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Travels With Maggie: Windy Kicks on Route 66

Posted in Nature, Travel, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on May 4, 2010| Leave a Comment »

On the Road: The past and the present side by side on Route 66's Enchanted Trails RV Park. -- Photo by Pat Bean

  “A person has to do what a person has to do.” — Pat Bean

Days 13-16

I was on the road for only about 20 minutes before yesterday’s wind resumed. It tricked me into thinking it was going to be a calm day. My RV and I wrestled with while headed west on Interstate 40 for 125 miles. In Tucumcari, New Mexico, I surrendered to a roadside KOA. The place quickly filled with other RV-ers who also hollered “Uncle!”

The next day again started calm, but once again the wind picked up before I had traveled far. This time I gave up after 85 miles, stopping at the Enchanted Trails RV Park on the west side of Albuquerque. A look at the upcoming weather forecast convinced me I needed to stay put for the next three days.

It was a good thing I did because my revered Mother Nature rained, snowed, hailed and blew over semis all around me for the next couple of days. Fortunately, my camp site only experienced an hour or so lightning show and 15 minutes of a light rain. The wind, however, rudely shook my RV around for the full three days.

Leftover Route 66 memories -- Photo by Pat Bean

Interstate 40, roughly follows the colorful and historic Route 66, where business such as reptile zoos, Indian trading posts and old-fashioned ice cream shoppes made traveling an adventure. Enchanted Trails is one of those businesses that survived by catering to present day travelers. The former trading post sits on the original 66 highway in view of today’s Interstate 40, where travelers have forgotten the journey in the rush to reach the destination.

 

Walks around the camp to take care of Maggie’s business — and fill my ears up with blowing sand — revealed bits of Route 66’s colorful past. I’m glad I got to travel the original route in its heyday. What you didn’t miss is the up side of aging. I’m also glad that I still understand the importance of the journey.

Life is good, even when one finally gives in and screams at the noisy wind rattling their tiny home to “Just stop it already!” Sometime you have to do what you have to do, even if your canine companion looks at you as if you’re crazy.

Copyrighted by Pat Bean

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Travels With Maggie: Big Steak, Bad Haircut and a Bodacious Wind

Posted in Birds, Nature, Travel, Uncategorized, tagged , , , on May 3, 2010| Leave a Comment »

 

Y'all come for dinner, Big Tex says to visitors headed west on Interstate 40. He was the landmark just before my exit to the Amarillo Ranch RV Park

 “Botanists say that trees need the powerful March winds to flex their trunks and main branches, so the sap is drawn up to nourish the budding leaves. Perhaps we need the gales of life in the same way, though we dislike enduring them.” — Jane Truax

 Days 10-11

The first thing I saw on hitting Interstate 40 heading east into Amarillo was Big Tex, urging y’all to drop by the Big Texan Steak Ranch. It was one of the numerous billboards advertising this restaurant that I had seen as soon as I reached the Panhandle. The restaurant’s gimmick is a free 72-ounce steak if you can eat the whole thing in an hour. The odds, like in Vegas, are in the establishment’s favor. If you lose the cost of the steak is $72.

 I kept my money and fixed myself a bowl of my homemade crab and shrimp gumbo soon after I checked into the Amarillo Ranch RV Park – they throw the word ranch around a lot in this part of Texas. I planned to stay two nights so I could catch up on chores, but ended up staying three because of a wind storm.

 The next day, the only good one weatherwise,  I did  laundry, grocery shopping and got a haircut. I now had clothes that once again were lavender-smelling clean, a full  food cupboard, an overflowing tiny refrigerator – and bad hair.

“I want my bangs to touch my eyebrows and leave some fullness on the side,” I told the stylist.

 She was either deaf, unskilled or mad at the world and wanted to take it out on me. I left the beauty shop with too much forehead in front and too little hair above my ears. Thankfully my hair grows fast.

Cadillac Ranch, another I-40 landmark. This one a public art installation that says much about Texas. Photo by Richie Diesterheft, Wikipedia

 My plans to get back on the road the next morning were then thwarted by Texas-sized winds that kept my motor home rocking and rolling all day even though it stayed parked. They also took me down.

I was going out to walk Maggie when the wind grabbed control of the door, slamming it up against the side of my RV and tossing me 20 feet across the grass when I didn’t let go of the handle quick enough.  I landed, thankfully, on my padded bum but still with a  clumsy kid’s scratched knee.  Maggie nuzzled me, then gave me a look that said,  I thought we were going for a walk.

 Amarillo in my rear-view mirror the next morning wasn’t a bad sight.

