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A Mesquite Grove’s Nature Tidbits

April 21, 2011 by Pat Bean

Purple gem

Abandoned bee or wasp’s nest
Cactus buds
Onion family plant, perhaps.
Thistle blossoms — Photo by Pat Bean

“The woods are lovely dark and deep. But I have promises to keep. And miles to go before I sleep…” — Robert Frost

Travels With Maggie

I wanted to show you pictures yesterday of all the tidbits Mother Nature showed me on my walk through the mesquite grove at Lake Arrowhead State Park. WordPress, however, was being ornery and wouldn’t cooperate.

So since I want to get an early start on the road today so I can put some miles behind me and have a day to sit, since I must be in Zion National Park on the 29th, I thought I would simply show you those things today as my blog offering.

P.S. WordPress, by the way, is still being ornery. It wouldn’t let me place the pictures where I wanted them in my blog.

Posted in Nature, Travel | Tagged , , , | 7 Comments »

Lake Arrowhead: A Creaky Nature Trail Walk

April 20, 2011 by Pat Bean

 
An early morning walk through a honey mesquite grove is full of surprises. — Photos by Pat Bean

 “Keep a green tree in your heart and perhaps a singing bird will come.” Chinese proverb

Travels With Maggie

I had barely stepped onto the trail before I heard a sort of screeching sound, which had me looking for a bird as its most likely source. I soon realized I was wrong.

It was the trees creaking with the wind. And this nature trail I was following was simply a mesquite grove with little else going for it, I concluded. Wrong again.

Just about the same time I decided the talking trees weren’t really all that eerie, I began seeing other bits of nature sharing the mesquite tree grove.

Cactus coming to life after the winter, purple thistle dotting the landscape, and numerous other plants that sadly I didn’t have a name for.

It was a short trail that ended way too soon.

The photos I took along the way, meanwhile, will remind me not to draw conclusions before seeing the evidence.

Posted in Lakes, Nature, Travel, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments »

Journey’s First Night Spent at Lake Arrowhead

April 19, 2011 by Pat Bean

 “Let your mind start a journey thru a strange new world. Leave all thoughts of the world you knew before. Let your soul take you where you long to be … Close your eyes and let your spirit start to soar, and you’ll live as you’ve never lived before.” Erich Fromm

Lake Arrowhead fishing pier -- Photo by Pat Bean

Travels With Maggie

It was a helaciously windy drive on this first day of my journey to Idaho for the summer, but the splendidly colorful buttercups that brightened the roadside cheered me up.

I was even welcomed with bluebonnets when I hit Lake Arrowhead State Park just about 15 miles outside of Wichita Falls and 150 miles from my journey’s beginning in Rowlett. It’s the first of several public campgrounds I plan to hit as I slowly hop West and North to escape summer’s heat.

Since it’s now 92 degrees outside, I would say I’m escaping just in time.

Black-tailed prairie dogs call Lake Arrowhead State Park home. -- Photo by Pat Bean

I took Maggie on a short walk as soon as I hooked up, then afterward went on a quick bike ride to snap a few pictures for the blog. I’ll go again when it cools off but for now I’m vegging in air-conditioned comfort in my RV.

Maggie, meanwhile, is in her favorite spot, sprawled out on our over-the-cab bed directly in front of the air-conditioning vent.

Lake Arrowhead is a reservoir on the Little Wichita River that supplies water to Wichita Falls’ residents and recreational opportunities, especially fishing, for visitors. It’s pretty all right for birders, too.

I saw my first of the year scissor-tailed flycatcher just as I drove past the entrance and other birds everywhere including, great blue herons, great egrets, mockingbirds, red-bellied woodpecker, mockingbirds, coots, Canada geese, great-tailed grackles (including a pair mating), barn swallows, red-winged blackbirds and killdeer within 15 minutes of arriving.

Life is good.

P.S. If you’re in the Wichita Falls area May 13-14, and enjoy 1800s history, drop by for the park’s Buffalo Soldier Encampment.

