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Archive for the ‘Travels With Maggie’ Category

On Being a Writer

Posted in aging, Art, journalism, Journeys, Travels With Maggie, Writing, tagged , , on December 27, 2024| 2 Comments »

Just as an eagle must fly, I must write. — Art by Pat Bean

Aging My Way

“Being a writer is like having homework every night for the rest of your life.” – Lawrence Kasdan

I’ve been retired from being a newspaper journalist for 20 years now. It was a job I loved. I thrived under the stress of the interviewing, the research and writing against a daily deadline. Every day was a new learning experience – from writing about Father’s Day from the view of shelter dads to interviewing a former president at a busy airport.

I miss the excitement, and even the grind of that kind of life, which all began two years after I decided – without a doubt in my head – that I had to become a writer. That was a huge dream for someone who was a high school dropout.

As one of my efforts, I applied for a reporter’s position. I saw the job as an opportunity to hone my writing skills. Instead, I was hired as a darkroom flunky at the small Texas Gulf Coast newspaper to which I had applied — for the grand salary of $1,25 an hour.

Toward the goal of becoming a reporter, I started taking journalism classes at the local community college. Fortunately, due to luck and the resignation of two college-educated guys, I got my wish – and a 25-cent an hour raise.

 The year was 1967, and I was ecstatic. What I experienced for the next four years, beginning as a green reporter with no experience of the real world, was at least the equivalent of a master’s degree, not just in journalism but in life.  Those experiences, along with hard work and my clippings, took me through the rest of a successful journalism career that lasted for 37 years.  

And beyond – when I retired from my journalism job, I didn’t retire from writing. A day in which I do not put pen to paper or fingers on a keyboard leaves me feeling short-changed and restless.

But the writing I did in earlier years was all about other people and things – as all true journalists should do. What I write today is all about me and how I feel about things. No longer a journalist, I’ve become an essayist writing about my view of the world – and myself.

The change wasn’t easy, nor safe, because as a personal essayist I expose myself to the world. The transformation began after I wrote the first draft of Travels with Maggie, a book about me and my dog RVing together across America. I was told by a group of writers, who critiqued my efforts before the book was published, that my writing lacked voice.

And they were right. I suddenly saw that I was still writing as a journalist. So, I rewrote the book, adding the voice of an old broad who was still learning and still had a zest for life.

And that’s how I continue to write today – almost every day. I can’t help myself. I think that the day I stop writing will be the day I stop breathing.  

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is a wondering-wanderer, avid reader, enthusiastic birder, Lonely Planet Community Pathfinder, Story Circle Network board member, 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 Magical Journey

Posted in aging, Birds, Favorite Places, Journeys, Lakes, road trip, Travels With Maggie, tagged , , , , , , , on November 12, 2024| 4 Comments »

As if by magic, a lakeside campground often turned up during my nine years of living and traveling on the road exploring this beautiful country. — Photo of my RV Gypsy Lee resting at Jackson State Park in Alabama by Pat Bean

Aging My Way

          When I was traveling around the country in my small RV, I almost never took the direct route from place to place. An interesting looking side road always seemed more important than the destination where I was headed.

My mother told me this was a trait I had gotten from a grandfather who died before I was old enough to remember him. “He could never pass up a turnoff,” she told me on one of our back-roading trips to Jenny Lake in the Tetons, a place she fell in love with the first time she saw it.

 Judging by how she enjoyed taking different routes to get there, I could just as easily have inherited it from her. I think that quite likely, because promising her a road trip to the Tetons was often the bribe that I had to make to get her to visit me from her home in Illinois to my home in Northern Utah, where Yellowstone was only a five-hour drive away.

My mother and I made many of those trips in her later years. I treasure every one of them, but especially those in which we got off the beaten path. There’s magic in driving down a road not knowing what you are going to see, especially when you stop and explore along the way.

 As Ursula K Le Guin said, and I believe, “It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters.”

As I ponder Le Guin’s words, I think of the journey I’ve been taking for the past 85 years. The destination I’ve arrived at is far from the one I envisioned when I took those first wobbly and uncertain steps along an expected path. Detours along the way — some forced and some on purpose – have put me where I am today.

And since I’ve come to a place where I have love, friends, a lovable canine companion who keeps my life interesting, and a continuing zest for nature and life, the detours along this hard-won journey surely must have had some magic in them.

What do you think?  

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). She is always searching for life’s silver lining, and these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.

