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Archive for the ‘Travel’ Category

The Ace of Toilets

Posted in aging, Journeys, Travel, tagged , , on October 5, 2025| 3 Comments »

Star Gazer Cabin 1

Road Trip: Day 1 Continued

Finally, back on track, heading east on U.S. 60, the designated scenic section that runs along the eastern border of the Tonto National Forest and through Fort Apache Indian Reservation between Globe and Show Low, Kim and I relaxed and enjoyed the scenery.

As one who wants to know where places get their names, I had looked up Show Low while planning our itinerary. What I discovered was that according to legend, the city’s unusual name resulted from a marathon poker game between Corydon E. Cooley and Marion Clark.

The two men were equal partners in a 100,000-acre ranch; however, the partners determined that there was not enough room for both of them, and they agreed to settle the issue over a game of Seven Up, with the winner taking the ranch and the loser leaving.

After the game seemed to have no winner in sight, Clark said, “If you can show low, you win.” In response, Cooley turned up the deuce of clubs (the lowest possible card) and replied, “Show low it is.” As a tribute to the legend, Show Low’s main street is named Deuce of Clubs.

From Show Low, we took Arizona State Route 77 to Holbrook, and then headed way off the beaten path, including a couple of miles of unpaved road to our night’s lodging, a small cabin with a glass front wall and glass roof called Star Gazer Cabin 1.

Kim, after my own fiasco I thankfully note, was the one who had made these reservations. It was a delightful outdoor treasure that both of us would have been happy with in our younger days.

The problem was that the small cabin sat atop a deck whose steps had no guard rail – and this old broad almost took a tumble just getting to the top of the deck. In addition, the place had only an outdoor toilet and both of us are at an age when using the john in the middle of the night is a repetitive thing.

I should also note that there was a sign that read: No peeing off the deck!

Now, Kim made me promise to write about what I did next; and that is after noting that the cabin was clean and the beds looked comfortable, I spotted a small waste basket and took it out to the deck to serve as my chamber pot for the night.

Thankfully, my traveling partner decided that maybe we should go back into town and find a more conventional place to spend the night. And a Best Western, with a nice clean indoor toilet, it was.

To be continued …

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion Scamp. She is an avid reader whose mind is always asking questions (many of which are unanswerable), an enthusiastic birder, staff writer for Story Circle Network’s Journal, author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), and is always searching for life’s silver lining.

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Right Road Wrong Way

Posted in aging, Journeys, Lonely Planet Pathfinder, Travel, Writing on October 4, 2025| 1 Comment »

Kim and me on my 70th birthday just before we jumped out of an airplane together, just another one of our many adventures during our 40 years of friendship.

Road Trip: Day 1

My plan, come hell or high water, was to drive to Ogden, Utah, to help my long-time friend Kim celebrate her birthday. Her plan was to fly to Tucson, and we do a roundtrip road adventure to Ogden and back to Tucson. Her excuse was that she wanted to collect national park and monument stamps for her Passport America Book.

Kim, although much younger than me, is a dear friend. And while I did know she wanted to collect the stamps, I also suspected it was a way to keep this 86-year-old-broad, who had suffered a heart attack the previous year, from making the 800-mile trip alone. Whatever, I jumped at her offer, especially since she suggested we take our time and have several hotel sleepovers along the way.

Road trips are one of my passions.

Kim got airline tickets that flew her into Tucson on Sept. 19 and flew her out on Sept. 28, then, after mentioning she wanted stops at Petrified National Forest and Four Corners, she left the rest of the planning to me.

I started our adventures off right in Tucson, where after she arrived, we made quick trips to Sabino Canyon National Recreation Area and Saguaro National Park for her to pick up stamps.

The plan for the next day was to hit Petrified Forest National Park and Painted Desert National Park. But we didn’t quite make it.

First off, in Globe, Arizona, we got off track and went 50 miles – Yes, 50 miles – on the right road in the wrong direction. About the same time, we discovered the error, my oldest son, whom I had sent our agenda and who was following us on an app called Life360, called and wanted to know why we were headed toward Phoenix.

