Posted in Favorite Places, Nature, Travel, Weekly Photo Challenge, tagged bob marley, custer state park, kindness kronicles, postaday. patbean, South Dakota on March 24, 2012| 6 Comments »
Driving through the tunnel -- Photo by Pat Bean
Bean’s Pat: Kindness Kronicles http://tinyurl.com/82zz9tm The world needs more people like this blogger, who believes the world truly can be a kinder place in which to live. .Posted in Favorite Places, Nature, Travel, tagged canyonlands national park, colorado river, green river, hiking, Island in the Sky, mesa arch trail, pat bean, postaday on March 22, 2012| 4 Comments »
“I soon realized that no journey carries one far unless, as it extends into the world around us, it goes an equal distance into the world within.” –Lillian Smith
Looking down from the Island at the Green River -- or is it the Colorado. The Green joins the Colorado near here. -- Photo by Pat Bean
Canyonlands: Island in the Sky
This park, located near Arches National Park, Dead Horse Point Utah State Park and Moab — all fantastic things on any bucket list — is a great escape from our chaotic lives. I try never to miss it when I’m in the area.
I’ve never been there when it felt crowded. It has a tiny campground, in which I’ve both tent and RV-camped, spectacular aerial views of the Green and Colorado rivers and a fairy land of rock formations.
If you go, don’t miss taking the Mesa Arch Trail. It’s only a short half-mile hike but the view at the end is awesome. Have Fun.
Bean’s Pat: A Year on the Road http://tinyurl.com/79ba6la Al’s a full-time RV-er like me. This column is simply full of trivia, but check out some of his back columns. While I write more about Mother Nature’s landscapes, he focuses more on the people who inhabit the landscape.
Posted in Favorite Places, Nature, Travel, tagged hiking trails, national parks, pat bean, postaday, wallace stegner, Yellowstone 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.
Posted in Favorite Places, Travel, tagged black river, Jamaica, pat bean, postaday, school days., versatile blogger award on March 20, 2012| 3 Comments »
“Getting older is no problem. You just have to live long enough..” — Groucho Marks
Cruising down the Black River
I took a long bus ride to take a boat cruise down Jamaica's Black River. What a fantastic day it was. While I loved the colorful structures at the beginning of the trip, I also loved the more isolated stretches where egrets and herons stood watch of the river from the safety of the mangrove trees. -- Photo by Pat Bean
Versatile Blogger Award
Thank you Bella Remy http://bellaremyphotography.wordpress.com/ for giving me A Versatile Blogger’s Award, which means I am supposed to tell you seven things about myself. Huh… Let’s see…
I often start my mornings by listening to Helen Reddy’s recording of “I Am Woman Hear Me Roar.”
My mother called me Patsy Lee, unless she was mad at me. Then it was: Patricia Lee Joseph. Pat, however, is what I feel fits me.
I love bright colors and it doesn’t bother me at all if they clash.
The first time I walked into a newsroom, I knew it was where I belonged. And so it was for the next 37 years.
My early school-days nickname was Cootie Brain. I was so ashamed of it that I didn’t tell a soul until I was in my 50s. Today I feel that kids who don’t fit in are the lucky ones.
I must have both alone time and people in my life, which means my life is a constant juggling game.
And finally, I adore every single one of my followers. You’re an amazing bunch, and I’m having fun getting to know some of you better. And my thanks to all of you who have softened my recent blow from the loss of two pets with your heartfelt comments. The kind words did help.
Bean’s Pat: Chicks With Ticks http://tinyurl.com/6qpusvo Finding Walden.
Posted in Journeys, Travel, Wildflowers, tagged accidents, getting on with life, loss of a pet, mary oliver, pat bean, postaday, wisteria on March 18, 2012| 24 Comments »
“To live in this world you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go.” Mary Oliver
Princess Meghan Joined Maggie in the Clouds
This well may be the hardest blog I’ve ever written. But it’s part of my travel journey and I know I must share it for continuity in my blogging. One of these days I’ll write the whole story, but the wound is still too fresh for complete details.
Wisteria and tiny pink ground flowers as seen through my RV window. -- Photo by Pat Bean
After losing my long-time canine travel companion, Maggie, and adopting Princess Meghan, a tiny, energetic beagle as her replacement, I lost her also.
In a space of eight days, I stood beside two beloved pets as they were humanely euthanized. A freak accident left Meghan paralyzed and I felt I had no choice.
My body shut down for four days and only today is it beginning to revive itself. I mostly stayed alone in my RV with the shades drawn. The shades are up today, and I’m once again open to the outside world.
A plethora of bird song is humming through the air, and a nearby white wisteria is scenting the landscape. I’m extremely grateful to notice because my senses were so dimmed by my sorrow that I truly could not enjoy the roadside bluebonnets that accompanied me Friday on a journey from Lake Jackson to Harker Heights north of Austin.
I saw them, but felt no joy.
I was going to continue on Saturday toward Tucson, where a sick daughter wants her mother, but my body refused to go on. So I’m sitting here at my oldest son’s home for a few days. I suspect I’ll continue my journey Tuesday or Wednesday.
It will be a lonely trip, but I do believe this tough old broad will at least be able to enjoy the sights along the way. Hopefully there will be more roadside bluebonnets.
And hopefully, this blog will once again take on its upbeat travel theme. Dookie happens to everyone and getting on with life is always the best thing we can do.
Camping With a Canine in Cornwall http://tinyurl.com/726he22 This reminded me of many of my own adventuress when I was a tent camper. And it cheered me up.