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Tears, Cows, Dogs and Laughter

Posted in aging, Books, Dogs, Journeys, Travels With Maggie, Uncategorized, Writing, tagged , on June 15, 2023| 5 Comments »

From my journals: The day I brought Maggie home. She accompanied me in my RV travels for eight years, and was the inspiration for the title of my book, Travels with Maggie. She experienced my laughter more than my tears.

Aging My Way

A character in a book I was reading said that if you ever needed a good cry, do it around a cow, because dogs notice and come around with licks and kisses to cheer you up.

Thinking about the five dogs that have been my companions over the past eight decades, I couldn’t help but agree with the comment. The dogs, in their turn, each knew when a soft nuzzle was needed. And their warm bodies cuddled up next to mine always comforted me.

So, despite agreeing with the fictional character, whose name I can’t recall right now, I think I’ll stick to dogs when I cry. That even makes sense since there are no cows nearby.

Tears have long been a part of my life. I cried a lot as a child, my favorite place being inside a hedge with a small black mutt, whom I had uncreatively named Blackie. I cried because I was not popular, because my family wasn’t the fantasy one portrayed on television. I cried because I thought no one loved me. I cried if I thought someone looked at me wrong.  

I was a foolish child usually crying over nothing, but the tears soothed me. In later years, I learned that tears have actually been scientifically proven to be beneficial, that they detoxify the body and restore its balance.

As a young mother and wife, I cried because my own family was not the everyone-lived-happily-ever-after kind. I cried when my children were hurt, and when my marriage dissolved.

Later I would cry because I couldn’t find my perfect soul mate. Those tears were usually shed at midnight when I was curled up beneath a quilt, and often interrupted when my dog, a faithful cocker spaniel named Peaches back then, would wiggle beneath the covers to comfort me.

 I don’t think a cow could do that – not to mention I wouldn’t want it to. And neither, I eventually decided, did I want, or need, a soul mate. I was my own soul mate, and I had a good life, and a good dog. This is probably why I rarely cry these days.

Luckily, I laugh a lot. And science has proven that laughter is quite good for the body, too.

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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A Writer’s Dream

Posted in aging, Birds, Books, Journeys, Travels With Maggie, tagged on April 5, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Aging My Way

 “Sooner or later, all vagabonds discover that something strange happens to them en route. They become aware of having wandered into a subtle network of coincidence and serendipity that eludes explanation. On Tiptoe, magic enters.” – Ed Buryn.

After coming across the above quote, I was interested in buying Buryn’s book, Vagabonding in the USA: A Guide to Independent Travel, which was published in 1980. I thought it would be fun to compare what he had seen and written about to my travels across North America in a small RV from 2004-2013 — and what I wrote about it in my book Travels with Maggie, which was published in 2017.

But I only found one copy of Ed’s book available on the internet, and it was a used paperback selling for $85. Dang it! That’s a bit too expensive for a retiree living on a fixed income. I then checked my local library, but also struck out. It didn’t have a copy.  

Anyone have a copy of Ed’s book they would like to exchange for a copy of my Travels with Maggie?  I know my paperback only sells on Amazon for $5.99, but maybe someday it might be worth more. Who knows?  It happened to Ed’s book.

Meanwhile, I find it kinda nice to have such a dream.

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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Hometown Brags

Posted in Favorite Places, Journeys, Travels With Maggie, Tucson Points of Interest, Wildflowers, tagged , , , on January 28, 2019| 5 Comments »

Welcome sign at the entrance to Hico, Texas. — Photo by Pat Bean

 

 “I always wanted to be somebody, but now I realize I should have been more specific.” — Lily Tomlin

Say What?

When entering a new town while I was living on the road in a small RV with my canine companion Maggie, I was often greeted by bragging welcome signs.

My favorite was the one that greeted me as I drove into the small Texas town of  Hico: “Where Everybody is Somebody.”

If you visit Knox during Horse Thief Days, don’t forgt to buy a T-shirt.

That was much better than Knox’s claim to fame as ‘The Horse Thief Capital of the World.’ The name referred to a former resident, Sebastian “Boss” Buck, who got rich by stealing horses and printing fake money. Unashamed of its past, the Pennsylvania town holds an annual event called Horse Thief Days that is popular with residents and visitors alike.

Seven cities, meanwhile, claim to be the Watermelon Capital of the World: Cordelle, Georgia; Weatherford and Naples, Texas; Green River, Utah; Beardstown, Illinois; Rush Springs, Oklahoma; and Hope, Arkansas. Common sense says six of them are exaggerating.