Copyrighted by Pat Bean

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Travels With Maggie: A Golden-Fronted Woodpecker

Posted in Uncategorized on May 2, 2010| 4 Comments »

A golden-fronted woodpecker visit to my Palo Duro Canyon camp site -- Photo by Pat Bean

“I don’t ask for the meaning of the song of a bird or the rising of the sun on a misty morning. There they are, and they are beautiful.” — Pete Hamill

 Day 10

 As I was getting my RV travel ready for my trip to Amarillo, I glanced out my window – and then did the thing I so often forget to do. I grabbed my camera. Luck was with me this day for I actually captured the image of the golden-fronted woodpecker visitor through a window from inside my tiny home.

 I once was in a canoe coming around a bend on the Green River when what sounded like a loud shotgun blast drew my attention shoreward. Before my very eyes a cliff-side avalanche was taking place. I watched in awe, totally forgetting the camera hanging around my neck.

Such has been my relationship with so many awesome events in my life. The truth is, I carry a tiny even-dummies-can-do-it digital camera with me almost everywhere I go. For those who need to know, it’s a Canon PowerShot SD850.

The canyon has her secrets -- Photo by Pat Bean

I purposely leave it in my pocket most of the time. When I do take it out, I quickly snap a picture and put it back. Having worked often with journalistic photographers, I know it’s not the way to capture award-winning shots. It is, however, my chosen way of seeing the world.

 Looking through a camera lens, at least for me, dims the world around me. Mostly, when I think of taking a photograph, I’ve missed the perfect action moment. This time I didn’t.

Copyrighted by Pat Bean

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Travels With Maggie: San Angelo to Lake Colorado City State Park

Posted in Birds, Nature, Travel, Uncategorized, tagged , , on April 26, 2010| 1 Comment »

A perfect place to end the day: Lake Colorado City State Park ... Photo by Pat Bean

A perfect place to end the day: Lake Colorado City State Park ... Photo by Pat Bean

“Stand still. The trees ahead and bush beside you are not lost.” — Albert Einstein.

Day Five

 I needed to stock up on supplies, including chemicals to keep my RV holding tank smelling like honeysuckle or the close approximation, so before leaving San Angelo I needed a Wal-Mart. I looked up the nearest one on my computer mapping program and wrote down the directions. Somewhere between the park and the store, however, my missing sense of direction had me zigging instead of zagging.

My planned 10-minute side trip into town ended up taking over an hour. The up side – I always try to find one when horse pucky happens — was that I now had a more personalized feel for San Angelo.

This Central Texas city of 100,000 is dissected by the Concho River, a fact that made itself known as I crossed it several times in my efforts to get unlost. The twisting river flows between O.C. Fisher Lake to the north of town and Lake Nasworthy to the south, where I had spent the night.

Depending on the section of town in which I was lost, I could describe San Angelo as a progressive town or a decaying one, a place of manicured lawns or junky shacks, and its residents as rich or poor. Actually most of it looked pretty middle class, which gave it a distinction of being just about like any other city of its size I’ve explored. ations. The flat see-for-miles landscape was dotted with sagebrush, cactus and clunky mesquite and cedar trees. Adding color to the otherwise dull landscape were the roadside wildflowers Texas is known for: purple verbena, bluebonnets, pink primroses, and yellow blossoms too numerous (and difficult) to identify. Oil rigs, cattle, spring-plowed fields and huge windmills completed the picture. The latter was a recent addition to a landscape that was etched on my Texas memory.

The oil rigs pumping on one side and windmills turning on the other spoke of this country’s over-weight dependency on energy. I was glad to see the cleaner fuel source addition, but wondered if it would be enough. I, however, couldn’t cast stones. My RV was my glass house. My holding tank deodorizer, however, was organic and non-toxic.

 
 

Red-winged blackbird

A red-winged blackbird with shoulder epaulettes as bright as a shiny fire engine brought my attention back to nature. It stayed there until I drove into Lake Colorado City State Park, where I would spend the next two nights in a campground full of mesquite trees just coming into bloom. Both the trees and the ground beneath them was atwitter with birds. Life is good.

Photos and prose copyrighted by Pat Bean. Do not use without permission.

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Travels With Maggie: Lazing Around at Garner State Park

Posted in Nature, Travel, Uncategorized, tagged , on April 22, 2010| 3 Comments »

A good spot to sit and watch nature flow past on the Frio River in Garner State Park in Garner State Park ... Photo by Pat Bean

“Rest is not idleness and to lie sometimes on the grass under the trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time. — John Lubbock

Day Three

Staying put a day or so while traveling has multiple advantages. More time to enjoy an area, a time to rest from driving and sight-seeing, and a means to balance the budget. My goal when traveling is to live on $50 a day. Ideally that means spending $20 on gas, $20 on campground fees and $10 on food.

