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Archive for the ‘Writing’ Category

Dale Chihuly and Mother Nature

Posted in Art, Favorite Places, Travel, Writing, tagged , , , , on August 18, 2012| 6 Comments »

“You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul.” – George Bernard Shaw

Green trumpets growing among the green foliage. — Photo by Pat Bean

Weekly Photo Challenge: Merge

 

These brillantly hued flowers will last forever — or until broken. — Photo by Pat Bean

In the summer of 2006, Dale Chihuly and the St. Louis Botanical Gardens got together. The world-recognized glass artist created an exhibit to merge his art with nature’s art in the garden’s geodesic dome greenhouse. I had merged with St. Louis at the same time.

As I walked through the dome’s earthy rain forest, I couldn’t stop taking pictures. Usually I find too much time with a camera in front of my eyes dulls my senses. So I snap a picture or two, then put my camera away and bring out my notebook.

Glass meteorite for the garden. — Photo by Pat Bean

While it’s said “one picture is worth a thousand words,” as a writer I appreciate that it takes words to express that idea.

But this day, staring at Chihuly’s colorful glass creations that represented everything from reeds and Mexican hats, to herons and meteorite balls plopped down among a bounty of foliage, to brilliantly hued flowers and snaky vines,, left me wordless.

When I later looked at the photos, I found I had mingled Chihuly’s art with the creations of nature so well that I sometimes had to stop and ask myself which was which.

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Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Dogs, Journeys, Travel, Travels With Maggie, Writing, tagged , , , , , , on August 17, 2012| 13 Comments »

Hello World – Again

“Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It’s more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.” – Ray Bradbury.

Discovering My Voice as a Wondering/Wandering Old Broad 

This is an illustration that Laura Hulka helped me come up with for my Bean’s Pat, my way of paying back all the reader awards my blog has received. What do you think? Is it a go?

This is my 645th blog since I started my WordPress blogging journey with a blog called “Hello World” in November of 2009. I was taking that Gotham travel writing class I mentioned in my last two blogs, and the instructor said I needed to have a blog.

That first year, I blogged about 10 times a month, mostly about the places I had visited as a full-time RV-er.  Then in 2011, WordPress began its post-a-day challenge and I accepted. I’m so glad I did. .

Writing daily has given me the voice that the first draft of my travel book needed, improved both my writing and thinking skills, and garnered me worldwide friends.

At first I tried to disguise that I was an old broad when writing my blog, which was the same thing I did in the first draft of my book, “Travels with Maggie.” Maggie, as many of my readers know, was my canine traveling companion for eight years. She died earlier this year, and now I travel with an energetic, fun-loving Scottie mix named Pepper.

Don’t forget to smell all the flowers and be amazed at all the butterflies you come across. — Photo by Pat Bean

Recently, as I continued blogging and struggling with the rewrite of my travel book, I realized that being an old broad was one of the best things I had going for me. It set me apart from all those young travel writers out there in search of love. It’s not that I have anything against such a search. I certainly did my share of that. But that’s not me today. The person I am today, and which is my voice, is that of a wondering/wandering old broad.  It’s exactly what I do and who I am.

I wonder a lot about things but seldom have answers to the questions. The only advice you’ll ever get from me is to live in the moment and take time to smell as many of life’s flowers as you can.

I wonder if I would have ever recognized my true self without my daily blogging?

Book Report: Good rewriting morning. Travels with Maggie is now up to 35,726 words

Bean’s Pat:  Baroness Trumpington http://tinyurl.com/br6r7p2 Not a blog but a newspaper story about a great old broad I admire. I think society underrates us old pussies, as Agatha Christie called Miss Marple and others of such an age.

 

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Okefenokee Swamp

Posted in Favorite Places, Nature, Travel, Travels With Maggie, Writing, tagged , , , , on August 15, 2012| 6 Comments »

“We have met the enemy, and he is us.” — Pogo, alias Walt Kelly

Amazing What You Learn When You Travel

Bridge stand-off in the Okefenokee Swamp. — Photo by Pat Bean

Really? There’s an actual  Okefenokee Swamp? I thought Walt Kelly made the place up, the same as he did Pogo and all those other swamp cartoon characters. I must have missed a Georgia geography lesson, or else my Texas teachers were too enamored with tales of the Alamo to include any other state in their history lessons.

At 600 square miles, the Okefenokee Swamp should not have been so easily dismissed.