On backtracking we realized that we had missed the turnoff because our hurried pee stop was on the wrong side of the junction where we were supposed to turn east. The silver lining – which everyone knows I am always looking for – was   that Kim bought lottery tickets at the gas station where we stopped and won $50 – and that there was a lot of laughter in the car while we backtracked.

Winning the lottery was Kim’s good luck. But as navigator I have to take the blame for the lost two hours and 100 miles it took us to get back to get back on track – but not the next fiasco that happened later the same day.

To be continued …

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion Scamp. She is an avid reader whose mind is always asking questions (many of which are unanswerable), an enthusiastic birder, staff writer for Story Circle Network’s Journal, author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), and is always searching for life’s silver lining.

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A Wondering-Wanderer Memory

Posted in aging, Favorite Hikes, Favorite Places, Travel, Writing, tagged , , on July 4, 2025| 2 Comments »

Aging My Way

”Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” – George Bernard Shaw.

Fourteen years ago, I was driving along the Columbia River on the Washington side. I know this because of a photo I took, and which was dropped into my email as a memory.

I get these reminders daily – and they delight me. Many of these photos are similar in nature to the one above of the Selah Cliffs information sign near Yakima, where I took a hike on an interpretive loop, and a bit beyond with my canine companion Maggie.

I looked for, and found the basalt daisy that grows only in this area, and where other plants find it hard to survive. According to the Washington State Department of Natural Resources, the Selah Cliffs is situated in one of the driest parts of the state, in a landscape of bedrock and talus formed from the approximately 12-million-year-old Pomona basalt flow. This basalt lava flow traveled from west-central Idaho to the Pacific Ocean about 373 miles, making it the longest known lava flow on earth.

As a wondering wanderer who now is mostly nesting, the memory of this day from my past enriched my present day, as good memories always do.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion Scamp. She is an avid reader whose mind is always asking questions (many of which are unanswerable), an enthusiastic birder, staff writer for Story Circle Network’s Journal, author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), and is always searching for life’s silver lining. She also believes one is never too old to chase a dream.

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Miyajima Birding Memories

Posted in aging, Birds, Journeys, Travel, Writing, tagged , , on October 28, 2024| 1 Comment »

Tori Gate entrance to Miyajima

Aging My Way

Daily photo memories began dropping into my email about a year ago. They almost always bring a smile to my face along with good memories – from seeing how my great-grandchildren are growing up to recalling some of my travel adventures.

One of the more recent photos to show up was one I had taken of the giant tori gate that welcomes visitors to a small island an hour away from the city of Hiroshima. On seeing it, I was immediately transmitted back in time to the three days I spent there with a son who spoke perfect Japanese and a granddaughter taking a break from her college studies.

My granddaughter Heidi and I had spent Christmas in Guam, where my youngest daughter was then living. We had stopped in Japan on the way home where we were met by my son Mike, who had lived in Japan for a couple of years.  

The three of us, often hand in hand, had walked all over the island, enjoying its quaint nature trails, museums and shrines. It was January of 2005, just shortly after I had retired, and just shortly after I had become an avid bird watcher.

When our landlady at the charming little bed and breakfast where we were staying learned that I was interested in birds, she gave me a small field guide written by a local birder. As a result, I was then able to identify and add a dozen new bird species to my life list. The birds were mostly colorful and ones that can’t be found anywhere in North America.

I revisited the Miyajima birds with a little research this morning and found them just as delightful to see a second time. According to my record-keeping, the birds I saw included the Brown-Eared Bulbul, Yellow Bunting, Jungle Crow, Common Gull, Grey Heron, Black Kite, Rock Pipit (not sure which subspecies because I didn’t note it at the time), Daurian Redstart, Eastern Turtle Dove (also known as Oriental Turtle Dove), Japanese Pied Wagtail, and Varied, Coal, and Long-Tailed tits.

I remember my granddaughter joking about how casually I used the word tit.

