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Right Road Wrong Way

October 4, 2025 by Pat Bean

Kim and me on my 70th birthday just before we jumped out of an airplane together, just another one of our many adventures during our 40 years of friendship.

Road Trip: Day 1

My plan, come hell or high water, was to drive to Ogden, Utah, to help my long-time friend Kim celebrate her birthday. Her plan was to fly to Tucson, and we do a roundtrip road adventure to Ogden and back to Tucson. Her excuse was that she wanted to collect national park and monument stamps for her Passport America Book.

Kim, although much younger than me, is a dear friend. And while I did know she wanted to collect the stamps, I also suspected it was a way to keep this 86-year-old-broad, who had suffered a heart attack the previous year, from making the 800-mile trip alone. Whatever, I jumped at her offer, especially since she suggested we take our time and have several hotel sleepovers along the way.

Road trips are one of my passions.

Kim got airline tickets that flew her into Tucson on Sept. 19 and flew her out on Sept. 28, then, after mentioning she wanted stops at Petrified National Forest and Four Corners, she left the rest of the planning to me.

I started our adventures off right in Tucson, where after she arrived, we made quick trips to Sabino Canyon National Recreation Area and Saguaro National Park for her to pick up stamps.

The plan for the next day was to hit Petrified Forest National Park and Painted Desert National Park. But we didn’t quite make it.

First off, in Globe, Arizona, we got off track and went 50 miles – Yes, 50 miles – on the right road in the wrong direction. About the same time, we discovered the error, my oldest son, whom I had sent our agenda and who was following us on an app called Life360, called and wanted to know why we were headed toward Phoenix.

On backtracking we realized that we had missed the turnoff because our hurried pee stop was on the wrong side of the junction where we were supposed to turn east. The silver lining – which everyone knows I am always looking for – was   that Kim bought lottery tickets at the gas station where we stopped and won $50 – and that there was a lot of laughter in the car while we backtracked.

Winning the lottery was Kim’s good luck. But as navigator I have to take the blame for the lost two hours and 100 miles it took us to get back to get back on track – but not the next fiasco that happened later the same day.

To be continued …

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion Scamp. She is an avid reader whose mind is always asking questions (many of which are unanswerable), an enthusiastic birder, staff writer for Story Circle Network’s Journal, author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), and is always searching for life’s silver lining.

Posted in aging, Journeys, Lonely Planet Pathfinder, Travel, Writing | 1 Comment »

Looking For – and Finding – Joy

September 13, 2025 by Pat Bean

Watching and drawing birds gives me joy.

“Joy is not in things; it is in us.” – Richard Wagner

Aging My Way

If ever there was a time to have joy in my life, it is now. For one thing, I’m an old broad who raised five children without disposable diapers. And since, as a retired newspaper journalist, I can’t find any joy in reading the news, I’m looking for it elsewhere.

The magic is that I don’t have to leave home to find it.

Take for instance just the past five days when I started keeping a joy journal.

Monday: Joy was waking up at dawn and watching an Anna’s hummingbird at my nectar feeder and listening to sparrows and finches twittering their own joy for a new day.

Tuesday: Joy was grinding some coffee beans from Kenya, a gift from my guardian angel daughter in law, and then enjoying a freshly brewed cup of coffee with a good book in my hand and my canine companion Scamp beside me.

Wednesday: Joy was having a good friend stop by for a happy hour, and the good cheer and laughter that came with the visit.

Thursday: Joy was the faithful daily call from a son and our conversation this day about a TV program we’re both watching and who won the daily game of Wordle.

Friday: Joy was a call from a long-time friend to discuss our upcoming road trip, my first since my heart attack a year and a half ago. And thinking about it after we hung up, my mind began singing Willie Nelson’s On The Road Again. At heart, I’m a wanderer.

I know these are simple, small things. But then the years have taught me that’s where joy is usually found.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion Scamp. She is an avid reader whose mind is always asking questions (many of which are unanswerable), an enthusiastic birder, staff writer for Story Circle Network’s Journal, author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), and is always searching for life’s silver lining.

Posted in aging, Art, Birds, Dogs, Journeys, Writing | Tagged | 5 Comments »

Life’s Purposes

September 8, 2025 by Pat Bean

Scamp weighs 40 pounds, but he thinks he’s a lap dog. Here he is on my granddaughter’s lap. But when no one else is around he’s sharing my chair — or lap.

“The purpose of life is a life of purpose.” – Robert Byrne

Aging My Way

As I was lying in bed, wide awake at 6 a.m. this morning, I realized there was not a dang thing that I really had to do when I got up – well, except household chores and there was no urgency in doing them.

