Posted in Uncategorized, tagged comfort, dogs, postaday2011, Travel, weekly photo challenge on October 10, 2011| 3 Comments »
“You may have a dog that won’t sit up, roll over or even cook breakfast, not because she’s too stupid to learn how but because she’s too smart to bother.” — Rick Horowitz
Travels With Maggie
Maggie lives a most comfortable life -- and she gives me comfort. And this was the most comforting think I could thing of to illustrate this week's photo challenge. -- Photo by Pat Bean
Posted in Birds, Journeys, Nature, Travel, Uncategorized, tagged dogs, drought, green jays, John Steinbeck, pat bean, postaday2011, Rio Grande Valley, Texas, Travel, wrong turns on October 7, 2011| 3 Comments »
“A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find that after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.” – John Steinbeck
My wandering mind waa on green jays as i drove Highway 36 toward Lake Jackson. -- Photo by Pat Bean
Travels With Maggie
With my canine traveling companion, Maggie, snoozing away in her co-pilot seat, I left Harker Heights, and my oldest son’s home, early for our drive to Lake Jackson, and my middle son’s home 250 miles away. It’s a very familiar drive for me, one I’ve made many times.
As I passed oil rigs, grazing cattle, cotton fields, mesquite trees and roadside sunflowers that let me know I was in Texas, I was glad to see the color green still existed. It had been missing on my drive two days earlier down Highway 190, clear evidence of the dastardly drought the state has been suffering. .
To all Texans living where heat and drought has scorched the landscape, I just wanted to show that green does still exist. This is the view from my RV window in Lake Jackson. -- Photo by Pat Bean
While admittedly things weren’t quite as lush as I remembered from past drives down Highway 36, the landscape was still a far cry from the brown and dying cedar trees, lack of grass and stunted and yellow cactus that had dominated my entry back into the Lone Star state on Tuesday.
The driving this day was easy with little traffic. As usual under such circumstances, my mind begins to wander. This day, it went south to the Rio Grande Valley, perhaps because I was thinking about when I would be able to go there and do some winter birding.
From Lake Jackson, where I was headed, it’s only a half day’s drive. I would have to see what bird festivals were going on down there in the coming months, I thought as I drove.
My mind must have still been with the fantastic green jays down there when I came to the Highway 35 turnoff, because I took it. I was looking for it in fact.
Oops!
I then realized that what I had actually been looking for was the Highway 36 turnoff that I always took when I returned from the valley. But then I had already been on Highway 36.
I guess I should have been paying more attention to where I was than where I wanted to go.
Anybody else out there have a mind that plays tricks on them like that?
If so, I hope you have a traveling companion like Maggie. She never yells at me when I take a wrong turn.
Posted in Travel, Uncategorized, tagged canyonlands national park, high flight, john gillespie magee, milton-freewater, Oregon, pat bean, postaday2011, surly bonds of earth on September 20, 2011| 5 Comments »
Travels With Maggie
I am in Milton-Freewater, Oregon, where I have an extremely busy day ahead of me in preparation for getting on the road tomorrow. So I’m simply going to share my very favorite poem in the whole universe with you. Have a great day!
My earth-bound legs can only dream of soaring free in a sky like this that one day overlooked Canyonlands National Park. -- Photo by Pat Bean
High Flight
“Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And Danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence, Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air …
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace.
Where never lark, or even eagle flew —
And while with silent lifting mind I have trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.
— John Gillespie Magee Jr.
Posted in Travel, Uncategorized, Weekly Photo Challenge, tagged cowgirl hall of fame, cowgirls, fort worth, pat bean, postaday2011, Travel, weekly photo challenge: texture, women on September 15, 2011| 3 Comments »
“Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told ‘I’m with you kid. Let’s go’” — Maya Angelou
I was looking through my photos for a picture to illustrate texture and came across this. Certainly the textures found in the lives of these strong women qualify. I find it awesome to just think about the softness of their hearts, the hardness of the steel fueling their gumption, the kindness of their hands on a child’s feverish face, the hot rash of passion in their lives and the rough calluses of their ranch worn hands. And it’s all beautiful.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged authors and books, British authors, female rebels, hawthornen prize, postaday2011, Virginia Wolfe, vita-sackville-west, writers on August 25, 2011| 3 Comments »
“It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by. How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment? For the moment passes, it is forgotten; the mood is gone; life itself is gone. That is where the writer scores over his fellows: he catches the changes of his mind on the hop.” — Vita Sackville-West
Authors and Books
Victoria Mary Sackville-West at 17. Painting by Phillip de Laszlo
I collect quotes that speak to me. The one above by Sackville-West shouts at me. I am a writer who must write or not be. And I know that what I write today will not be the same words I will write tomorrow.