I got my first look at this geographical wonder at Swamp Park, a Walt Disney like educational and tourist attraction located on  Cowhouse Island  near where the Suwannee River begins life.

In wetter years, visitors to Swamp Park were treated to a boat ride down this waterway. But it was too dry when I visited the park in 2006. — Photo by Pat Bean

The park features plants trimmed to look like animals, scenic walkways above which alligators laze by a pond and an open air train pulled by a black, red and gold painted engine dubbed the Lady Swanee. The train’s tracks meander through stands of saw palmetto, and past a chickee (an open-air native American shelter) and a replica of a moonshine still. I assumed the sights were intended to give tourists an insight into past residents of the area.

The swamp’s name, Okefenokee, means trembling earth and refers to the land’s spongy moss base. I learned a lot more about the Okefenokee during a lecture given by a weathered local, who said he lived in the swamp alone in the winter.

“Bill collectors can’t find me, and I feel honored when I hear a panther scream,” he said. On a more educational note, he said the swamp’s dark water was the result of tannic acid leached from plants and that it was good to drink despite its color.

“We call it gator-ade.”  At this aside, he brought out several small alligators to give his audience a chance to see details of this ancient reptile survivor up close. I touched the smallest of them, thrilled to be part of the experience and more than a mere spectator.

Book Report: 32,985 words. I deserve my own Bean’s Pat for getting that much done today. It was laundry day, and it required a 50-mile round-trip into Burley to get it done.  I cheated on my blog, however. It’s a homework assignment for a Gotham travel writing class I took a couple of years ago. But the swamp was one of my stops on the six-month journey that is the subject of “Travels with Maggie.”

Bean’s Pat: Heart’s Garden http://tinyurl.com/97f7g6d Day After Day. The wondering wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

 

 

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Posted in Favorite Places, Lakes, Nature, Writing, tagged , , , , , , on August 13, 2012| 7 Comments »

Lake Walcott State Park

“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 Burroughs.

Yet Another Amazing Morning Walk

Early morning on Lake Walcott — Photo by Pat Bean

            It’s been a busy past week: Computer problems and two 100-mile round-trips to try to get it fixed before buying a new one to end my frustrations, out-of-town visitors to my camp site here at Lake Walcott, unsuccessful struggles to meet a writing goal although I did add 5,000 new words to my travel book, falling way behind on correspondence, etc. etc.

            All of the above obstructions to my peaceful existence disappeared this morning when I took Pepper for an early morning walk. I let Mother Nature take the weight off my shoulders and simply let my mind an senses revel in the reflection of the sun on the lake, the sight of apples growing in a tree next to the trail to the boat docks, two perfect yellow flowers growing in the cranny of a rock wall smiling at the sun.

I returned to my RV refreshed and ready for the coming week, confident that whatever this week throws at me, I will embrace it and survive.

Thank you Mother Nature.

Book Report: My goal this week is 10,000 words on my travel book. Encourage me keep my fingers and brain moving.

Bean’s Pat: http://tinyurl.com/d9lsjxf Some days it’s just Monday. Blog pick of the day from the Wondering Wanderer

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Two More Oklahoma State Parks

Posted in Books, Favorite Places, Lakes, Nature, Travel, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , on August 6, 2012| 9 Comments »

 “I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore … I hear it in the deep heart’s core.” – William Butler Yeats.

“I’m an old-fashioned guy … I want to be an old man with a beer belly sitting on a porch, looking at a lake …” – Johnny Depp (Ditto, except instead of a beer belly it will be tits down to my waist.”

Sleeping by Water

The view out my RV window at Grand Lake o’ the Cherokees at Bernice State Park in Northeastern Oklahoma. — Photo by Pat Bean

While my route only took me through a northeastern sliver of Oklahoma, I found three state parks in which to camp. In addition to Natural Falls, where the movie, “Where the Red Fern Grows,” was filmed, there were Lake Wister and Bernice, both of which are attached to lakes: Lake Wister, a 7,300-acre reservoir created by a dam on the Poteau River, and 46,500-acre Grand Lake o’ the Cherokees formed by the Grand River at Bernice.

The peacefulness and beauty of my nights by these lakes led me to continue seeking out similar campgrounds as I continued my travels – and parking my RV as close to water as I could get .

If you like Winslow Homer’s painting of the “Fox Hunt,” you should most certainly check out today’s Bean’s Pat.

Often I would find myself falling to sleep listening to the soft murmur of water sloshing up against one bank or another. It seemed fitting that one of the many books I read on my journey was “River Horse” by William Least Heat Moon, whose “Blue Highways” was one of my traveling role models.

