noted, a creek is usually a branch of a river, and doesn’t have branches of its own. But that is not a strict standard either.”

Too bad my question hadn’t been how much are two and two.

Plan A, meanwhile, was for me to stop at Swanson Reservoir State Recreation Area in Nebraska for the night. It was a nice place, but the campground was far from the lake and isolated. So I decided to go with Plan B, which was to plop down to Highway 36 to Kansas and check out Prairie Dog State Park.

Thankfully, it was a great place to spend the night.

Book Report: Travels with Maggie is now up to 54,116 words. It should be more, but I had two days of no internet to double-check facts.

The Wondering Wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

Bean’s Pat: The Great White http://tinyurl.com/9f7rc4r Beautiful photos of an emblem of this country’s heritage. While America is far from perfect, I wake up every day feeling blessed to live in a country where this wondering, wandering old broad feels safe to explore its beauty with only my canine traveling companion, Pepper, as my security blanket.

I feel honored.

  Thank you http://transplantedtatar.wordpress.com for giving me the One Lovely Blog Award, As for seven random things about myself:  I’m an innovative cook; I love to ride rollercoasters; I have 15 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren; I have a son-in-law who tells everyone I’m homeless instead of a full-time RV-er; School classmates called me cootie-brain, which hurt so much I couldn’t say the words for 40 years; I’m a cockeyed optimist but with enough cynicism in my brain that everything balances out; and I’m extremely grateful that I still have a huge zest for life.

I’ll use my Bean’s Pat to play things back.

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Weekly Travel Theme: Foilage

Posted in Favorite Places, Nature, Travel, Weekly Travel Theme, tagged , , , , on September 30, 2012| 4 Comments »

Modoc National Wildlife Refuge, California. I snapped this picture in the fall of 2011. — Photo by Pat Bean

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Rocky Mountain National Park: Trail Ridge Road

Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Favorite Places, Nature, Travel, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , on September 26, 2012| 4 Comments »

            “I have found a dream of beauty at which one might look all one’s life and sigh.” – Isabelle L Bird.

Isabelle was a 19th century traveler who explored the Rocky Mountains on horseback in 1873 and wrote about her adventures in “A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains.”  Her travels make mine and Pepper’s seem whimpy in comparison.

Way up high in sight of glaciers. — Photo by Pat Bean

Adventures with Pepper: Day Nine

I never tire of looking at aspen trees in the fall. — Photo by Pat Bean

I couldn’t have chosen a more perfect day to drive through Rocky Mountain National Park. Pepper and I took Highway 34 through the majestic mountains. More commonly known as Trail Ridge Road, Gypsy Lee took its steep, winding route up to over 12,000 feet with ease and grace. She was the hero of the day.

While I didn’t linger long at any stop, I stopped often. It was not my first visit to the park, and this day was just another part of my journey elsewhere.

The day was one of those that make my favorite travel quote so meaningful.

“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters.” — Ursula k. leGuin

Book Report: I was halted in place by stormy weather yesterday.

Of course the elk was a traffic-stopping sight. I took this photo through the front windshield of my RV, Gypsy Lee. — Photo by Pat Bean

It was the perfect day to do a lot of writing. But I didn’t. Of course I have regrets. Travels with Maggie still stuck at 52,186 words.

But in my own defense, it’s the first time since I started reporting my progress that I hadn’t made any forward movement. And I’ll certainly be too proud to admit that it didn’t go anywhere tomorrow. At least I think I will be.

The Wondering Wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

Bean’s Pat:  Snow in the Wetlands http://tinyurl.com/99wvgaq All about snowy egrets. This bloggers words and photo brought to mind a poem by Emily Dickinson:

 Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune–without the words,
And never stops at all…

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Elk Creek Campground

Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Birds, Dogs, Favorite Places, Nature, Travel, Writing, tagged , , , , on September 25, 2012| 2 Comments »

            “Every morning I jump out of bed and step on a landmine. The landmine is me .After the explosion, I spend the rest of the day putting the pieces together.” – Ray Bradbury

The scattered rain showers that slowed my journey for a day turned the sky overhead into an ever-changing kaleidoscope. — Photo by Pat Bean

Adventures with Pepper: Day Eight

Robins, as well as magpies, white-crowned sparrow and dark-eyed juncos were plentiful around the campground. — Photo by Pat Bean

While I was eager for the next step of my journey, crossing Rocky Mountain National Park, I let a little rain delay me. My RV, Gypsy Lee, doesn’t like slick roads.

So instead, I spent the day catching up on laundry, giving my RV a good Pine Sol cleaning and simply enjoying the sights around the campground. .

It rained off and on until late afternoon, but then, as the weatherman had promised, the sun came out and bode well for my next day’s travels.

Book Report: Just a half hour this morning because I wanted to get on the road. Travels with Maggie is now up to 52,186 words.