Show Low, Arizona, meanwhile, proclaims itself as the only city named by the turn of a card, which occurred during a poker game between rival ranchers. The pair agreed to draw cards, and the one who got the lowest got to keep the land and start the town.

Certainly, one of the weirdest claims to fame is held by Berrien Springs. This Michigan town calls itself “The Christmas Pickle Capital of the

The Christmas Pickle

World.”  There are several tall tales about how the Christmas Pickle came to be, but the most common one is that Santa Claus saved two boys who had been imprisoned in a pickle barrel by an innkeeper who had stolen all their possessions.

Berrien Springs, located in a pickle-producing community, celebrates the pickle with an annual parade led by the Grand Dillmeister, who hands out pickles along the route. Entrepreneurs, meanwhile, hype the tradition to sell pickle ornaments, pickle earrings and even chocolate covered pickles.

I searched for my current home town’s claim to fame, but found nothing definitive. But if I had to name one, I would say Tucson is the World Capital of Saguaro Cacti.

So, what’s your town’s claim to fame?

Bean Pat: A morning walk with observant eyes https://portraitsofwildflowers.wordpress.com/2019/01/28/more-from-nature-on-december-25-2018/ 

Pat Bean is a retired journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion Pepper. She is a wondering-wanderer, avid reader, enthusiastic birder and is always searching for life’s silver lining. Check out her book Travels with Maggie, available on Amazon, to learn more. She can be reached at patbean@msn.com

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Too Much Stuff

Posted in Journeys, Travels With Maggie, Uncategorized, tagged , on December 5, 2018| 8 Comments »

“The most important things in life aren’t things.” – Anthony J. D’Angelo

I promised myself when I moved into my new apartment that I wouldn’t bring anything into it that I didn’t love. And I do love these tin birds which were a gift, and my home will always have room for flowers. — Photo by Pat Bean

Once Again I’m at that Point

            Back in 2004, when I downsized from my two-bedroom home in Utah to a 21-foot RV, I was amazed at how much stuff I had. That was nothing, however, to the stuff I had when I moved from a six-bedroom family home, after three of my five children had grown up and started life on their own, into a two-bedroom apartment.

And I love having a simple place where I can read and write, and look out at the world. — Photo by Pat Bean

That time I finally called the local thrift store to come empty out my large unfinished basement. It seems if you have plenty of storage space, you tend to fill it up.

Space in my small RV during the nine years it was my home on wheels hardly existed, and I quickly learned that if I brought one item into my life, another item had to go out.

I was thinking about this the day I drove through the small town of Leakey, Texas, and saw a sign on an antique store that read: “Sophisticated Junk for the Elite.” That was worth one of my loud belly laughs.

I turned to my canine companion Maggie and asked her if we should

Having a great view, as I do from my writing chair is important, too. It’s better than stuff. — Photo by Pat Bean

stop. She looked up at me from her co-pilot seat in my RV and yawned. I guess not, I told her. Sophisticated or not, there was no room in my RV for old, or even new, doodads.

When I retired from my traveling RV life, settling into a small one-bedroom, third-floor apartment with a view of the Catalina Mountains out my bedroom balcony window, I felt as if I had moved into a mansion, and loved its spaciousness.

Looking around, six years later, I realized that it wasn’t quite as spacious. It’s time to go back to the practice of when one thing comes in, another goes out.

Bean Pat: Bo’s Café Life https://boscafelife.wordpress.com/2018/12/05/11561/ Life shouldn’t be taken too seriously.

Now available on Amazon

Pat Bean is a Lonely Planet Community Pathfinder. Her book, Travels with Maggie, is now up on Amazon. Currently, she is writing a book, she is calling Bird Droppings, which is about her late-bloomer birding adventures. You can contact her at patbean@msn.com

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Howling with Wolves

Posted in Books, Favorite Places, Journeys, Travel, Travels With Maggie, tagged , , , on November 19, 2018| 2 Comments »

“…on a still night, when the campfire is low and the Pleiades have climbed over the rimrocks, sit quietly and listen for a wolf to howl, and think hard of everything you have seen and tried to understand. Then you may hear it – a vast pulsing harmony – its score inscribed on a thousand hills, its notes the lives and deaths of plants and animals, its rhythms spanning the seconds and the centuries.” – From Aldo Leopold’s Sand County Almanac.