In this later book, Moon, made his journey across America from the Atlantic Ocean at the New York Harbor to the Pacific Ocean near Astoria, Oregon, in a boat called Nikawa, or river horse in the Osage language.

Travels With Maggie: 27,682 words. The original draft was about 60,000 words, so I’m nearing the halfway point, although I’m thinking it might be closer to 70,000 words when I finish, despite the many cuts I’m making. The task of adding my voice to this travelogue is, I think, requiring more than eliminating the redundancies and any boring parks. I might have been farther along at this point except computer woes, which still have not been totally resolved, ate up the better part of two days.

Bean’s Pat: Golden eagle attacking a fox http://tinyurl.com/c29uogk Winslow Homer painted ravens harassing a fox, and I’ve seen ravens doing just that, but this photo is way more fantastic.

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Favorite Places: Campgrounds With a Waterfall

Posted in Favorite Hikes, Favorite Places, Lakes, Nature, Travels With Maggie, Writing, tagged , , , , , on August 3, 2012| 3 Comments »

 “The point is that when I see a sunset or a waterfall or something, for a split second it’s so great, because for a little bit I’m out of my brain, and it’s got nothing to do with me. I’m not trying to figure it out, you know what I mean? And I wonder if I can somehow find a way to maintain that mind stillness.” – Chris Evans

And Lots of Birds and Scenic Trails

A walk among the tree branches at Natural Falls State Park in Oklahoma. — Photo by Pat Bean

Natural Falls State Park had it all, a waterfall, scenic trails and lots of birds. And I wasn’t the only one who thought so.

Producers of the heart-warming, “Where the Red Fern Grows,” based on the book of the same name by Wilson Rawls, used the park as a setting for the movie.

Natural Falls was my fourth stopping place on the six-month journey I’m detailing in “Travels With Maggie.”

My favorite hike while there meandered around a small lake and through the woods to a view of the park’s 77-foot namesake. At one point along the trail, a wooden footbridge took me up to tree branch level, where I paused awhile to listen to birds.

77-foot tall Natural Falls. — Photo by Pat Bean

By tracking the melody, I located a  northern cardinal and then a song sparrow that sang a duet from the same tree.

Nearby a yellow-rumped warbler, or butter-butt as birders call it, added its drum-beat chirp to the chorus. I identified it when it flashed its yellow rump at me.

Of course I lingered at the park for a couple of days. How does one leave such perfectness too quickly?

Book Report: Murphy’s haunting me. I spilled coffee on my computer yesterday, which is why I didn’t post. I had written my post and had added about 500 words to my book, Travels With Maggie, before the catastrophe hit, and I had to make a 100-mile round-trip to Best Buy in Twin Falls, Idaho. The fix is only temporary until I get the new keyboard in I ordered, and I’m still dealing with delaying quirks. I’ve been saying the S word a lot. Dookie computers. Can’t live without them, at least I can’t, and it’s hard as hell to live with them. The silver lining, which I always look for and usually find, is that I didn’t lose anything. I keep promising myself I’m going to back up, and I keep not backing up.

Bean’s Pat: http://tinyurl.com/cflc44d The deadly results of playing the comparison game. The wondering wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

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Favorites: Travel Books

Posted in Books, Travel, Wildflowers, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on August 1, 2012| 7 Comments »

 “The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” – St. Augustine

Ten of Hundreds

 

Lake Powell, which destroyed Glen Canyon and which wouldn’t ever have existed if Edward Abbey’s “Monkey Wrench Gang” characters had anything to say about it. — Photo by Pat Bean

I won’t say these are my 10 favorite travel books, because I could name 10 more just as easily. But these are books that influenced my decision to become rootless and make the road my home for the past eight years.

I Married Adventure, 1940, by Osa Johnson. I picked this book up at the library when I was about 10 years old. I was always sneaking into the adult section. I think I already knew I had wanderlust, and this book simply confirmed it. I, too, wanted adventure.

Blue Highways by William Least Heat Moon. My 22-foot RV, Gypsy Lee, is my version of Moon’s green van, Ghost Dancing. I loved this book so much that I’ve given dozens of copies away as gifts. The green-dotted scenic byways marked on today’s maps are my blue highways.

Road Fever, by Tim Cahill, I have loved everything this Wyoming author has written, especially this book that details a 15,000-mile trip from Tierra del Fuego to the top of Alaska. I’ve read everything this author has written that I could come across, including his many Outside magazine stories.

