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Archive for the ‘Nature’ Category

Favorite Places: National Parks

Posted in Favorite Places, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , on March 21, 2012| 22 Comments »

 

Yellowstone's trails called to me, and I always answered. -- Photo by Pat Bean

“National parks are the best idea we ever had. Absolutely American, absolutely democratic, they reflect us at our best rather than our worst.” — Wallace Stegner

Yellowstone

My long-time Ogden, Utah, home was only a half day’s drive from Yellowstone – and so I visited it every year at least once. Fall, after the crowds had left, was always my favorite time. .

Most years it was a solo adventure. Usually I would wake up on a Saturday morning with an itch in my feet and simply take off.

I never failed to appreciate the beauty of this first national park. Yellowstone offered me my first glimpse of a wolf in its natural habitat. That’s a thrill that has stayed with me.

 

One of the park's many thermal pools. This one lies along the Morning Glory Trail that begins at Old Faithful. -- Photo by Pat Bean

But more often my joy came simply from hiking a trail and discovering bits and pieces of nature: a meadow full of yellow wildflowers, an elk on the banks of the Madison River, Fantastic views of the Firehole River from a high overlook, the bright turquoise of Morning Glory Pool, and of course the gurgling, hissing, spouting, smoking of the park’s geysers.

It became a tradition for me to sit on the balcony of the Old Faithful Inn, with margarita in hand, to watch Old Faithful blow water and steam high into the air.

How, I ask you, could Yellowstone National Park, not be on my list of favorite places.

Bean’s Pat: http://tinyurl.com/89aolmc The geology of Yellowstone.

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Favorite Places: Manatee Hammocks RV Park

Posted in Favorite Places, Nature, Travels With Maggie, tagged , , , , , , , on March 2, 2012| 2 Comments »

 “Hear! Hear! Screamed the jay from a neighboring tree, where I had heard a tittering for some time, “winter has a concentrated and nutty kernel if you know where to look for it.” — Henry David Thoreau.

The pier through the trees at Manatee Hammocks RV Park in Titusville, Florida. -- Photo by Pat Bean

Travels With Maggie

Florida scrub jay -- Photo by Pat Bean

I’m sitting by a bank of third-floor windows looking out past naked tree branches at a dull Chicago day in which snow has been forecast.

It’s quite different from the Texas Gulf Coast I left behind. According to today’s weather report, it’s 77 degrees and raining in Lake Jackson. I hope someone remembered to shut the windows in my RV and turn on the air conditioner for Maggie.

Actually I’m sure they – my son, Lewis, and his wife, Karen – did. Karen just texted me that Maggie had a nice walk this morning and shared their steak dinner yesterday evening.

I left Maggie behind to fly into Chicago for a week to visit my youngest son, Michael.

Thinking about my two-and-a-half-hour flight from one climate to another got me thinking about the winters of my past.

Oranges just outside my RV door. -- Photo by Pat Bean

I grew up in Dallas, where we might get a bit of snow that stayed on the ground less than a day. Then there was Texas’ Gulf Coast where the world stayed green through the winter, and a rare half-inch of snow maybe once every 10 years shut down schools.

In January, 1971, I moved to Northern Utah, where I didn’t see ground beneath the snow that year until early April. I took up skiing and came to love the snow.

Since retiring in 2004, winters have mostly been spent on the Texas Gulf Coast, although I did spend one December in Guam, and one entire winter in Florida.

That winter in Florida, while my friends back in Utah were buried in snow, I was seeking out shady spots – and getting a good look at my first Florida scrub jay, a bird that can be found only in Florida – and only in one small portion of the state.

I saw the bird on a tour that was part of the Titusville Bird Festival. For the week I spent in this area adjacent to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, I stayed at the Manatee Hammocks RV Park. It was a delightful place where I could pick fresh oranges just outside my RV door.

