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Archive for the ‘Nature’ Category

Half Dome and Chameleons

Posted in Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , on September 29, 2011| 9 Comments »

 “I’m such a chameleon. I never get bored.” – Natalie Imbruglia

Travels With Maggie

Yosemite's Half Dome from Tioga Pass -- Photo by Pat Bean

Half Dome in Yosemite National Park is really not half of anything. This 8,836 foot granite rock only gives that impression if you’re looking at it from Yosemite Valley. From Tioga Pass, it looks more like a giant ball-shaped boulder, and from Glacier Point, it appears as a narrow ridge.

Getting to view this Yosemite icon’s strikingly different faces this week wowed me.

It also got me thinking about my own face and the many different views it has.

I’ve always been sort of a chameleon, fitting in with whatever crowd or family member I’m with. And when you’re talking about my family members, we’re talking a wide spectrum of polarized opinions.

My chameleon nature has usually boded well for peaceful encounters – and I run from any that aren’t peaceful – but I’ve considered the trait detrimental to discovering my own voice.

Looking at Half Dome’s different faces this week, however, helped me realize that perhaps being a chameleon is not all that bad. Just as I wouldn’t have wanted to miss any of the views Half Dome presented me, it helped me finally figure out that my voice has many chameleon-like traits..

Half Dome from Yosemite Valley -- Photo by Pat Bean

I both enjoy being with people and being by myself. I enjoy classical music, but country western tunes also give me joy. I support a woman’s right to abortion, but believe in the death penalty. I hug trees, but accept that people have to put food on their tables before worrying about the environment. I love birds but recognize that cats also have their place in the food chain. I vote for both Democratic and Republican candidates.

Well, you get the idea. Mark Twain and Samuel Clemens certainly did:

“We are chameleons, and our partialities and prejudices change place with an easy and blessed facility, and we are soon wonted to the change and happy in it.”

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Suddenly the Clouds Overhead Turn Red

Posted in Journeys, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , , on September 26, 2011| 3 Comments »

 “I advise you to say your dream is possible and then overcome all inconveniences, ignore all the hassles and take a running leap through the hoop, even if it is in flames.” Les Brown

Highway 395 passes through Modoc National Wildlife Refuge, where I stopped a bit to enjoy these Canada Geese. -- Photo by Pat Bean

 

Travels With Maggie

Looking back at the fire from a service station in Bridgeport, where I -- gulp -- paid $4.99 for a gallon of gas. -- Photo by Pat Bean

My travels down Highway 395 the past five days have taken me from Oregon to California to Nevada and back again yesterday into California. \

“I already relinquished my lone apple to the agriculture inspector at the Alturas station,” I said to a second ag inspector as I re-entered California at Topaz Lake yesterday.

She smiled and waved me on.

Highway 395 is not one that will put you to sleep. The landscape it runs through is an eclectic mix of mountain passes, high deserts, green forests, both fresh water and salt lakes, historical parks and national wildlife refugees.

My dog, Maggie, and I have enjoyed every minute of the often steep and twisting drive. Me because of the awesome scenery, and Maggie because driving always lulls her into a pleasant sleep. She also enjoys the scents her nose discovers during our morning and evening walks at a strange new place. .

Flames were visible across the water from out Bridgeport Reservoir campground. -- Photo by Pat Bean

Yesterday’s travels took us over 7,000-foot passes that looked up at mountains still containing patches of snow. With all the heat so much of the country has had this year, the sight seemed like a miracle.

The red clouds I came upon in the late afternoon seemed much the same, until I realized the color was being reflected onto them by flames. Suddenly my view ahead was full of smoke, with actual flames occasionally visible from behind a ridge to my right. The flames, however, hadn’t yet reached the road and the smoke was mostly overhead, so I drove on, passing the fire just before entering the town of Bridgeport.

I breathed a sign of relief that the road hadn’t been closed, although I think it was later shut down.

The wildfire is still burning this morning, I can see it from the Bridgeport Reservoir RV Park and Marina, where Maggie and I spent the night.

It was nice, as we slept, to know there was a body of water between it and us.

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Fall

Posted in Nature, Travel, Weekly Photo Challenge, tagged , , , , , , , on September 24, 2011| 3 Comments »

“Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.” George Eliot

Travels With Maggie

 

Fall high up in the Combres Pass in Southern Colorado. -- Photo by Pat Bean

Maggie and I are just outside Reno today, where I’m catching up on laundry and house-cleaning chores before I get back on the road tomorrow. Maggie’s spent the morning smoozing with our next door neighbors here at the RV Park.