It never works out exactly like that. State parks and other public campgrounds usually meet the nightly lodging fee criteria, but commercial parks can run up to $35 a night. Some cost even more, but those I avoid. A longer day’s drive means more spent on gas, but a multiple day stop averages that back to my budget restriction. Ramen noodles and free parking in my kids or a friend’s driveway help cover overages and things like museum fees, trolly tours, books and an occasional restaurant splurge. Volunteering for a month or two at a state park, where I get a free camp site and don’t drive, covers emergencies like an unexpected dentist bill or new tires for my RV. It’s a balancing act I’ve worked out in the six years I’ve lived in my RV. It mostly works, although red is not an uncommon color on my accounting sheet.

Maggie took the rest day seriously ... Photo by Pat Bean

Today was one of those rest and budget-catch-up days, my only expense being the $15 camping fee. Exploring the park with Maggie and Mother Nature’s wildflower landscape were free.

Garner sits by the cool, clear Frio River, mentioned by George Strait in his “All My Exes Live in Texas,” recording. The park itself is named for former Vice President John Nance Garner, also known as Cactus Jack in his hometown of Uvalde.

A popular get-away for Houstonians, many a youngster has taken his first dance steps to a jukebox tune on the concrete slab at the park’s lodge. It’s where campers hang out in summer after a day of fishing, tubing, birdwatching or kayaking. Me, I took short walks with Maggie down by the river, watched the birds from my RV, and read a China Bayles mystery.

Photos and prose copyrighted by Pat Bean … Do not use without permission

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It’s Bluebonnet Time in Texas

Posted in Nature, Uncategorized, tagged , on April 15, 2010| 3 Comments »

A field of bluebonnets at Goose Island State Park in Texas. -- Photo by Pat Bean

“To find the universal elements enough; to find the air and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed by a morning walk or an evening saunter; to be thrilled by the stars at night; to be elated over a bird’s nest or a wildflower in spring – these are some of the rewards of the simple life.”  — John Burrough 

A drive past a field of bluebonnets, or even just a roadside ditch colored by their blue intensity, calms my soul. It’s my alternative to a psychiatrist’s couch. And when I get to walk through a field of them, as I did this past week at Goose Island State Park outside of Rockport, Texas, the chaos of today’s world briefly disappears.

Bluebonnets represent Mother Nature at her finest. And Texas has adopted them, all five species, as its state flower. Yes, I said. five. It’s as if the goddess of beauty couldn’t just create one.

There’s Lupinius subcarnosus (the original state flower title holder that prefers sandy soil), Lupinus texensis (the favorite of artists because of its fanciful white-tip), Lupinius Havardii (the Big Bend variety whose flowering spikes grow up to three feet tall), Lupinus concinnus (a smaller plant whose blooms are more rosy and lavender than blue), and finally Lupinus plattensis (which favors the Texas Panhandle as habitat).

While I find these botanical facts fascinating, and thank Texas Cooperative Extension experts for educating me about bluebonnets, the true joy comes from being able to stand beside a patch of these blooms and breath in their beauty. They make me proud to say I’m a Texan.

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Writing Contest

Posted in Uncategorized on January 30, 2010| Leave a Comment »

If you have written a  book and are looking for an agent, you might be interested in checking out this blog.  www.guidetoliteraryagents.com/blog. It details rules of upcoming contests involving the first 200 words of your project. Check it out.

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How the Magpie Became My Animal Totem

Posted in Uncategorized on January 5, 2010| Leave a Comment »

 

Black-billed magpie ... Photo by Stephen S. Skrzdlo

Back in the 1980s, and a few years before I noticed birds lived among us, I was visiting a friend who lived alongside the Snake River.  As she was showing me her farm, I spotted some long-tailed black and white birds flying over the water. I thought they were magnificent.

My friend laughed, and said the birds were pesky magpies, cousins to crows, and that farmers despised them.

This was the first magpie I could recall seeing. And never had I watched such a sight as the one before me. The magpies, their dark feathers glistening with an iridescent sheen in the sunlight, were swooping, circling and diving above the water with a winged grace that astounded me.

A few weeks later, I found myself hanging out with a group of New Agers at a “Back to the Goddess Worship.” As a feet-on-the-ground, cynical journalist I wasn’t a believer, but these people were my friends. Besides there there wasn’t much else to do in Twin Falls, Idaho.

Night found me sitting beneath a starry sky and a blazing campfire on the rim of the Snake River Gorge when the workshop leader asked each of us to tell us what animal was their totem. She began by divulging that hers was a mountain lion, and then passed the talking stick to the next person in the circle. I listened in amazement as the women talked about bears, foxes, golden eagles and wolves.

I didn’t have an animal totem and decided when it was my turn to speak, I would simply say so and pass the stick along.