A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson. This book fueled my desire to walk the Appalachian Trail, but except for a few miles on various sections it’s a to-do list item that I’ve waited too long to get around to doing. But I still have time to hike at least a few more miles on this trail whenever I come across one of its many trailheads.

One of Charles Kuralt’s more popular “On the Road” episodes wat the time he hooked up with a botanist to put names to all the wildflowers he was seeing, like this fireweed. — Photo by Pat Bean

Travels With Charley by John Steinbeck. I read this book many years ago, but reread it when I took to the road in 2004. My wordsmith friend, Charlie Trentelman, mentioned that I was the female version of Steinbeck, thus the title of my travel book, “Travels With Maggie.” Thank you Steinbeck.

On the Road with Charles Kuralt. Charles Kuralt was also influenced by Steinbeck. Kuralt, meanwhile, is actually the traveler most like me. We were both journalists, and we both prefer looking at life’s brighter side. I cried when Kuralt died, and one of my favorite travel photos is of his “On the Road” RV that’s on exhibit at the Henry Ford Museum.

The Snow Leopard, by Peter Matthieson. A fantastic writer who makes one think. This book brought the Himalayas to life for me. I was privileged to have once heard this author speak.

Out of Africa by Isek Dinesen. Like Osa Johnson, this book made me want to travel to Africa. Not only did I do that in 2007, I visited Dinesen’s former coffee plantation in Nairobi.

Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey. While I loved this book, Abbey’s “The Monkey Wrench Gang” is my favorite of all that he has written. It, too, could be considered a travel book in that it includes awesome descriptions of Utah and Arizona’s red-rock landscape.

The Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux. No travel book collection would be complete without Theroux. This is my favorite of his many.

Book Report: Busy morning, then a four-hour lunch with a group of mostly crazy old broads, whose Bay of Pigs nickname rivals my former group of crazy old broad friends called the Murder of Crows, that I wouldn’t have missed for the world. It comes under my umbrella mantra of smelling all the flowers and grabbing all the gusto this life has to offer. While I will do some editing as part of the rewrite of my travel book late this afternoon, I doubt I will add any significant word count. It’s the story of my writing life, conflicting goals. The good thing is that I no longer flagellate myself for such lapses.

Bean’s Pat: Photos and Facets; http://tinyurl.com/ckpfxer No! It’s not the London Bridge you’ve been seeing on television.

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What Queen Wilhelmina Missed

Posted in Favorite Hikes, Favorite Places, Nature, Travels With Maggie, Writing, tagged , , , , on July 31, 2012| 2 Comments »

 “A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.” Lao Tzu

Best Cheeseburger of My Life

One of the park’s trails let to this vista overlooking a sea of green. It was called the Lover’s Leap viewpoint, the first of three so named vistas I would encounter during this journey. — Photo by Pat Bean

My canine traveling companion, Maggie, and I had barely started our journey, like it was the second day out, when we stopped for four days at Queen Wilhelmina State Park. Located on a ridge high in Arkansas’ Ouachita Mountains, the park was named after Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands in hopes that she would visit.

The four days I stayed here still float pleasantly through my head. In addition to the beautiful scenery, I had the best cheeseburger of my life as I sat in the park’s high vista lodge, looking out a huge picture window at dark clouds moving in.

Crimson hollyhocks brightened another of the park’s trails. — Photo by Pat Bean

There’s something in me that loves a storm. I was glad, however, that I made it back to the coziness of my RV, with my last bite of cheeseburger wrapped in a napkin for Maggie, before the downpour began.

Queen Wilhelmina didn’t know what she had missed.

Book Report. Today’s one of my twice monthly trips from Lake Walcott into town to stock up on supplies and do laundry. But knowing that I had committed to making a book report of my travel book progress kept me on track. “Travels With Maggie” grew by 1,750 words this morning, bringing its rewritten total to 25,261. Thanks y’all for being here for me.

Bean’s Pat: Gypsy Mama http://tinyurl.com/bwbb8og Ordinary days. I think they’re great, too. The wondering wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

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Arkansas: Where “Travels With Maggie” Begins”

Posted in Books, Favorite Places, Journeys, Lakes, Nature, Travels With Maggie, Writing, tagged , , , , , on July 30, 2012| 13 Comments »

A short visit to White Oak Lake was included in activities on the first day of my “Travels With Maggie.” — Photo by Pat Bean

 “It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.” – J R R Tolkien

The Gurdon Lights

On the first day of my six-month, 7,000-mile, 23-state plus Canada journey, which is what the travel book I’m hoping to complete rewriting by the end of August is about, I passed through Gurdon, Arkansas.