There is something of magic in a wolf’s howl that speaks to my soul. — Wikimedia photo

A Moment to Remember

My fascination with wolves began at a young age, triggered when I read for the first time, but not the last, Jack London’s “Call of the Wild.” I discovered the book when I about eight years old among my late grandfather’s book collection.

Down through the years I read many more books that encouraged this love affair, including “Never Cry Wolf,” that details the summer the author spent observing wild wolves in the Arctic tundra. I longed see one of these wild creatures outside of a zoo. But given the way we humans had been eradicating these animals for decades, it was a miracle I doubted would ever happen. Then it did, in 2005.

I was traveling in Yellowstone with my youngest son. We had stopped at an overlook to check out an unkindness of ravens in some trees, as were other visitors to the park. Or so we thought. We finally noticed that humans and birds alike were focused on something moving on the far side of the small pond below. When I saw it was a wolf, I was almost afraid to breathe. Here was nature at its purest.

One of the wolves at Wolf Park in Battle Ground, Indiana.

The overlook placed the wolf center stage while the morning sun, just capping a ridge to our east, spotlighted it.  The wolf ignored our presence until a small dog, left in a vehicle by its owner, began yapping. Only then did the wolf tilt its head in our direction. It clearly knew we pitiful humans were watching.  The barking dog, as if feeling the heat from that glance, became silent, and the wolf again continued its ground-covering stride.  Through my birding telescope I could almost count the hairs on the wolf’s back.

In comparison to seeing a wolf in the wild, which I would rate 20-plus on a 10-point scale, Wolf Park in Battle Ground, Indiana, was a mere 10.

I arrived at the park just in time for an afternoon guided tour of the 75-acre grounds. While much more than a zoo, the wolves here were not free and only half wild. Wolf Park is a research facility, created to allow researchers to make closer observations of these animals than would be possible in the wild.

While the wolves are kept in large enclosures that encourage them to form, and live, in packs as they would in the wild, they have been conditioned to human contact to facilitate researchers. This begins when they are only a couple of weeks old, at which time they are removed from their wolf mothers and given to human mothers to continue raising. At about four months old, the cubs are returned to their packs.

A tour guide explained all this as he walked us around the park. His spiel included a genealogy of the pack affiliations, and stories about the personalities of each of the park’s 24 wolves. I was fascinated.

The pack I would late howl with was led by Tristan.  As wolves do in the wild, he had gained his position by asserting his dominance over higher-ranking wolves. This pack in-fighting, unless death of an animal seems imminent, is not interfered with by the park staff. Fights for the alpha female role, our guide said, tended to be more vicious than those of the male wolves, probably because the right to breed belongs only to the female alpha.        ,

I returned to the park later that night for the weekly Friday Night Howl, and found myself sitting on bleachers in front of a large fenced enclosure. A couple of staff members entered the compound and were greeted enthusiastically by the wolves, much as my daughter’s Great Dane, Tara, greets me. She is extremely loving, but if I’m not careful of my stance, she could easily bowl me over.

With the greeting between humans and animals completed, the staffers talked a bit about the work at the park, and then invited us to start howling to encourage the wolves’ response. I found the howling a bit weird at first. I didn’t sound at all like a wolf. Tristan seemed to agree – and looked at us humans as if we were missing our brains. But just then, somewhere in the background, one of the wolves from a different pack howled.  Tristan answered the wild night song. Other members of his pack quickly joined him. The chorus of human and wolf howls went on for a while, but at some point, I stopped howling and simply listened, feeling a freedom in my soul that I find hard to describe. It’s a writer’s block that actually gives me pleasure.

When I began my human, screechy imitation of a wolf’s howls again, Tristan gave me a disdainful stare. Then, never taking his eyes from mine, he decided to take pity on this mere human and howled with me. Shivers of delight rolled up my spine. It is a moment I will never forget.

Now available on Amazon

The above essay is a short piece from my book Travels with Maggie, which — to toot my own horn – would make a great Christmas gift for travel enthusiasts, especially RVers. You can get it on Amazon.

            Bean Pat: Window into the woods https://awindowintothewoods.com/2018/11/19/really/#like-11871 Brave little chickadee.