Posted in Journeys, Lakes, Nature, Travel | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

The Guilty Pleasure of Being Alone

April 18, 2011 by Pat Bean

“One travels more usefully when alone, because he reflects more.” — Thomas Jefferson

Plopping myself down and feeling the wind on my face as I let a river sing to me is one of my favorite things to do when traveling. This photo of the Virgin River was taken in Zion National Park. -- Photo by Pat Bean

Travels With Maggie

I got my birthday wish. The shop just called and said my RV, Gypsy Lee, is ready to go. Tomorrow night I will be dancing my on the road jig with my dog, Maggie, looking on.

“I’m free, I’m free, I’m free,” I’ll sing in my tone-deaf voice. Just singing is freedom in itself because it’s not something I do in front of anyone. Those who know me well have even said how much they appreciate my consideration.

But singing and dancing just for myself is what I’ve done every spring for the past seven years after leaving my beloved family – and they are very loved – behind after hopping around between them in Texas and Arkansas each winter.

Sometimes too much of a good thing is too much.

Finding trails to hike with Maggie is also high on my travel list of things to do. -- Photo by Pat Bean

I’ve long known moms out there who don’t want an empty nest. They’ve always made me feel guilty because of the space I seem to need.

 I remember when all my children were at home – five, with nine years separating the youngest from the oldest; what I wanted most in those days for my birthday was just a day to myself at home alone. Never got it.

Lately, I’ve been coming across more and more women like myself, who brazenly admit they treasure their time alone. I wonder if perhaps, like me, they finally feel secure enough to admit it. Heaven forbid I would have said such a thing not too many years ago. I would have damaged my children’s egos – or so I thought.

These days, after winter’s end, I think my children are just as happy to wave good-bye to me for a while. And that doesn’t hurt my feelings at all. The time spent apart will just make our next time together all the sweeter.

Or so I suspect.

Posted in Favorite Hikes, Nature, Travel | Tagged , , , , , | 6 Comments »

Odd Goose Island Tree Raise Questions

April 17, 2011 by Pat Bean

“I soon realized that no journey carries one far unless, as it extends into the world around us, it goes an equal distance into the world within.” Lillian Smith

Has life shaped you like a gulf wind has shaped this Goose Island State Park tree? -- Photo by Pat Bean

Travels With Maggie

Standing in a field of grass patterned with bluebonnets at Goose Island State Park is a tree that’s allowed wind blowing in from the Gulf of Mexico to shape its profile.

It wasn’t much different, I thought on first seeing it, then how life shapes us humans.

For some odd reason, I thought again this morning about that tree, which I had photographed last April when I spent a week with my dog, Maggie, on Goose Island birdwatching. I think my brain was triggered in that direction after reading the quote: “Normal is a setting on a washing machine.”

On finding the photograph, I decided to blog about the message the tree had conveyed to me.

I’m not sure now that was such a good idea.

My thoughts, just as I placed my fingers on the keyboard, became such a jungle of contradictions that I’ was suddenly struck wordless. That’s a rarity by the way.

Do I write about how walking into a newsroom the first time pushed the rest of my life into a direction as slanted as that tree? Or about how coming out of a raft and being pulled beneath it gave me more appreciation of life? Or about how travel has opened up new worlds and new ways of thinking?

I couldn’t decide.

Perhaps some less confused blog readers can help me out. How has life shaped you? I’d really like to know.

Posted in Nature, Travel | Tagged , , , , , | 9 Comments »

Sunshine and Problems With Solutions Make Me Happy

April 16, 2011 by Pat Bean

 “Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy. Sunshine in my eyes can make me cry. Sunshine on the water looks so lovely. Sunshine almost always makes me high … If I had a wish that I could wish for you. I’d make a wish for sunshine all the while..” John Denver

Sunlight helping create this rainbow coming of Mesa Falls in Idaho should make anyone happy. -- Photo by Pat Bean

Travels With Maggie

John Denver’s “Sunshine on My Shoulder Makes Me Happy” is one of my favorite songs. But sunshine on my computer screen does not. And the latter is what I have this morning as I sit writing in an unused room in my daughter’s home, where I’m stuck until my RV gets out of the shop.

I took a picture to show you my dilemma, but then realized the cord to transfer it from the camera to my computer is in Gypsy Lee. Yet another reason why I’m missing my home on wheels, as is my dog, Maggie, who keeps going to the door whining to go out to her home. .