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Today’s News Made Me Angry

Posted in Favorite Places, Nature, tagged , , , , , , on February 29, 2012| 7 Comments »

“If it is not right, do not do it; if it is not true, do not say it.” — Marcus Aurelius

Soap Box Day

My rant might not have been pretty, but Lake Reidsville in North Carolina is awesome. I need to sit beside such a place until my blood pressure returns to normal. -- Photo by Pat Bean

I live on a fixed income, almost 20 percent of which goes to pay for Medicare and Medigap private insurance. While it’s too much, I try to be grateful that I can at least pay the health-care costs. Way too many older Americans can’t. And the young and poor are in the same situation.

Then today I read a story about Dallas-area medical service providers who bilked Medicare and Medicaid of nearly $375 million.

But that’s just a drop in the bucket. Health Care fraud costs the government at least 60 billion annually, according to the Associated Press story.

Part of that is my money, and yours, How much less would we seniors have to pay for medical care if the greedy cheaters had a drop of human kindness in their hearts. And how much more would workers get to take home of their paychecks if the cheaters didn’t get their unfair share.

Have these arrogant sons of, well-you-know, been among the world’s population all along, or have we forgotten to teach our children that the world does not owe them a living? What can we do about it?

I wish I had answers. All I can do is hope that some judge, somewhere, will put these greedy so-called medical providers out of circulation so they can do no more harm – and deny them medical care, too.

 

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Posted in Birds, Nature, Travels With Maggie, Writing, tagged , , , , , on February 24, 2012| 8 Comments »

More About Maine

“I felt like I’d been misplaced in the cosmos and belonged in Maine … I had to live this long, have the experiences I’ve had, to create what I do. I knew I wanted to write for years, but I had to be ready so I wouldn’t blow it. The move to Maine was the final step. ” — Terry Goodkind

Travels With Maggie

Acadia National Park -- Photo by Pat Bean

Yesterday’s blog of a simply photograph, quote and my Bean’s Pat was a throw away, the kind of blog I write when I need a break from writing.

The comments it brought, however, got me thinking more about Maine and the nine days I spent there. The trip was part of a six-month, 23-states-and-Canada, 7,000-mile journey I made in 2006. It was my first time in New England.

I dawdled along the way, so that far too many of Maine’s birds that I wanted to see had already migrated by the time I reached Bar Harbor, Maine. I saw only eight new life birds of the twenty or so I had expected to find. And a storm blew up the day I was supposed to go whale watching.

Other than those annoyances, everything else about my Maine stay was perfect.

Bar Harbor streetscape. While I missed the birds, I caught the town's off season serenity. -- Photo by Pat Bean

One of the nicest things about my stay just outside of Bar Harbor was the free shuttle bus that stopped at my campground every half hour or so, and which took me all over Mount Desert Island, including Acadia National Park while my canine traveling compainion, Maggie, stayed behind in the RV.

The park is full of natural wonders to explore. One of these was Cadillac Mountain, the highest summit on the East Coast north of Rio de Janeiro, and the first spot in the mainland states to be hit by the morning sun in the fall and winter.

I was on its summit one dawn to catch that first ray of rosy light. I laughed, but to myself, when one guy standing nearby spotted a herring gull and got all excited because he thought he had seen a bald eagle. No reason I thought to extinguish his excitement. Later in the day I did see a bald eagle soaring over the park. I hope that guy also saw it.

As replacement for the canceled whale tour, I took a trolley tour of the island. Our guide was full of facts and trivia, such as President William Howard Taft’s 27 strokes on the Kebo Valley Golf Club’s 17th hole back in 1910, and the fact that scenes for the Dark Shadows TV soap opera had occasionally been filmed on Mount Desert.

Hopefully the next time I’m in Maine – a revisit is definitely on my to-do list – I’ll arrive before the birds have migrated south.

Bean’s Pat: All Write: Spring and the Cigarettus Smokerus http://tinyurl.com/7ox9d76 As an avid bird watcher, I laughed my head off at this. But, warning, if you don’t have a sense of humor some among you may find this offensive and sexist.