            Pat Bean is a Lonely Planet Community Pathfinder. Currently, she is writing a book, she is calling Bird Droppings, which is about her late-bloomer birding adventures. You can contact her at patbean@msn.com

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Bar Harbor, Maine

Posted in Favorite Places, Journeys, Travel, Travels With Maggie, tagged , on June 7, 2018| 6 Comments »

Bar Harbor park at the pier. — Photo by Pat Bean

“A minute of thought is greater than an hour of talk.” — John C. Maxwell

A Lesson in a Watchful Moment

I spent a week on Desert Island, home of Acadia National Park, at a campground  just outside of Bar Harbor, Maine. It was an awesome week that included visits to the park, a boat tour around Frenchman Bay, a lobster lunch at the pier, lots of bird watching, and free shuttle rides that let me explore the entire island while my canine companion stayed behind in Gypsy Lee, my small RV.

View from Acadia National Park on Desert Island in Maine. — Photo by Pat Bean

But travel is more than just being a tourist. And while I have fond memories of all the sights and activities I saw and did, when I think of Bar Harbor, the first thing I remember is watching two women trimming hedges on the village green, where I was waiting at the shuttle stop.

After the pair had finished, they walked to the other side of the street for an overall look back at their efforts. Their actions struck me as what should be a life axiom. Sometimes we need to stand back from our current activities and potential decisions so we can see the whole picture.

There have been many times in my life that I’m sure I would have made better decisions if I had done just that.

Bean Pat: Your voice https://www.janefriedman.com/you-have-a-voice-and-it-means-something/ I follow several blogs on writing, and this is one of my favorites – and most useful/

Pat Bean is a Lonely Planet Community Pathfinder, who spent nine years traveling North America from coast to coast and border to border in a small RV. You can read more about her Maine adventures in her book, Travels with Maggie, now up on Amazon at http://tinyurl.com/y8z7553y  You can contact her at patbean@msn.com

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The Right Words

Posted in Art, Birds, Books, Journeys, The Write Words, Travels With Maggie, Writing on April 4, 2018| 5 Comments »

            “Writing is easy. All you have to do is cross out the wrong words.” – Mark Twain

A peaceful evening at the pond. — Art by Pat Bean

Good Writing is Rewriting

It took me eight years and five complete rewrites before Travels with Maggie was ready to be published, and at the end, I found it hard to let go because I worried about mistakes. But I finally did, and when that 75,000-word book went up on Amazon, I immediately started my next book, which is about my late-blooming birding adventures. I didn’t start seeing all the amazing birds around us until I was 60. This new passion bit into my soul at the perfect time, as my body was beginning to tell me it should take up a less strenuous hobby than backpacking and white-water rafting.

Tri-colored heron along the Texas Gulf Coast’s Blue Water Highway between Surfside and Galveston. — Photo by Pat Bean

I’m tentatively titled my new book in progress, Bird Droppings, although one writer friend has suggested the connotation might turn readers off. I thought it might intrigue them. It’s a collection of short essays and anecdotes and my idea is that the title fit these scenarios perfectly. “Just something to think about,” my supportive friend said. “Titles can make or break books.”

What do you think? I would really like to know if you share mine or my friend’s viewpoint.

Meanwhile, when I was 10,000 words into the book, I lost my focus, and for the next few weeks I always had an excuse when it was time to add more words to it. If you’re a writer and haven’t yet faced this setback, please tell me how you avoided it.

Anyway, I finally decided to simply start at the beginning and edit what I had written. Mostly, I decided it wasn’t good.  I had forgotten to leave out the boring parts. That is author Leonard Elmore’s advice to writers.

So, I’m rewriting, because that’s what dozens of quite successful authors say writing is all about. It’s working.  Writing has become exciting and fun once again, and the book is going forward – but this time my focus is more on making each word count, then on the number of words written each day.

Travels with Maggie, meanwhile, has earned good rankings on Amazon from 12 reviewers. Yes, I’m bragging.  If you’ve read the book, perhaps you would like to add a review. If you belong to Kindle Unlimited, you can even download the book for free. Someone said you need at least 89 reviews to get noticed.

Sigh!

I guess Bird Droppings and Travels with Maggie both still have a long way to go.

Bean Pat: My beautiful things  https://mybeautfulthings.com/2018/04/04/scarf-maya-angelou-and-martin-luther-king/ Scarf,, Maya Angelou and Martin Luther King.

Pat Bean: is a Lonely Planet Community Pathfinder. Her book, Travels with Maggie, is now up on Amazon at http://tinyurl.com/y8z7553y  Currently, she is writing a book, tentatively titled Bird Droppings, which is about her late-bloomer birding adventures. You can contact her at patbean@msn.com.