Life, be it a butterfly that alights on a flower in front of me and expands my mind about beauty or an earthquake that shakes the ground beneath my feet and forces me to consider death, continually colors my thoughts. That last analogy, as you probably already know, was prompted by yesterday’s headlines.
The quotes that go in my journal are collected everywhere. From my reading of diverse books, from the women in my Story Circle Network, from a bumper sticker, a billboard, and from my musings of quote blogs when I want one on a particular subject for my own blog.
I’m not sure where the Sackville-West quote came from. I found it on perusing my own journals for something to write about today. The blog I thought I would write this morning, the one that bloomed so clearly in my brain yesterday, I decided to chuck. See what I mean about not being able to write one day what you could have the day before.
Vita in her 20s. Painting by William Stang
One of the side benefits of collecting quotes is learning about the person who said or wrote them. Not always, but when I have time, I check out the author if I haven’t heard of them.
Sackville-West was a person I had never heard of when I originally copied her quote into my journal. I didn’t look her up back then, but was moved to find out who she was when I came across her name again this morning. It used to be I would have to go to a library for such research, but now I simply Bing or Google it. Gawd I love the Internet. Anyway, here’s what I found out about Vita:
She’s really a Victoria, which immediately jarred my brain because I thought Vita was a male name. She was born in 1892 as Victoria Mary Sackville West, the only child of the 3rd Baron Sackville. Because she was female (English former gender laws), she could not inherit her Kent family home, Knole House, after her father died. It went to an uncle. She is said to have considered this a betrayal for the rest of her life.
Historical plaque on Ebury Street in London -- Wikipedia photo
Perhaps that is why she became a female rebel. While she was supposedly happily married to Arthur Nicholson, 1st Baron Carnock, she also had same-sex affairs, the most prominent being with Virginia Wolfe. Vita’s son said Wolfe’s “Orlando” was a love letter to his mother, only with a sex change for Vita.
Sackville-West wrote no less than 17 novels of her own, winning the renown British Hawthornden Prize for literature twice.
I found all this trivia fascinating, although it boggles my mind that I knew who Virginia Wolfe was, but if I had ever heard of Vita Sackville-West, the name had never imprinted on my brain
.I am definitely going to have to check out Vita’s books and see if any are still in print. Her quote, which rescued today’s blog, demands it.
Posted in Birds, Nature, Travel, Uncategorized, tagged Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, Birds, common nighthawk, Idaho parks, Joanne Kamo, Lake Walcott, photo gallery, postaday2011 on August 24, 2011| 1 Comment »
“It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird. It would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs … We must be hatched or go bad.” C.S. Lewis
Travels With Maggie
Common nighthawk -- Photo by Joanne Kamo, whose many other wonderful bird photographs can be seen at http://www.pbase.com/jitams
I try to time my last walk with Maggie so that it ends just as the sun goes down so as to catch the sunset. The days, in my opinion, are best when they begin with a sunrise and end with a sunset.
But late evening is also the time of day here at Lake Walcott State Park in Southern Idaho when the nighthawks come out to feed. For a kettle of common nighthawks that regularly takes place over the campground where my RV, Gypsy Lee, is parked.
They dine in the air on the many insects that also call this small park home. It’s always a treat to see them. Not only are they awesome to watch, my brain knows that every bug they eat is one that won’t bite me.
A fellow lone-female traveler, not a birder, who stopped by recently to visit me, asked what the birds flying overhead were as we shared our evening walk.
Common nighthawks, I told her. Then pointed out how to easily recognize them when in flight.
Common nighthawk -- Photo by Joanne Kamo
About the size of a robin, these birds have long, forked and pointed wings with a distinctive broad white bar about a third of the way up from the tip of the wing. The white bars are very prominent.