It’s still summer here, with huge sunflowers lining the roads and wild grasses tall and browning from the long hot summer. But, just as mother used to say it was 6 o’clock somewhere when she wanted an early afternoon beer, it is fall somewhere.

Two landscapes that pop immediately out of my memory banks when I think of autumn are the one I saw last year in Colorado and the 2006 autumn that caught me in Maine. I still thrill remembering the orange, lemon and strawberry colored cocktails that the landscape served up.

Fall is truly my favorite season. And in that I find myself not alone.

Ode to Autumn

Maggie and I spent five days beneath this tree at the Paul Bunyon Campground in Bangor, Maine, in the early fall of 2006. Each day the leaves turned more scarlet. -- Photo by Pat Bean

 

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.
–John Keats

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Highway 395 and Soul Words

Posted in Journeys, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on September 23, 2011| 5 Comments »

 “The road of life twists and turns and no two directions are ever the same. Yet our lessons come from the journey, not the destination. – Don Williams.

 

The yellow winding road warning sign was no joke. -- Photo by Pat Bean

Travels With Maggie

For two days now, I’ve been traveling south on Highway 395 in Oregon. It’s an awesome road, full of twisty turns, steep canyons, grazing cattle, grassy meadows and flowing water.

I began my journey in Pendleton, where cowboys and Indians still roam, and on the first day I made it to the beautiful Clyde Holliday Park just outside John Day, where quail and deer still play. The second day found me in Lakeview, south of Lake Albert and just north of the California border..

The town of John Day is named for the John Day River, which was named for a Virginian who accompanied the Astor Expedition that followed the footsteps made by the earlier Lewis and Clark Expedition. Clyde Holliday is a successful logging entrepreneur in the area.

 

The roadsides occasionally hinted of autumn ahead. -- Photo by Pat Bean

The first day on the road took me through Battle Mountain State Park, and gave me a history lesson about the Bannock War. The park is the site of the last major fight the Bannock Indians fought against the encroachment of white settlers.

The highway north of John Day, while steep and winding, was mostly broad and open. The canyon south of John Day was steeper and narrower and often lined with trees. Except for an occasional logging truck, I was usually the only vehicle on the road.

Forks of the John Day River followed me both days. As I drove yesterday I composed a poem in my head. I seldom write poetry, but when I do, I call it soul words, which is my way of excusing my murder of poetic forms.

I hope you will, too.

Time Well Spent

Take me up to the mountain top

Up where the eagle and red-tailed hawk soar

Let me look out on a panoramic vista

Of meadows filled with golden grasses,

And clumps of frosty sagebrush

And patches of yellow wild blossoms

And here and there a tinge of red

That speaks of summer’s end.

Let me delight watching conifer leaves twinkle in the wind

And be amazed at how the stalky evergreens

March their way in jumbled rows up rocky cliffs

Let me linger a bit here on the high reach

Breathing in the fresh sky-scrubbed air

Scented with pungent sage and pine needles

Then let me slowly travel down canyon

Accompanied by the tinkling laughter of water

As it joyfully bubbles over riverbed rocks

Heeding the unwavering  call of gravity

Thankfully my life has seen such days as this

Unfettered by the world’s chaotic-ness

And doubly thankful again this precious day

That I’ve added yet another few peaceful hours 

To my piggy bank of memories.

– Pat Bean

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Pond Reflections

Posted in Nature, tagged , , , , , , , , on September 22, 2011| 2 Comments »

The pond at the end of the nature trail at Clyde Holliday State Park in Oregon. -- Photo by Pat Bean

 “When was the last time you spent a quiet moment just doing nothing – just sitting and looking at the sea, or watching the wind blowing the tree limbs, or waves rippling on a pond … “ – Ralph Marston

Travels With Maggie

One of the blogs I follow is “Life in the Bogs,” in which the author, Robin, frequently includes daily pictures of one particular pond. Every shot – influenced by the day’s sun or mist, shadows or light, and of course the seasons – is different.

Cattails add their special texture to the scene. -- Photo by Pat Bean

When I read her blog, I feel as if I’m also walking the trail that takes her to the pond and the neighboring “bog.” If you’re a nature lover, like me, I suggest you check it out at http://bogsofohio.wordpress.com

Meanwhile, I thought I would share the pond I discovered this afternoon at Clyde Holliday State Park on the John Day River in Oregon. I hadn’t planned to stop here, but the park looked too inviting to pass up.