Meanwhile I could get up and close the curtain to solve the reflection problem, but I not only like Denver’s song, I like sunshine on my shoulder. It does make me happy.

So, with a little bit of maneuvering, I discovered that if I angle my computer a bit to the left, and my body a bit to the right, I still have the sun blessing my back while my own shadow keeps my computer screen in the shade so I can read the words on it. .

Problem solved. And that makes me even happier.

Age has taught me that life is never problem free. Whether it’s my recent problem of finding what was wrong with my RV, water dripping down from the ceiling as recently happened to my daughter, or the more serious problems of a child on drugs or a loved one dying of cancer.

Some troubles can be solved, but some can’t. For those  times, which come to all, may there also be sunshine to help ease the pain. It seems to be helping Maggie. She’s now snoozing away in the sun that’s streaming through the window.

I should probably stop whining about missing Gypsy Lee as well. She’s getting her problems fixed.

Posted in Uncategorized | 9 Comments »

Photographer Captures Great-Tailed Grackle Spat

April 15, 2011 by Pat Bean

 “One does not meet oneself until one catches the reflection from an eye other than human.” Loren Eiseley (Quote on Mark B Bartosik’s profile page at http://www.pbase.com/mbb/profile )

Take that, and that, and that -- Photo by Mark B Bartosik

Travels With Maggie

If I were on the road, instead of waiting around for my RV to get ready for the road, I’d probably be walking around somewhere with a pair of binoculars looking for birds. Instead I’m perusing them from my armchair via the internet.

I’m subscribed to two birding chat groups: Birdtalk and Texbirds. The first discusses birds seen in Utah, where I lived for 25 years, and the second is about bird sightings in Texas, where I was born and now spend my winters.

While I usually just quickly scan and delete most of the many messages I receive from these chatty birders, one Texbird name always slows me down: Mark B Bartosik.

The entanglement continues in flight. -- Photo by Mark B Bartosik

While he downplays his talent, I count him as about the best bird photographer around. This is especially notable because Mark’s focus is so often simply on the common birds anyone of us can easily find.

A recent example are the photos he took of some male great-tailed grackles engaged in a full contact battle, probably fought over some yellow-eyed chick. He caught the magnificence of a bird species that many people consider pests.

I was absolute spellbound by the life and attitudes of these birds that Mark captured with his camera in a three-minute period. I think you will be too.

If you want to prove me right or wrong, check them out at http://tinyurl.com/69crrr6 The two photos I’ve posted here are only a sample.

Posted in Birds, Nature, Travel | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments »

And Here’s the Rest of the Gypsy Lee Story

April 14, 2011 by Pat Bean

 “Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.” — Mark Twain

Gypsy Lee among the cactus at Pancho Villa State Park near New Mexico's border with Mexico. -- Photo by Pat Bean

Travels With Maggie

The 114,500 miles I’ve put on my VW Vista RV, Gypsy Lee, the past seven years have been good ones. I bought her new in 2004 and she’s gotten me everywhere I’ve wanted to go, done it averaging 15 mpg of fuel, and never broken down on the road, well except for a blown tire.

Together – Gypsy Lee, my dog Maggie and I – have traveled from ocean to ocean and from the Mexican border up into Canada. In return for her faithful service, I’ve had her oil changed every 3,000 miles, bought her several new sets of tires, given her a complete tune-up at 65,000 miles, one new fuel filter, and one new set of brake pads. That’s It.

But now she’s in the shop getting a major, and expensive, facelift. This time when I had her checked out to make sure she was road ready, the VW technician – that’s what they call mechanics and grease monkeys these days – found some significant wear and tear. He pointed it out to me as I stood beneath her lifted body, which still looked pretty good he said.

Gypsy Lee got me to Canada so I would walk through a marsh in Point Pelee National Park in Ontario. -- Photo by Pat Bean

While a transmission service and new brake pads are the only things nearing an emergency breakdown, I opted to do all the work the technician recommended. The cost, while it hurts, is actually less than that of the new roof I put on my last home.