The Wondering Wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

Bean’s Pat: A Red-tailed Hawk Survives a Tornado http://tinyurl.com/924×859 I love happy ending stories. Don’t you?

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Johnny B. Goods and Rabbit Ears Pass

Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Birds, Favorite Places, Lakes, Nature, Travel, Writing, tagged , , , , , , on September 24, 2012| 4 Comments »

 

Up high on Highway 40 near Rabbit Ears Pass. — Photo by Pat Bean

“Every leaf speaks bliss to me, fluttering from the autumn tree.” – Emily Bronte

Adventures with Pepper: Day Seven  

The rock formation that gives Rabbit Ears Pass its name. — Photo by Pat Bean

          After my daily morning walk with my canine traveling companion, Pepper, I took a second walk to bird watch with the park’s nature and wildlife interpreter, Holly. It was a pleasant walk but the birds in this high, quickly cooling elevation had mostly already flown south for the winter.

Magpies, starlings, black-capped chickadees, Cassin’s finches and yellow-rumped warblers were the only birds still hanging around this morning.

So bidding farewell to Yampa River State Park, Pepper and I continued our journey east on Highway 40, stopping when we came to the town of Steamboat Springs. The ciy has no steamboats, but it does have some natural hot springs. I had visited this ski town in the early 1980s when it was a minor dot on the landscape.

This day its bustling crowds, even though snow hadn’t fallen yet, reminded me of in tourist places like Park City, Utah, and Jackson, Wyoming. It was a much bigger dot now.

I found a parking spot, and telling Pepper to guard the castle, I went in search of breakfast.

I found it at Johnny B. Goods bar and diner, where I took a seat at the bar rather than wait for a table. Johnny, himself, waited on me. I had the special Johnny B. Goods breakfast, which was excellent, and enjoyed the lively chatter going on in the place. Eating alone, with my Kindle in hand, always gives me a great opportunity to eavesdrop, which I love to do.

Highway 34 passes three lakes on the way up to Rocky Mountain Park, Lake Granby, Grand Lake and Green Mountain Reservoir, which is shown above. — Photo by Pat Bean

I didn’t learn anything worthy of a story this day, just that everyone around me seemed to be having a grand old-time. So, carrying half of my breakfast in a to-go box, I made my way back to Gypsy Lee and Pepper to continue the day’s journey.

The drive took me up and over 9,426-foot Rabbit Ears Pass, and through a landscape already touched by the Midas finger of autumn.

After the pass, we passed through Hot Sulphur Springs, which used to be so rowdy on the last day of the month, which was pay-day, that the town celebrated Halloween a day early. While the town is not quite so rowdy these days, the early Halloween tradition is still observed.

At Granby, we turned north onto Highway 34, and followed it to Elk Creek Village just outside the southwest entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park.

What a great day!

            Book Report: Grumble, grumble growl. I spent a half hour working on Travels with Maggie this morning, then a second half hour recovering what the computer ate when I hit a couple of wrong buttons. I’m not exactly sure what I did, but the control Z recovery didn’t work. 51,902 words.

The Wondering Wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

Bean’s Pat: 12 Things My Grandmother Told Me http://tinyurl.com/bmymnuo These are almost as good as some of my grandmother’s saying’s to me, like “You’re going to hell in a hand basket,” when I got into mischief; or “The devil’s beating his wife,” if it was raining while the sun was shining. Did your grandmother tell you these kind of things?

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Awesome Sunset: A Perfect Ending to a Playful Day

Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Art, Birds, Dogs, Favorite Places, Nature, Travel, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , on September 21, 2012| 10 Comments »

“One’s age should be tranquil, as childhood should be playful. Hard work at either extremity of life seems out-of-place. At midday the sun may burn, and men labor under it; but the morning and evening should be calm and cheerful.” – Thomas Arnold

I stood outside in awe for quite a while watching this blazing end to my playful day. This image was not enhanced even a tiny bit. — Photo by Pat Bean

Adventures with Pepper: Day 6 Continued

            Playful black-billed magpies followed my journey this day. I seemed to see them everywhere, and they delighted my soul.

Not a very exciting magpie photo, but it was the only one that didn’t come out blurry. The magpies were just too quick for my camera. — Photo by Pat Bean

The first time I became aware of these birds was in the mid-1980s during a visit to a friend’s house in Glenn’s Ferry, Idaho. A half-dozen or so of them were frolicking above the Snake River. I was enchanted, and have stayed that way.          With magpies shadowing my drive after leaving Dinosaur National Park, I soon crossed into Colorado and through the small town of Dinosaur.

It was here, in October of 2009, that a mythical portal consumed Marvel Comics’ Dark Avengers.

Pepper in control of her own leash. — Photo by Pat Bean

I wondered if the portal was located on the city’s Brontosaurus Boulevard, Stegosaurus Freeway or Tyrannosaurus Trail.