As soon as the wooden rod touched my hand, however, this voice from out of nowhere said: “Magpie.” It took a minute for me to realize the words were coming from my own mouth, and that I was continuing to speak.

“… because the magpie is loud and raucous like a Texan which I am and can be, is playful and intelligent as I hope I am, and its black and white colors range across the entire color spectrum, which to me represents a broadminded way of thinking, which I like to think is one of my better traits.” I was certainly broadening my thinking now I thought as I numbly handed the stick to the person on my left.

And that’s how the black-billed magpie, pica hudsonia, became my animal totem. True story.

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A New Year, A New Journey

Posted in Uncategorized on January 1, 2010| 1 Comment »

This New Year’s eve found me and my dog, Maggie, escaping rain and fog at Lake Bob Sandlin State Park. Located 10 miles south of Mount Pleasant. It’s a great place for some gentle hikes, my favorite being one that winds through the woods to a small pond where catfish and trout keep fishermen happy.

New Year's Eve at Lake Bob Sandlin ... Photo by Pat Bean

This day, however, I was lucky to find a few moments between downpour episodes for Maggie and I to take a quick walk around the paved Cherokee Trace camping loop where my RV was hooked up. I had chosen a spot right on the lake, a premium site that in less inclement weather would already have been taken when I arrived. It’s availability was the silver lining that always accommodates a storm, as were the raft of ducks that ignored the rain as they swam past my view near the lake’s shore, and the blue jays, mockingbirds, tufted titmice and fat squirrels that played in the trees outside my window when the rain slowed to a drizzle.

Instead of bemoaning my alone-ness on this celebratory night of the year, I found myself rejoicing in it. Maggie and I crawled into our above the cab bed early, but I set my alarm so as to be up to watch as 2009 would dissolve at the magic moment into 2010. It’s always been an exciting time in my life, a sheaf of 365 blank pages on which to write.

I awoke without the help of the alarm, fixed myself a hot chocolate, added a dash of Jack, and listened to fireworks off in the distance. I’m not sure exactly when Father Time whisked past my RV, but when I knew he had, I crawled back into bed. As usual, I had to scoot Maggie over. She had slept through the change of years. The warmth her body had imprinted on my side of the bed felt good, and helped push me back into the world of dreams.

 I awoke at 5 a.m. to a blaze of light streaming in the window by my head. By turning on by stomach, I could see it’s source. A full moon. And not just any moon, but a rare New Year’s Eve Blue Moon. The last time we had one of those was 1990.

 I got up and sat on the couch, wrapped in a bright red, gold, turquoise and black furry blanket a granddaughter had given me, and watched this glowing miracle melt into a morning sky. It just seemed the right thing to do on this first day of the year.

Afterward, I fixed myself some coffee and sat at my table. The ducks, blue jays, mockingbirds and titmice, joined by a couple of bright red cardinals, were back, but this time playing and singing beneath the rays of a golden sun that came with the dawn.

It wasn’t until I finished my second cup of coffee that I decided it was time for me to stop watching 2010 begin its 584 million-mile trek around our solar system and begin inking my own exploratory journey on those marvelous blank pages. And with that Dr. Seuss’ words rang through my head:

 “Oh the places you’ll go and the things you’ll see … Will you succeed? Yes you will indeed.”

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A Wish for the New Year

Posted in Uncategorized on December 26, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Western sandpiper ... photo courtesy Wikimedia

I was sitting with my binoculars atop a canyon overlook of the Firehole River in Yellowstone National Park watching a western sandpiper make its way along the river’s shore. It would occasionally disappear behind a rock but soon appear on the other side as it slowly made a steady trek up the river’s edge.

 As I delighted in watching this small creature, a car pulled up near me and I became aware that a woman was eagerly scanning the direction I was looking. After awhile, she got out of her vehicle and came over to where I was sitting.

 “OK. I give up. What are you looking at,” she impatiently asked. ”

A sandpiper there on the shore.” I pointed in its direction, expecting her to take a look. I would even have shared my binoculars with her if she had showed some interest. To my surprise, however, she was annoyed.

 “Oh poo! she said. “I was looking for real animals. Like a moose, or an elk.”

She then got back in her car and sped off. The truth is I’ve seen more of what this woman considered “real” creatures since becoming an avid birder than ever before. For one thing, I’m in the outdoors more often, thereby increasing my chances to see elk, rabbits, antelope, squirrels, beavers, marmots and foxes. And while looking through binoculars or a scope for a tiny bird off in the distance there is no way I’m going to miss the five deer feeding on a hillside, or the porcupine curled among tree branches in a a tree that’s hosting a dozen red-winged blackbirds.

 My late-blooming passion for birds has been Mother’s Nature’s special gift to me. My wish to each of you for the new year is that you find your own special passions in life – and be wise enough to know that birds are “real creatures,” as well.

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