The small town’s claim to fame is the Gurdon Light, which supposedly haunts the railroad tracks a few miles out of town. The mysterious light, which many have claimed to have seen, was featured on the TV show “Unsolved Mysteries” in 1994, and is described in the “Encyclopedia of Arkansas.”

As was a hike with Maggie on a nature trail at Poison Springs State Park. Sorry, I didn’t manage to snag a photo of the Gurdon Lights. — Photo by Pat Bean

Some believers claim the light is the lantern of a railroad worker who stumbled in front of a train and was killed. Others believe it is the lantern of William McClain, a railroad worker who was murdered in 1931 at about the same time the floating light was first seen. Skeptics look for a more natural phenomenon, such as quartz crystal in the area exuding electricity.

All I saw when I crossed the railroad track as it passed through Gurdon were rock pigeons perched on overhead utility wires. I suspected the small town’s pigeon population was larger than its human one. I wondered if these city dwelling birds had ever seen the lights, and asked my canine traveling companion, Maggie, what she thought.

She didn’t answer. She was asleep – and snoring.

Book Report: This is a tidbit from the first day of my travels. The book, in its third and final rewrite, is now 23, 511 words on its way to completion.

Bean’s Pat: Write to Done http://tinyurl.com/d73y49c 50 quotes to inspire writers. The wondering wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

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Blue Water Highway: From Surfside to Galveston

Posted in Birds, Books, Favorite Places, Journeys, Nature, Travel, Writing, tagged , , , , , , on July 27, 2012| 2 Comments »

“All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.” – Martin Buber

Travels With Maggie: Voice

As you travel the Blue Water Highway from Surfside to Galveston, you can enjoy two different landscapes, the beach and restless waves of the Gulf of Mexico to the east of the road, and a lush marshland where birds, such as this tri-colored heron can be seen in abundance. — Photo by Pat Bean

This past November, I blogged about my NANO (National Novel Writing Month) experience in which I wrote a 50,000 lousy first draft of a mystery. It was a way for me to keep up my six-day-a-week blog and still have time for the serious business of writing that NANO demanded.

So as to keep my blog’s travel theme, I also posted pictures of some of the many places I’ve visited since I became a full-time RV-er eight years ago.

About midway during those eight years, I wrote a travel book: “Travels With Maggie: The Journeys of a Wondering Wanderer and Her Canine Companion.”

It’s a six-month travelogue that begins in May and will take readers 7,000 miles, through 23 states and Canada.. It begins in a small town in Arkansas, wiggles north to Acadia National Park in Maine, and climaxes in Texas in time for Thanksgiving with family.

After it was finished, it was accepted as a book worthy of critique for the Mayborn Nonfiction Writer’s Workshop, and received high praise in all but one area. The nine writers who critiqued it, to a person, all said it lacked voice.

A restless Gulf provides a background for these laughing gulls. — Photo by Pat Bean

I’ve played around with rewriting the book for the past two years, but finally got serious, and re-excited, about doing it just two weeks ago. That’s mostly because I finally found my voice.

While writing the first draft, I had this image in my head that readers would get turned off if they knew how old the author was. That, along with my journalist background of keeping my own voice out of stories, was a serious flaw which I am now correcting.

I love that I’m an old broad with perspective, and I’m now trusting that readers will appreciate it, too.

This old broad stops for butterflies wherever she sees them. — Photo by Pat Bean

So so as to simplify my blogging so I can spend more time on my travel book, I’ve decided to repeat what I did during NANO, which is to post pictures of some of this country’s many beautiful places, while at the same time keeping you updated on the progress of my travel book. Perhaps you’ll even have your own perspective to add to my thoughts.

In the meantime, I’m also trying to convince an agent that my book will fit perfectly on a bookshelf between Charles Kuralt’s “On the Road,” Tim Cahill’s “Road Fever,” and John Steinbeck’s “Travels With Charley” – but with a birdwatchers’ old-broad slant.

Bean’s Pat: Durango to Silverton http://tinyurl.com/bm73owe A train ride you shouldn’t miss. Brian and Shannon are two of my favorite bloggers, perhaps because they and I travels frequently cross paths. Blog pick of the day from the wondering wanderer.

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