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We’re All Many People in One

Posted in Birds, Books, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , on February 22, 2012| 17 Comments »

“There come a time when you have to stand up and shout: This is me … I look the way I look, think the way I think, feel the way I feel … I am a whole complex package .. Do not try to make me feel like less of a person just because I don’t fit your idea of who I should me.” – Stacey Charter

Travels With Maggie

 

This award was started in 2008 by Norwegian, Hulda Husfrue, or so I've read.

Michelle Gilles at Silk Purse Productions Blog (how to make silk purses out of a sow’s ear) nominated me for a Kreative Blogger award. Thank you Michelle at: http://silkpurseproductions.wordpress.com

I’ll use my Bean’s Pat to play it back. This “Pat” on the back goes to my personal choice of the best blog of the day. My choices are eclectic and I hope my readers have been checking them out.

As part of the acceptance. I’m supposed to tell you seven things about myself that you might not already know. I’ve done this before, but this part’s actually fun, especially trying to think of things my blabber-fingers haven’t already told you. So here goes.

Miss Clairol’s Nice and Easy, No. 99 has been my friend for umpteen years. My original color was dishwater blonde. I haven’t the foggiest idea what color it is these days because I try hard to never let my roots show.

I stuck into college without ever graduating from high school, just one among many ways I’ve lived my life backwards.

OK. I admit it. I'm a tree-hugging flower child who believes that some day this planet will be a peaceful place to live. -- Photo by a stranger sharing my day at Custer State Park in South Dakota.

I’m a prolific reader of just about everything – including cereal boxes, bumper stickers, roadside signs and blogs — with the exception of horror. When much younger I watched a Vincent Price horror flick – Murders at the Wax Museum I think it was called, and spent the next year expecting a missing head to turn up in my washing machine every time I opened the lid.

I once zoomed up behind a police car doing 100 mph while driving between Salt Lake City and Wendover, Nevada. I thought I was only doing 70 until I looked down at the speedometer. I’m not sure why I didn’t get a ticket. Perhaps the officer was day-dreaming.

I was 37 years old before alcohol of any kind touched my lips, well if you don’t count my grandmother’s beer, which I’ve been told I stole and drank when I was 3 years old.

I’m speaking tonight at a Blue and Gold Banquet for my daughter’s Cub Scout Pack on Compassion for Animals. I’m going to play the wolf howl-video that I mentioned on yesterday’s blog.

I’ve been living and traveling now in a small RV with my canine traveling companion, Maggie, for over seven years. By the end of this year I should have visited all 50 states. I did Hawaii and Alaska in earlier days, just FYI.

Now I’d love it if my readers would tell me something quirky about themselves.

Bean’s Pat: 10,000 Birds http://10000birds.com Great blog for anyone who likes birds, especially if you’re passionate about them — like me.

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Favorite Places: Wolf Park, Battleground, Indiana

Posted in Favorite Places, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , on February 21, 2012| 8 Comments »

 “Wolves are not our brothers; they are not our subordinates, either. They are another nation, caught up just like us in the complex web of time and life.” -Henry Beston
“The wolf is neither man’s competitor nor his enemy. He is a fellow creature with whom the earth must be shared.” L. David Mech

Howling With Wolves

 

Wolves in Snow. Image Source: http://www.findfreegraphics.com/wallpaper

I was on my way to Maine when I read about Wolf Park, a place where people could howl with wolves.

It was shortly after I had been luckily blessed to see a wild one in Yellowstone National Park, a miracle that I never thought would happen.

The opportunity to howl with one also seemed like a miracle, and so I rerouted my driving route to take me through Battleground, Indiana, and it’s number one tourist attraction: Wolf Park. It’s a place where wolves live as they do in the wild, but were conditioned as pups not to be afraid ofhumans. It’s a research park so we humans can better understand these wild creatures with which we share the planet.

The night I howled with wolves, including Tristan, one of the pack leaders at the park, is still etched vividly on my brain.

When I found this video, I immediately wanted to share it with my readers. I hope you howl along.