And Gypsy Lee is my home. Or she will be again when I get her back Monday. That’s my 72nd birthday by the way. And I can’t think of a better present than having my RV ready to hit the road again. Hopefully Gypsy Lee and Maggie will be up to the next 100,000 or so miles. I sure am.

Posted in Nature, Travel | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments »

My RV, Gypsy Lee, is Misbehaving

April 13, 2011 by Pat Bean

 

Gypsy Lee hooked up at Lake End RV Park in Morgan, Louisiana. -- Photo by Pat Bean

“My recipe for dealing with anger and frustration: Set the kitchen timer for twenty minutes, cry, rant and rave, and at the sound of the bell, simmer down and go about business as usual.” — Phyllis Diller.

Just for Today

 Sunday I drove 65 miles from Arkansas’ Felsenthal National Wildlife Refuge to Camden, where my youngest daughter lives.

Gypsy Lee, my Volkswagen RV with a Winnebago home atop it, had a rare tantrum on the drive. It was her third in about a year. The engine check light came on, the RPMs on the tachometer increased slightly, and she shifted late and hard.

Sunset at Lake End as viewed out Gypsy Lee's window. -- Photo by Pat Bean

Monday I took her into the shop in Camden but everything checked out except a loose air conditioning fan belt, which the small repair shop didn’t have in stock. I called and made an appointment with a VW dealer near Dallas for Wednesday morning. It’s one of the rare places that provides full-service for VW Vistas, and fortunately my oldest daughter lives in the Dallas suburb of Rowlett.

Tuesday I drove the 250 miles from Camden to Dallas in a perfectly behaving Gypsy Lee, although the engine light was still on.

This morning when I started Gypsy Lee up, the engine light was off – and she drove perfectly the entire 33-mile trip through heavy commuter traffic to the large VW sales and service center in Lewisville, where she’s getting a thorough going over, a new fan belt and an early lube service before I start my zig-zagging trip to Idaho Friday.

The trained VW mechanic shook his head questioningly when I explained Gypsy Lee’s erratic behavior on Sunday. He was hopeful the diagnostic test would give him a hint. It hasn’t in the past I told him.

Meanwhile my daughter picked me up at the shop and loaned me her car for the day, and I’m currently waiting to hear back from the mechanic.

I wonder if anyone has ever spanked an RV for misbehaving?

Posted in Nature | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments »

Forget Your Age and Just Have Fun. I Do

April 12, 2011 by Pat Bean

“If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun.” Katharine Hepburn

Thanks to my granddaughter, the wedding party was alerted that Nana was getting a ride on a Harley. Someone in the crowd took this photo and posted it on Facebook. I'm so glad I'm too old to worry about my image.

Travels With Maggie

 Yesterday morning started here in Camden, Arkansas, overhung with dark storm clouds threatening to burst at any moment. I waited to run my errands until after they fulfilled that promise and the sky had lightened.

But while I was at the grocery store stocking up for life on the road, those tricky clouds came back; and they began furiously dumping their load at the exact moment I left the sheltered interior of Wal-Mart.

My first thought was unprintable, but then I remembered playing in the rain as a child and how much fun it had been. It was a warm day, so the rain, once I got into it, actually felt good. Playful now, I did my own version of Gene Kelly’s “Dancing in the Rain,” as I loaded wet bags into the side door of my RV.

Afterwords, with rain dripping from every part of my body, I ducked into my tiny RV bathroom and put on dry clothes before getting back on the road. You get to do that if you take your house to the store with you.

I suspect that Maggie is always wondering what her crazy mistress is going to do next. -- Photo by Pat Bean

As I drove away, with my dog, Maggie, looking askew at me, I thought about how blessed I was that I’ve not allowed the fun in life to be devoured by age.

This thought was reinforced this morning when my daughter-in-law ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ed the photo of me published on Facebook that was taken at my grandson’s recent renaissance wedding.

One of the attendees had a Harley, and he gave my beautiful young granddaughter a ride around the block on it. I was outside when they returned, and she said: “What do you think of that Nana?”

“I’m jealous,” I replied.

“Hop on,” said the tattooed cyclist.

And I did – and loved every minute of the wind blowing into my face as he slowly drove me around the block.

Posted in Travel | Tagged , , , , , | 12 Comments »

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