My memories are like the crazy quilt that my grandmother made, and which I slept under as a child. They are all over the place, and I treasure them – well, most of them that is. As an 85-year-old broad who doesn’t travel too far from home these days, it’s heartfelt to have such good memories.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, an enthusiastic birder, staff writer for the Story Circle Network Journal, the author of Travels with Maggie available on

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Morning Bird Sounds

Posted in African Safari, aging, Birds, Journeys, Travel, Uncategorized, Writing, tagged , , on September 2, 2024| Leave a Comment »

While it was far from Arjan’s record-breaking number, I did see 182 bird species during my two-week safari in Kenya and Tanzania, including this Hamerkop sharing a water hole with zebra. The fantastic trip with my best friend, Kim, was also balm to my wanderlust soul. — Photo by Pat Bean

Aging My Way

“Just before sunrise, I am woken up by the deep, foghorn-like song of an Emu. What a great sound to wake up to,” writes Arjan Dwarshuis in The Big (Year) That Flew By. The book is about his quest to break the record for seeing the most bird species in a single year. He did, in 2016, counting 6,852 species. And the record still stands.

It was a journey across six continents through 40 continents. I chose to read the account of his incredible adventure because at heart I have wanderlust in my soul. I’ve also been an avid birder since 1999, the year I turned 60 and realized I needed a hobby that wasn’t quite as strenuous as white-water rafting or tennis.

Suddenly, where I had seldom seen birds, I couldn’t not see birds, which I found fascinating.

But one of my first discoveries as a birder was that it wasn’t always something done sedately. Some bird species can only be found at the tops of high mountains and some only in places where no roads exist. Thankfully I saw a few of those before my hardy adventuring days were over.

These days, I mostly bird in my own small, patio yard or on a gentle path, not necessarily paved, that can accommodate my rollator — a four-wheeled contraption that I can hold onto for balance and which also has a seat — I note this for those unfamiliar with such things.

 Some days I simply sit in it and listen to all the bird songs around me while an app called Merlin identifies the birds by sound for me. Knowing what birds are around often helps me find them with my eyes.

I also often awake to the coos of Mourning Doves, the screeches of a pair of Gila Woodpeckers that like to steal the nectar from my hummingbird feeders, and the chirp, chirp, chirping of House Sparrows – birds that visit my yard daily.

 While not as exotic as waking up to the foghorn-ish song of an Emu, listening to the sound of any bird is still a great way to wake up to. And reading about Arjan’s wondrous adventures chasing birds invigorates my wanderlust soul anytime of the day.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, an enthusiastic birder, staff writer for the Story Circle Network Journal, the author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), is always searching for life’s silver lining, and these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.

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A Bug Named Chigger

Posted in aging, Dogs, journalism, Journeys, road trip, Travel, Writing, tagged , on April 22, 2024| 2 Comments »

In 2014, I bought this red car and named her Cayenne. She is not as shiny today, but driving her this morning felt empowering. Pepper, whom I’m holding, spent the last eight months with me during my RVing days before going to doggie heaven a few years after I moved to Tucson.

Aging My Way

I got behind the wheel of my car for the first time in over six weeks this morning. It was just a short drive, but after a knee replacement and three stents put into my heart, it was extremely empowering.

While most people I know, find driving, especially in rush-hour conditions, annoying and frustrating, the activity has long been my happy place. I think it began back in 1967 when I bought a 1963 red VW Bug shortly after I went to work for a small local newspaper.

At first, I used it just to get back and forth to work, but then I was promoted from dark-room flunky to reporter, a life-changing milestone that begin my 37-year journalism career.

Over the next four years, I drove that Bug over 100,000 miles to get to and from assignments all over Texas Gulf Coast’s Brazoria County. With five children at home, a lazy husband, and a demanding editor to please, driving in that car was the only alone time I had. Enclosed and sitting behind its wheel, I felt serene and at peace, about the only time I did during that period of my life.

This is a 1963 VW Bug, like the one I put 100,000 miles on between 1967-71. Amazingly you can still find them on the road.