Posted in Favorite Places, Travel, Uncategorized, tagged cardiff hill, hannibal, mark twaid, Missouri, pat bean, postaday, tom sawyer on March 14, 2012| 6 Comments »
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. ” — Mark Twain
Tom and Huck’s Cardiff Hill
Mark Twain put Hannibal on the map, and the city is now using the places where Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn played and roamed to entice people to the tourist town. You can take a ride on a paddle boat, tour the dark corners of the cave Tom and Becky got lost in, visit his home and walk up 253 steps to get to the top of Cardiff Hill. I did them all, simply because. -- Photo by Pat Bean
I climbed the steps and then discovered the road that most others took to the top. I think I would have taken those steps even if I knew the road existed, however. That’s just who I am.
Bean’s Pat: Camping With a Canine in Cornwall http://tinyurl.com/726he22 This reminded me of many of my own adventuress when I was a tent camper. .
Posted in Favorite Places, Travel, tagged art institute. semeca. trave;, chicago, pat bean, postaday on March 13, 2012| 1 Comment »
“Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind.” ~Seneca
The Art Institute of Chicago – and Snow
While I tend to hit the backroads and boonies most frequently in my travels so as to satisfy my need for Mother Nature’s sanctuaries, I also enjoy big cities.
That good because I recently spent a week in Chicago. The purpose was to visit my youngest son, Michael, but I also got in a bit of sight-seeing in the Windy City.
My son, knowing that no visit to any big city is complete without a visit to an art museum, set aside a day for us to take in the Chicago institute of Art, which has a great Impressionist collection.
What a great day it was, from being amused by the pair of fierce lions guarding the museum entrance to getting re-acquainted with the works of Van Gogh, even though my favorites, his Starry Night series was not among them.
A snowy early morning view from my son's third-floor Chicago apartment. -- Photo by Pat Bean
It was a great visit, which included a fancy dinner at the top of the John Hancock Building, which came with a foggy night view of the city. But I especially enjoyed getting up one morning and looking out my son’s apartment window and seeing snow. This winter has been spent mostly on Texas’ Gulf Coast and snow has not been part of the landscape.
Change, I think, is good for the human soul. At least it feels that way for mine.
Bean’s Pat: Cats in Paris http://tinyurl.com/7ql84jt Quite an eclectic collection, and I loved them all.
Posted in Travel, Weekly Photo Challenge, tagged day of the dead, distortion, pat bean, postaday, san antonio, weekly photo challenge on March 3, 2012| 8 Comments »
“The most dangerous of all falsehoods is a slightly distorted truth.” — Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Body Distortion: Day of the Dead, San Antonio, Texas -- Photo by Pat Bean
Bean’s Pat: Slowing Down to Save Time http://tinyurl.com/6wzf65g A lesson I would do well to take to heart.
Posted in Journeys, Travel, tagged coffee, coffee pots, pat bean, postaday on March 1, 2012| 19 Comments »
“I believe humans get a lot done, not because we’re smart, but because we have thumbs so we can make coffee.” — Flash Rosenberg.
Kickapoo State Park, Illinois -- Just because I'm currently in Illinois. I sat out a major thunderstorm here in 2006. -- Photo by Pat Bean
And Today Was a Very Good Day
From now on, there will be no more spilled coffee. -- Photo by Pat Bean
I like my morning coffee, strong and heavily laced with half and half.
Drinking two cups every day is my morning ritual. That means I pour coffee into my mug at least, well sometimes I have three cups, 730 times annually. Multiply that by old-broad years.
Now I ask you, how many of those thousands of times that I’ve poured coffee from the pot into a cup do you think I’ve dribbled coffee on the counter while doing so?
My guess is that 50 percent of those times might be a bit too low. And I suspect I’m not alone in this. I’ve tried tilting the pot every which way but nothing ever seemed to work.
It took my son, Michael, whom I flew to Chicago yesterday to visit, to tell me what I was doing wrong. I decided I would tell all you readers who might not be as smart as Michael, who figured it out 10 years ago.
“It’s simply a matter of pouring it slowly Mother,” he told me this morning. “The design of the spout on the coffee pot is flawed.”
And all of a sudden I could see it. Duh! I thought.
So how many of you are as smart as my son, Michael? And how many as dumb as me?
Posted in Favorite Places, Travel, tagged bar harbor, Maine, pat bean, postaday on February 23, 2012| 13 Comments »
“Lie in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
Park at the Pier, looking out on Frenchmen's Bay -- Photo by Pat Bean
Bean’s Pat: Zottel is Back http://photobotos.com/2012/02/23/zottel-is-back I couldn’t resist this goat. Remember Doris Day in”Don’t Eat the Daisies.”
.
“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters.” — Ursula K. Le Guin
Pat Bean is a writer, avid birder, hiker and passionate nature observer with wanderlust in her soul. She spent nine years living and traveling in a small RV. She now lives in Tucson with Scamp, a rescue who was supposed to be a Schnauzer mix but turned out to be a Siberian Husky-Shih Tzu mix who is as stubborn as his owner, her granddaughter says. She was also a journalist for 37 years, and can be reached at patbean@msn.com
 | Dawn M. Miller on Road Trips: Two Ways |
 | Rosepoint Publishing on A Two-Pronged History |
| Dawn M. Miller on A Two-Pronged History |
 | ethel on A Two-Pronged History |
 | Linda Hoye on Perhaps Thinking is Overr… |
Pat Bean's blog 