“Do they always fly that low,” she asked, as a couple of the birds zoomed in front of us at about head level.
“Nope. Usually they fly much higher,” I replied. “I guess the bugs are flying low tonight.”
The first time I saw these birds, whose large heads seem to lack a neck, they were flying even lower, however. I was fairly new to birding at the time, having only become addicted to the passion in 1999. The life sighting occurred while I was walking a trail at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, where they were flying low over a small pond.
After watching them for a while, I realized they were skimming bugs off the water. Looking in my field guide to identify them, I discovered they were a member of the goatsucker family, whose name tickled my funny bone. According to folklore, these birds were thought to suck a goat’s milk at night.
The image this false legend flashed through my brain gave me an even more robust chuckle.
There are so many reasons why I’m passionate about birds, and such oddities as this, which I swear each species seems to enjoy, is just one.
Lake Walcott, meanwhile, has treated me to more common nighthawks in one night than all the others I’ve seen elsewhere. If you visit, I hope you take advantage of the nightly summer show.
Posted in Uncategorized, Weekly Photo Challenge, Wildflowers, tagged black-eyed susans, postaday2011, weekly photo challenge: flowers on August 22, 2011| 3 Comments »
Black-eyed susans at Lake Walcott State Park -- Photo by Pat Bean
“Let us dance in the sun, wearing wild flowers in our hair.” ~Susan Polis Shutz
Posted in African Safari, Travel, Uncategorized, tagged african safari, Alberto Santos-Dumont., champagne breakfast, hot air balloons, postaday2011, Serengeti on August 14, 2011| 10 Comments »
“The balloon seems to stand still in the air while the earth flies past underneath.” – Alberto Santos-Dumont.
The two balloons behind us as we made our way over the Serengeti. -- Photo by Pat Bean
African Safari: Moving with the Wind
Kim and I were up well before dawn this day. We were going ballooning over the Serengeti. It was one of the costly extras not included in our already expensive African Safari package. So, foolishly, or wisely, depending on how you consider these things, we signed up for the adventure.
One large elephant trumpeted in unison with the whoosh of flames that lifted our balloon higher. -- Photo by Kim Perrin
I, as did Kim, knew that if we didn’t do it we would probably suffer regrets for passing up the rare experience for the rest of our lives. It took me until about 40 to realize that I had a lot more regrets for things I hadn’t done than for any things I had done. And I had remembered the lesson well.
The balloons were still being blown up when we arrived at the take-off field, and we got a briefing from Captain Neal, who would pilot our balloon, one of three going up this day. I thought him kind of cocky, but then I’ve never met a pilot who wasn’t.
Having survived our windy landing, and with smiles all around, we pose for a group photo we will receive as a souvenir.
Perhaps they need to be to have the necessary confidence to believe they can fly without wings.
It was still fairly dark when we took off. So when the flames roared to give the balloons an extra burst of hot air to keep them aloft, they took on a colorful glow in the gray morning light. It started the day like a fairy tale, and images of the hot air balloon in “Around the World in 80 Days” flashed through my head.
Our balloon flew low over the landscape, passing over a small herd of elephants. At the whoosh of flames as Captain Neal turned up the burner to take us up a bit higher, one of the larger elephants looked up at us and trumpeted.
To celebrate our successful hot air balloon ride over the Serengeti, we are all treated to a champagne breakfast. -- Photo by Pat Bean
The wind was fairly brisk this morning, and not only did we arrive at our destination more quickly than normal, we overshot the landing site. And then when it landed, the wing dragged the basket a way and then it tipped over.
All was well, however, and we posed for a group picture before crowding into a land rover to be taken back to the landing site, where a champagne breakfast had been set up for us.’
What a fantastic morning. I’m so glad I didn’t miss it.
Le Figaro said it best in 1908: “I have known today a magnificent intoxication. I have learnt how feels to be a bird. I have flown .. I am still astonished at it, still deeply moved.”