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Travels with Maggie

Posted in Books, Dogs, Journeys, Travels With Maggie, Writing on January 23, 2018| 9 Comments »

“What is the feeling when you’re driving away from people, and they recede on the plain till you see their flecks dispersing?  It’s the too huge world vaulting us, and its good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.” – Jack Kerouac, author of “On the Road.”

Maggie in her favorite spot on the over the cab bed in my RV. She had an attitude, as you can see from this photo. This photo was taken near the end of our journeys when my canine companion was almost 15 years old. — Photo by Pat Bean

 

Five-Star Reading

In July I wrote a blog about putting the finishing touches on my book, Travels with Maggie, and mentioned how hard it was going to be to let “my baby” go out for the world to read. But I knew if I kept thinking that it was not perfect, it would never get published.

So, I finally let it go.

It’s now been up on Amazon for a couple of months, and even has garnered a few five-star reviews. But this morning I remembered that July post when I shared the back of the book blurb and list of contents and asked my blog followers if they would read this book.

I know some of those who responded have, but not all. So, I decided to use my blog to blatantly promote my book a second time.

Maggie didn’t like it when a passenger took her co-pilot seat, but when I stepped out of the RV she always got in the driver’s seat. The above photo was taken near the beginning of our journeys when Maggie was not yet seven years old. — Photo by Pat Bean.

Travels with Maggie is a book about one woman’s fulfillment of a dream that began when she was 10 years old. It chronicles a 7,000-mile RV journey, mostly on backroads, through 23 states and Canada. The odyssey begins in May of 2006 from a daughter’s home in Arkansas, and ends in time for Thanksgiving at another daughter’s home in Texas.

I think my writing voice brings a much-needed feminine voice to the world of such travel writer greats as John Steinbeck, William Least Heat Moon, Paul Theroux, Bill Bryson and Charles Kuralt. It’s a book about chasing birds across American, and a book about my relationship with Maggie, my on-the-road companion for eight years.

Never an early riser, like me, Maggie preferred to sleep in until about 10 a.m. – Photo by Pat Bean

And this is the table of contents: How it all Began … Letting Go of the World’s Worries … What Queen Wilhelmina Missed … Yes, Virginia, There is a Silver Lining … Two More Oklahoma Parks – And a Lifer …  Childhood Memories, A Kindred Soul and Marlin Perkins    Heart of the Ozarks …  Roy Rogers, A Tragic Past and an Ouch … A Scenic Riverway, a German Town, and a Margarita Night … Saint Louis: Chihuly, a Birdcage, an Arch and Beer … In the Footsteps of Mark Twain … Meandering Through Illinois Where Kickapoos Once Roamed… The Prophet – And Howling with Tristan … Hotter than Hell in Indiana …  Highway 12, Cade Lake, The Brick Dick and Henry Ford … Celebrating a Summer Halloween … Traveling Beside Lake Erie … Niagara Falls and New In-Laws …The Adirondacks … Ticonderoga, Norman Rockwell and Rainy Vermont … The Stone Man … Good-Bye White Mountains, Hello Maine …  A Week on Desert Island … Strong Women and Paul Bunyan … It’s a Log … Or a Moose …  Scarborough Marsh, Bad Vibes and Boston … Help! My RV’s Lost at the Airport … An Embarrassing Moment and a Hug from a Granddaughter … Hawk Mountain and the Big Apple … Sitting out a Storm in a Wal-Mart Parking Lot … Lost and Found in Philadelphia …  All Dressed up for Pony Watching … Crossing Chesapeake Bay and a Sick Dog … Dismal Swamp, Roanoke Rapids and Simple Things …  The Carolinas – Books, Tobacco and Art …  Georgia on my Mind …  Alabama: Home of the Bible Belt and a Boll Weevil Monument … Mississippi Bird Encounters and a Historic Trail … Know When to Hold ‘Em and Know When to Fold ‘Em… Memories of a Dear Friend …   Epilogue.

So, would you please buy and read this book? And if you’ve read it, would you please write a review.

Bean Pat: Bo’s Café Life:

Bo’s Cafe Life Flashback

A daily cartoon about writing.

Pat Bean is a Lonely Planet Community Pathfinder. Her book, Travels with Maggie, is now upon Amazon at http://tinyurl.com/y8z7553y  Currently, she is writing a book, tentatively titled Bird Droppings, which is about her late-bloomer birding adventures. You can contact her at patbean@msn.com

 

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