Bean’s Pat: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqgrfBLIcoA Howl with Tristan

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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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Posted in Favorite Places, Nature, Travel, Weekly Photo Challenge, tagged , , , , , , on February 18, 2012| 7 Comments »

 Weekly photo challenge: Down

“To trace the history of a river or a raindrop…is also to trace the history of the soul, the history of the mind descending and arising in the body. In both, we constantly seek and stumble upon divinity, which like feeding the lake, and the spring becoming a waterfall, feeds, spills, falls, and feeds itself all over again.” – – From Islands, The Universe, Home, 1991 Gretel Ehrlich

Headed DOWN the Snake -- Photo by Pat Bean

Down River

White water rafting was how I got my adrenalin rush for 20 years. These days I’m mostly content to sit by a river and watch it flow past on its way to the sea.

Or take a gently canoe ride down a flat section of river and watch the scenery float by.

I like rivers. I live to hear their music, from the tinkling,, bubbling lullaby of a small mountain stream to the the bass roar of the rivers, like the Snake and Colorado, just before you come upon a man-eating white-water rapid. 

Hey! Who stole the boat? -- Photo by Pat Bean

“SothisisaRiver”

“THE River,” corrected the Rat.

“And you really live by the river? What a jolly life!”

“By it and with it and on it and in it,” said the Rat. “It’s brother and sister to me, and aunts, and company, and food and drink, and (naturally) washing. It’s my world, and I don’t want any other. What it hasn’t got is not worth having, and what it doesn’t know is not worth knowing. Lord! The times we’ve had together…”  –– From the Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahme

 

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Favorite Places: Zion National Park

Posted in Favorite Hikes, Favorite Places, Nature, Travel, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on February 15, 2012| 5 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

 

All cares drop away when I hike Zion National Park's Gateway to the Narrows trail, an easy 2-mile out -and-back roundtrip that parallels the Virgin River. -- Photo by Pat Bean

 

“Rivers know this: There is no hurry. We shall get there some day.” Winnie the Pooh.

Bean’s Pat: Philosopher of the Mouse Hedge: http://tinyurl.com/6mfskt4 Belly laughs and smiles. Especially if you click on the Carman Miranda link at the end. Remember her –  and her energy. I smiled all the way through the clip.

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40-Acre Lake and Coots Galore

Posted in Birds, Favorite Hikes, Favorite Places, Nature, Travels With Maggie, tagged , , , , on February 11, 2012| 7 Comments »

“I never was one for rushing through a country. I like to take my time breathe the air, get the feel of it. I like to smell it, taste it get it located in my brain. The thing to remember when traveling is that the trail is the thing, not the end of the trail. Travel too fast and you miss all you travel for. “ Louis L’Amore

A coot and a turtle inspect each other. -- Photo by Pat Bean

Travels With Maggie

The mile and a half walk around 40-Acre Lake at Brazos Bend State Park is one of my favorites. While I’ve walked it many times, each time around is different.

Some days the stroll to the observation tower is filled with black-bellied whistling ducks. On other days its egrets and herons that dominate the shallow shore line and swampy wetlands.

Brilliant common yellowthroats like to hide in the reeds, and a northern harrier or two can usually be seen circling in the sky above. One day I had to turn around because the path ahead was lined by huge alligators. I had Maggie that day and I decided I didn’t want her to become just a tasty morsel for those toothy jaws, not to mention that I didn’t want to become dinner either.

Observation tower midway along the hike around 40-Acre Lake. -- Photo by Pat Bean

This past week, it was the coots that dominated the lake. While not the most glamorous of birds, I love watching them. On this day, perhaps because I felt I was one with nature as I had the trail all to myself on this off-season, week-day, the coots let me get close enough to see the glow in their red eyes.

Bean’s Pat: The Fairy Tale Asylum: My Miss Havisham

 http://thefairytaleasylum.wordpress.com/ It’s Margaret Michell’s Scarlet O’Hara for me. I had read the book, “Gone With the Wind.” four times by the time I was 12.

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