Posted in African Safari, Travel, Uncategorized, tagged african safari, lions, postaday2011, tall tales on August 12, 2011| 3 Comments »
This wide awake youngster reminded me of my oldest son, who would never take a nap. -- Photo by Kim Perrin
“Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder, a part of experience.” – Francis Bacon
The lionesses, about half a dozen of them, with several cubs were camouflaged well beneath some bushes. -- Photo by Kim Perrin
African Safari: The Sneaky Lionesses
I lost track of how many lions we saw in Africa. It was a lot. But several of the sightings will live on in my memory forever
Kim and I saw mating lions, fighting lions, sleeping lions, sneaky lions, yawning lions, stalking lions, full-belly lions, mama lions, baby lions and one young male who made a detour from the path he was walking with his mom and sibling to scratch his back on the tire of our Land Rover.
The sneaky lions were actually the most scary. We had been watching several female lions, tucked away beneath some thick bushes snoozing. They had several cubs among them, all also sleeping except for one frisky little bugger.
As we watched, the youngster played around by itself for a while, then decided it was hungry and began crawling all over the sleeping lionesses looking for a titty. .
One of the two mama lions who crept up to keep a close eye on us. It was spooky when we suddenly spotted her. -- Photo by Pat Bean
Three of the mamas flicked it away with their paws when it tried to nurse, but a fourth – I’m not sure if it was the cub’s actual mama or not as the nursing seemed to be a communal activity – finally allowed it to suckle.
Joseph, who was our guide for this lion viewing, decided to drive around the back of the bushes, on the far side of a short trench, for a better view. As we sat there watching the lion pride snoozing in the bush, we suddenly realized that two of the concerned mamas had crept up from the ditch and were watching us.
Our Land Rover suddenly felt a little less safe. Joseph must have felt so, too, for he turned the ignition to drive us away. But the engine sputtered instead of starting.
Carefully, keeping the vehicle between himself and the lions, he got out and opened the hood, then fiddled with something for a moment or two before getting back in the driver’s seat.
The vehicle started and Joseph, whom we could almost hear sigh in relief, drove off to a spot with a clear view of the surrounding landscape and got out and fiddled with the engine some more.
“Just an excess of dust,” he commented as we got back in the Land Rover and drove on for some more wildlife viewing.
Next Tall Tale: The lion fight
Posted in African Safari, Travel, Uncategorized, tagged african safari, bateleur, cheetahs, greater spotted eagle, lions, Masai Mara, postaday2011 on August 11, 2011| 2 Comments »
“Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold.” Helen Keller
Bateleur -- goafrica.com photo
African Safari:
Our afternoon safari with Joseph started off with some new life birds for me, including two eagles, a bateleur and a greater spotted eagle. Joseph said the first was known for its snake killing talent, and the latter was a rare find.
“I don’t get to see to many of them,” he said.
Since the spotted eagle was in its winter plumage and its spots not clearly visible, I probably would have missed the identification without Joseph’s help.
The bateleur, however, was a much easy bird to identify, and I had been looking for one ever since I had hit Africa. It was great to finally see one of these magnificent birds. It reminded me of our own caracara just a bit.
Joseph then decided it was time to go look for some cats. First on the agenda were some lions, including one whose yawn looked ferocious. It provided us with a good view of its deadly fangs – and made me glad I wasn’t a warthog or a gazelle.
Just a yawn, but he's not your average pussycat. -- Photo by Kim Perrin
Next on Joseph’s mission were a mom and three young cheetahs. It started to rain and the territory, where he suspected they were hanging out, was extremely rough but Joseph wouldn’t give up.
And to Kim and my delight, we finally came across the cheetahs just as the sun was beginning to set. Kim got a fantastic photo of the mom and one of the young ones, who mostly kept low in the rocks.
The rain followed us back to camp, and Kim and I got a bit wet since the sides of the Land Rover were open for better game viewing. I didn’t mind at all. And neither did Kim. It had been a marvelous day – and a little rain wouldn’t melt us. .
A cheetah mom and one of her three young charges at sunset in the Masai Mara. -- Photo by Kim Perrin
Bird Log of New Lifers: Grey-headed bush shrike, woodland kingfisher, red-throated tit, yellow-throated longclaw, greater blue-eared starling, wooly-necked stork, rosy-breasted longclaw, bateleur, spur-winged goose, black-winged plover, rufus-bellied heron, sand martin, wire-tailed swallow, white-faced whistling ducks, white-browed robin, northern black flycatcher, Ross’ turaco, double-toothed barbet, spectacled weaver, African blue flycatcher, greater spotted eagle.
“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
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