When I moved to Northern Utah, I drove between there and Texas to visit family often, heady with each opportunity to find a different route for the journey. And when I finally retired, I spent nine years driving a small RV, with just a canine companion, all over America. I loved every moment of the 150,000 miles I drove exploring this awesome country. I found beauty everywhere I looked.

At 85, and with poor vision in the dark, I gave up night driving several years back. And I know there is going to come a time when I will have to relinquish my car keys because of my age. But thankfully, that time hasn’t arrived yet.

Oh, and by the way, I paid $600 for that Bug I called Chigger – and sold it for $900 four years later. It’s the best bargain I’ve ever experienced.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, an enthusiastic birder, the author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), is always searching for life’s silver lining, and these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.

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Life’s Landscapes

Posted in aging, Journeys, Travel, Writing, tagged on April 17, 2024| 8 Comments »

When I was traveling, I always tried to be in Texas for bluebonnet season. — Photo by Pat Bean

Aging My Way

One of my blog followers wrote yesterday that although we had never met, she had been following me so long that she felt I was an old friend. I don’t think there could have been anything nicer than that said to a writer. And comments like hers make me happy to be blogging again after my short sabbatical.

I’ve been blogging here on Word Press since 2010, the year I turned 71 and when I was still traveling around the country with my canine companion Maggie. The view then was ever changing.

It’s cactus-blooming season in Tucson. One of the many things I learned while traveling is that beauty is everywhere. You just have to look. — Photo by Pat Bean.

Meanwhile, this will be my 1,588th blog, and tomorrow I turn 85. A splendid view of the Catalina Mountains from my small Tucson apartment greets me each day, and my canine companion is named Scamp.

I wake up each morning with gratitude in my heart — for what I had in the past, and what I now have. I’m content.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, an enthusiastic birder, the author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), is always searching for life’s silver lining, and these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.

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Faulty Little Gray Cells

Posted in aging, Books, Journeys, Travel, Writing, tagged , , on December 8, 2023| 1 Comment »

One of Rick Steves many travel books about European countries.

Aging My Way

Reading and Googling go hand in hand for me these days. It’s one of the good things about the internet. No longer do I have to wait to go to the library to find answers to my questions, all I have to do is type them into a search engine.

It helps, however, if you know the right questions to ask.

This morning I was reading an essay in Best American Travel Writing of 2020 about Rick Steves. The author didn’t immediately identify Steves except by name, and so I Googled him. Only from the short time I went from the page to my phone screen I goofed and typed in Steve Reeves.

That was a blast to my past. During my younger days, I had watched Reeves, a bodybuilder and actor, portray such characters as Hercules in movies many times. But I quickly realized he probably wasn’t the person I was looking for and a quick glance back at the book informed me of my mistake.

Googling the correct name, I discovered Rick Steves is a popular American travel writer famous for his European travel guides. I guess. because I’ve never visited Europe, is why I had never heard of Steves, even though the article by Sam Anderson described him as an amazing person and writer.

Meanwhile, I’m still wondering how my little gray cells jumped from Rick Steves to Steve Reeves. My guess is that at 84, and always being insatiably curious, those cells of mine are densely crowded, allowing wires to easily get crossed. At least I hope that’s all it is.  

I wonder if the internet has something to say about that.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, an enthusiastic birder, the author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), is always searching for life’s silver lining, and these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.

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One Is Not Like the Other

Posted in aging, Birds, Books, Journeys, Travel, tagged , on November 13, 2023| 1 Comment »

The Monastery in Petra, a place that has fascinated me ever since I got a sneak peek at it in an Indiana Jones movie. Photo by Diego Delso

Aging My Way

I do a lot of armchair traveling these days, looking at photos of and reading about places, which at 84, I know I will probably never be able to visit in person. It’s an enjoyable hobby that continues to feed my insatiable curiosity about the world and the people who live in it.

What’s lacking, however, is the feeling of accomplishment one gets from actually walking through an unknown cityscape, standing atop a mountain you’ve just climbed, or learning to communicate with a local whose language you do not understand. There is value in sweat and effort.