After getting settled in, Maggie and I went to explore its nature trail, which ended at the pond. We surprised some California quail – a mom and dad and at least half a dozen half-grown chicks – on the way out, and two mule deer on the way back.

It was a beautiful hike, about a mile in length, that we both enjoyed.

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I Wasn’t Lost, Just on the Wrong Side of the River

Posted in Journeys, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , on September 14, 2011| 7 Comments »

 “In this world of change, nothing which comes stays, and nothing which goes is lost.” Anne Sophie

Thousand Springs from the wrong side of the Snake River. -- Photo by Pat Bean

Travels With Maggie

I never exactly got lost yesterday, but I never got exactly where I was going. My maps didn’t help, and my 25-year-old memories were useless.

I wanted to drive the section of Highway 30, known as the Thousand Springs Byway that runs south of Interstate 84 and west of Twin Falls – and I did. But I still never got to the actual site I was trying to find.

Back in the mid-1980s, when I was regional editor at the Times-News in Twin Falls, one of my girl friends took me right up to those rivulets of crystal clear water that gush out of the sides of the steep cliff and flow into the snake river.

I climbed among the tumbled rocks between the rivulets of water, and walked a short boardwalk that had water flowing beneath it. That was the place I wanted to visit again.

Instead, I found myself on the opposite of the river with only distant views of the springs. And after spending so much time at the nearby Haggarman Fossil Beds, which I was seeing for the first time and told you about in yesterday’s blog, I was short of time to search more.

So instead of close-up views of the springs, all I got was a distant view from the wrong side of the Snake River. And so that’s all you get to see, too.

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Bald Eagle Sighting on the Snake River

Posted in Birds, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , , on September 11, 2011| 5 Comments »

 “There are two lasting bequests we can give our children. One is roots, the other is wings.” Hodding Carter.

Bald Eagle in Baytown, Texas. -- Photo by Joanne Kamo

Travels With Maggie

I spotted a bald eagle yesterday. It was just outside the park hanging around the Snake River below the Minidoka Dam in Southern Idaho.

It’s a bird that always makes my heart beat a little faster. It was sitting up on a utility pole, then flew away to the other side of the river as I passed by.

I don’t know whether it was an early migrant from Alaska, where huge numbers of eagle spend the summer, of if it was one that had stuck around the area for the entire year. There’s always a few that do.

It really didn’t matter. Either way it was a magnificent sight. It’s pure white head caught the sunlight as it flew across the water and my breath ceased for a few seconds. The bird’s brilliant white head feathers indicated it was at least four years old. Before that age, bald eagles are ratty brown all over.

Of course there wasn’t time for me to get a picture, as if I even could take a decent shot of a moving target. So I turned to Joanne Kamo’s online art gallery http://www.pbase.com/jitams to illustrate my blog. Joanne, whose bird photos are among the most awesome I’ve ever seen, has given me permission to occasionally use one of her copyrighted pictures. She didn’t fail me.

While bald eagles are beyond my photographic capabilities, even I can take a decent picture of a wild turkey, such as this one in Palo Duro Canyon State Park in Texas. -- Photo by Pat Bean

Her bald eagle photo took my breath away as quickly as did the real thing. If it doesn’t also cause you to gasp in delight, you’re as cold-hearted as a glacier and not someone I care to meet.

The sight of yesterday’s bald eagle made me grateful Ben Franklin didn’t get his way in having the wild turkey be our nation’s symbol. He thought the bald eagle was too much of a thief to represent our country.

I know he was right because I was once privileged to watch a bald eagle snatch a freshly caught fish from an osprey as it flew. The osprey was so frustrated that it chased the eagle until it came to its senses.

But the bald eagle today is also a symbol of what’s best in humankind. These birds were on the verge of becoming extinct when we Americans acted. Since the passage of the Endangered Species Act in 1973, bald eagles have regained healthy populations.

Sightings of them in the lower 48 states are becoming more common. And so I wish you good luck in having one of them fly your way.

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Texture

Posted in Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , on September 10, 2011| 1 Comment »

“The true worth of a man is not to be found in man himself, but in the colours and textures that come alive in others.” Albert Schweitzer

Glen Canyon National Recreation Area — Photo by Pat Bean

Textures abound in this photo. Rock both slick and pebbly rough, grasses both silky and prickly and sky and clouds that one can imagine being as soft  as Maggie’s fur.  