The city had been renamed Dinosaur from Artesia to capitalize on the monument that stretches from Utah into Colorado, and then the city fathers began to get playful with its street names.

My scenic Highway 40 route this day  also took me through Maybell, which holds Colorado’s lowest recorded temperature record – minus 61 degrees F; and Craig, which claims to be the Elk Hunting Capital of the road.

“Ok! I’m tired. You can be in charge again.” — Photo by Pat Bean

My stopping place for the night was Yampa River State Park near Hayden, where even more magpies were hanging out. Pepper took a running leap at one that came too close and jerked the leash out of my hand.            I could almost hear her shout “free-at-last” as she began running circles around me. It wasn’t the first time this had happened.

A smart dog, Pepper had wised up to the fact that it was easy for me to grab hold of the trailing retractable leash, so she had started picking it up and running with it.

Yup! I think playful was the word of the day.

Book Report: 51,306 words. An aha moment gave me the perfect conclusion for my book, but made me realize I’ll have more rewriting to do so I can add a continuous thread. It was like getting both good news and bad news at the same time.

The Wondering Wanerer’s blog pick of the day.

Bean’s Pat: East London Art Walk http://tinyurl.com/8zkzkmr Now I might enjoy this kind of walk almost as much as I do my nature walks. It would be a fun change of pace anyway. Perhaps one day I might even get to London. I’ve never visited Europe, but I have visited 46 of the 50 states, and after this journey I’ll have knocked off 49.

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Green River and Sandhill Cranes

Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Birds, Favorite Places, Nature, Travel, Uncategorized, Writing, tagged , , , , on September 20, 2012| 6 Comments »

            “In rivers the water that you touch is the last of what has passed and the first of that which comes; so with present time.” Leonardo da Vinci

Adventures with Pepper: Day Six continued

View of the Green River from the Dinosaur National Monument quarry overlook. — Photo by Pat Bean

            My detour off Highway 40 to Dinosaur National Monument on a rural back road followed the Green River as it flowed down to join the Mighty Colorado River.

Not a slouch in itself the Green, which begins in the Wind River Mountains of  Wyoming, is 730 miles long and a major tributary of the Colorado.

I had rafted this section of the river, through Split Mountain Gorge into Dinosaur National Monument, back in the late 1980s, and I had canoed a section of the river from Ouray to Sand Wash in the 1970s.

So while I have a fondness for all rivers, I have a special fondness for the Green. It was an expected pleasure to watch its passage from behind the wheel of Gypsy Lee this morning.

What wasn’t expected was the flock of sandhill cranes in a meadow near the river. I had to stop for these.

A flock of great blue herons in an irrigated agriculture field just outside the entrance to Dinosaur National Monument near Vernal, Utah.

The herons were an unexpected sight, the kind that continues to make travel so alluring to this wondering wanderer.

Book Report: Travels with Maggie now at 50,402 words. Over half-way there. Yea!

The Wondering Wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

Bean’s Pat: Running with Scissortails http://tinyurl.com/8q45ucg One of these things is not like the other. Personally, I hang out with scissortails at every opportunity, but I’ve never seen scissor-tailed flycatchers anywhere but Texas.

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Dinosaur National Monument

Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Favorite Places, Nature, Travel, Writing, tagged , , , on September 19, 2012| 8 Comments »

            “Any landscape is a condition of the spirit.” –Henri Frederic Amiel

Where dinosaurs once roamed — and died. — Photo by Pat Bean

Adventures with Pepper: Day Six

            My last stop before exiting from Utah was a quick visit to Dinosaur National Park.

The monument had gained a new visitor center since my last visit, and a shuttle took one up the hill to the indoor quarry where dinosaur bones were on display, still half buried in rock. The quarry had also undergone renovations, including the addition of this exhibit since my last visit. — Photo by Pat Bean

I should have lingered longer but I was in one of those moods where the day’s destination seemed more important than the journey. I hate it when I get like that.

Evidence of a world we can only imagine in our minds, or scientifically try to explain. — Photo by Pat Bean

Part of my day’s rush was that it was Friday and I didn’t have reservations for the weekend, and I was remembering how crowded Lake Walcott State Park always was on weekends. .            Fortunately, it was not my first visit to Dinosaur Monument. It was one of those places I visited a couple of time when wanderlust hit me on a weekend. Like past visits, the landscape interested me as much as the bone fossils. I always tried to imagine living dinosaurs waddling across my view.

My mind’s eye let me see them. Can You?

Book Report: Travels with Maggie, 49,606 words. Did almost as much cutting as rewriting. I kept remembering the writing advice to always eliminate the boring.

The Wondering Wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

Bean’s Pat: Texas Tweeties: http://tinyurl.com/9y59htv I never get tired of seeing vermillion flycatchers.

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