Susan Orlean pointed this out in a story about the remains of Petra, the cave-like capital of 4th century Nabateans, being made into a virtual reality model.  Wrote Susan: “Technology makes it easier to see the world almost as it is, but sometimes the hardest parts are what make travel memorable.”

As I read Susan’s words in The Best Women’s Travel Writing: Volume 12, I thought about my recent bird-watching walk around a small lake here in Tucson. It was a flat trail, just a half-mile in length, and I had to use my rollator as a steading hand and a place to sit every once in a while, but the feeling of accomplishment I felt at the end was significant – so much better than watching bird cams, which is also something I do regularly.

One is not like the other.

Which is why, because I can’t physically do all the things I want to do, or financially afford to travel to all the places I still want to see, I’m thankful for modern-age technology. If nothing else, the years have taught me to be flexible. It’s one of the ways I can continue to experience life zestfully, if not gracefully.    

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, an enthusiastic birder, the author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), is always searching for life’s silver lining, and these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.

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Travel Books: Inspiration and Memory

Posted in aging, Books, Journeys, Travel, Writing, tagged , , , , on November 1, 2023| 2 Comments »

Tioga Pass view from top of Tioga Peak

Aging My Way

I’ve been reading books in the travel genre since I’ve been a kid, and have oft quoted Dr. Seuss saying “Oh! The places you’ll go and the things you’ll see!” – And I did, from exploring the neighborhood on my bike as a kid to watching wild elephants and hippos on an African safari.

The first travel book I read was I Married Adventure by Osa Johnson, published in 1940, just a year after I was born. I was 10 years old at the time, and having escaped the children’s side of the library had migrated to the dangerous adult side, where the lions Osa and her husband were filming resided.

By the time I hit my 50s, any list of the Best Travel Books I came across found me having read most of them. And the ones I hadn’t read, well they went on my to-read list. And what I read made my bucket list get longer and longer.

I’ve pretty much read everything written by Jan Morris, Bill Bryson (whose A Walk in the Woods inspired by own years of hiking), Paul Theroux, Robert Louis Stevenson, Peter Matthiessen, William Least Heat Moon (His Blue Highways inspired my own travels in a small RV around North America for nine years) John Steinbeck (whose Travels with Charley inspired the title of my own travel book Travels with Maggie), and my all-time favorite adventurer Tim Cahill.

And then there are these three travel writers who were writing travel books long before I was born, and during a time when respectful women didn’t travel alone, as they so successfully did.

My own favorite, perhaps because we share a journalistic background, is Nellie Bly who in 1888 went around the world in 72 days – and wrote about it 15 years after Jule Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days was published.

Then there is Isabella Bird, who wrote A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains that was published in 1879. It was her fourth, but my favorite of her books. I found it at a national parks’ visitor center, which is an ideal location to find obscure travel books.   

And finally, for this blog but not for the list of great women travel writers, there is Freya Stark, who wrote more than two dozen books about her travels in the Middle East and Afghanistan. Of her impressive writings, Valley of the Assassins, published in 1834 is my favorite.

While at 84, my traveling days are mostly over, I’m still reading travel books. The current one is Vagabonding in the USA by Ed Buryn.

It was first published in 1980, so is not too useful as an actual travel guide. But it is, I’m discovering, chockfull of advice that transcends travel. And, like many travel books for me these days, a catalyst for bringing back awesome memories of places I have already visited.

The passage below, for example, let me relive the delight I had in my own cresting of Tioga Pass, where I got out of the car, stretched, felt the breeze blowing my hair about, took in the magnificent view and simply felt glad to be alive.

Wrote Buryn: “I am … driving down from Tioga Pass where California 120 tops the Sierra Nevada and heads east. It is dusk. In the clear mountain/desert air, the alpenglow to the east over Nevada seems almost phosphorescent. Mono Lake shimmers in the darkening distance, with barren ranges endlessly beyond it. … It is the first sundown of another road adventure…”

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, an enthusiastic birder, the author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), is always searching for life’s silver lining, and these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.

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