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What Goes Around Comes Around

Posted in Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , on September 9, 2011| 2 Comments »

“Life is too short to sleep on low-thread-count sheets.” – Leah Stussy

Travels With Maggie

I suspected raccoons, of which there are too many here at Lake Walcott, of causing the wee-hour disturbance, but she sheriff's deputy said it was a two-legged night wanderer. -- Photo by Pat Bean

A knock on the door in the wee hours of the morning is never good. But if you’re a campground host at a small Idaho park, as I have been all this summer, at least the first thought that runs through your mind is not “Who died?” ‘

Last night’s 1 a.m. knock on my RV, which wasn’t actually necessary because the headlights pulling into my site already had me hopping down from my over-the-cab bed to check out what was going on, was a sheriff’s deputy informing me that he had gotten a 911 call about some man wandering through the campground. The campers in tent site 27, he said, had made the call.

“Perhaps it was raccoons,” I voiced. “They get into everything at night.”

“Nope. I found the man. He’s parked down by the boat docks, drunk as a skunk and loopy as well. Gave me some story about UFOs,” the officer said. “I ran his license plates and he didn’t have any warrants out on him, so I just left him to sleep it off in his truck. But I thought someone should know.”

I thanked him for the information, and he told me to call 911 immediately if the man gave any more trouble.

I went back to bed, but of course not back to sleep. This was the third time this season that I had been awakened because of my campground host duties.

The first one involved me getting dressed and going down to the tent area to tell some idiot he couldn’t run his generator in the middle of the night to power floodlights around his tent.

“Ah. The generator’s going to run out of gas pretty quick,” he said in a “you gonna make me kind of way.”.

Lake Walcott sunrises are worth rising early to see even if sleep was stingy during the night. -- Photo by Pat Bean

“Now,” I said in my sternest mommy voice to the large red-faced guy with the paunchy stomach.

“OK,” he said, this time rather meekly, and wandered over to turn the noisy contraption off.

I love that mommy voice.

The second time I was awakened in the middle of the night here at Lake Walcott, it was a young couple with an infant who had been on the road until after midnight. They had forgotten the combination to the cabin they had reserved. Fortunately I knew it, and was soon back in my comfy bed, but of course not back to sleep

Of the many bits of trivia that floated through my head keeping my brain from shutting down last night was the time I had been the one to pound on a campground host’s door at 4 a.m. I was supposed to meet up with a group to hike to a place where we could see rare red-cockaded woodpeckers emerge from their nests at dawn – and had lost the combination to the gate lock.

I sure hope the bleary-eyed guy who gave it to me had an easier time getting back to sleep than I was having, I thought as I listened to Maggie’s snuffling snores beside me, and the yowling of coyotes off in the distance somewhere. Too bad he couldn’t know I was getting paid back for waking him.

Yup! What goes around comes around. It’s the only thing that makes life somewhat fair.

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Magic Exists Between Sunrise and Sunset

Posted in African Safari, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , , on September 6, 2011| 4 Comments »

 “Sunrise, sunset
Swiftly flow the days
Seedlings turn overnight to sunflowers
Blossoming even as we gaze

Sunrise, sunset
Sunrise, sunset
Swiftly fly the years
One season following another
Laden with happiness and tears”

From Fiddler on the Roof

The magic in a day is easy to find when it begins with a golden sunrise photographed from a hot air balloon flying low over Africa's Serengeti.

The magic in a day is easy to find when it begins with a golden sunrise photographed from a hot air balloon flying low over Africa's Serengeti.

Travels With Maggie

As I’ve aged and become an old broad, as sadly has my spoiled but faithful dog, Maggie, whose natural years left are fewer than my own life expectancy, I’ve come to view each day as magical.

But the magic also exists in a quiet Southern Idaho park, where one would be a fool not to acknowledge the gift of the hours with every sunset. -- Photo by Pat Bean

The writer in me realized early on that what didn’t get written down one day would never be exactly the same as would be written the next. Age in me has taught me that each day is a gift that vanishes with the sunset. What we’ve done, or not done, is over and ended. We can’t call it back.

All we can do is wake with the sunrise and live the next day through. Be they hours filled with joy or sorrow, they’re still a magical gift not to be tossed away lightly.

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