I was pondering this when a body moved next to me. A minute or so later, a paw appeared on my chest, followed by a sweet kiss on the cheek. It was my canine companion Scamp’s way of telling me he was ready for his morning walk.

I’ve actually come to be grateful for this, even though it often happens while I’m still in the hands of the sandman. Taking care of Scamp, who refuses to do his business inside our small yard, gives me a purpose for getting up out of bed, getting dressed and getting moving.

I get a bit of exercise and usually some chit chat with one or two of my neighbors, usually also out walking their dogs. The other dogs greet Scamp in doggie ways that include a lot of butt sniffing and playful antics that end with their leashes tangled up.

We two dog owners laugh (the grouchy ones don’t approach anyone) and one of us untangles them.

I can’t think of a better way to start a day, especially for this 86-year old-broad who needs a purpose in her life.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion Scamp. She is an avid reader whose mind is always asking questions (many of which are unanswerable), an enthusiastic birder, staff writer for Story Circle Network’s Journal, author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), and is always searching for life’s silver lining

Posted in aging, Dogs, Journeys | Tagged | 1 Comment »

A Warbler, A High Lake and Memories

September 6, 2025 by Pat Bean

A MacGillivray’s Warbler

“Be like the bird who, pausing in her flight awhile on boughs too slight, feels them give way beneath her, and yet sings, knowing she hath wings.” – Victor Hugo

Aging My Way

Today’s Tucson Bird Alliance’s online newsletter featured a MacGillivray’s warbler, a small gray and yellow migratory bird that is currently passing through Southeastern Arizona.

It was one of the birds I specifically went hunting for during my early days of birding. I found it on July 1, 2004, at Tony Grove, a beautiful lake located at an altitude of 8,100 feet off Logan Canyon in Northern Utah.

I visited the grove many times after moving to the area for the first time in 1971, both for the area’s hiking trails and the opportunity to renew my sanity when life was stressful, as many of those earlier years were. And after an eight-mile roundtrip trail that led from Tony Grove to white Pine Lake, which I usually hiked, I always felt I could once again handle whatever life threw my way.

Nature has always done that for me.

But at 86, such a hike is out of the question. Both my balance and stamina have abandoned me. The best I can do is maybe a one-mile walk on level ground pushing my rollator before me and stopping at least a few times along the way.

Thankfully, I have my memories – and my stress level these days is pretty much zero. I also have lots of birds that visit my small patio yard. So, I’m going to keep an eye out for that MacGillivray’s.  

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion Scamp. She is an avid reader whose mind is always asking questions (many of which are unanswerable), an enthusiastic birder, staff writer for Story Circle Network’s Journal, author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), and is always searching for life’s silver lining.

Posted in aging, Birds, Favorite Hikes, Journeys, Lonely Planet Pathfinder, Quote for the Day | Tagged , , | Leave a Comment »

When Words Don’t Come

August 24, 2025 by Pat Bean

Aging My Way

I haven’t been blogging much lately. The truth is, I seem to have run out of words. That’s not surprising since this is my 1,639th blog.

So, for today, since writing a blog tops my to-do list, I’m sharing some words of the Dalai Lama – ones that that have personally come in handy over the years:   

Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.

Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.

Don’t let a little dispute injure a great friendship.

When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.

 Spend some time alone every day.

And remember that silence is sometimes the best answer – This is especially good advice for someone like me who has foot-in-mouth disease. I should have followed it a lot more than I did.

Finally, to add to these, I would simply say it’s good to laugh a lot, particularly at yourself. What would you add?

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion Scamp. She is an avid reader whose mind is always asking questions (many of which are unanswerable), an enthusiastic birder, staff writer for Story Circle Network’s Journal, author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), and is always searching for life’s silver lining.

Posted in aging, Art, Journeys | Tagged | 2 Comments »

The Power of a Book

August 9, 2025 by Pat Bean

Just a small rock detail I captured during a hike along Mesa Trail in Canyonlands National Park in 2011. — Photo by Pat Bean

Aging My Way

I’m currently reading Ann Zwinger’s Wind and Rock: The Canyon Lands of Southeastern Utah. It’s a landscape that I spent many hours exploring when I lived in Northern Utah, back when hiking was part of my life.

The book is one of more than 20 on natural history that Ann wrote before she died in 2014. Another one is Down Canyon, which is about her rafting trip through the Grand Canyon in the mid-1990s. I read it after my own 1990 trip through the canyon, but before a second adventure rafting the Colorado through the canyon in 1999, which was a 60th birthday present to myself.

The two trips were entirely different: The first was for the pure adventure and thrill of the river’s wild rapids. The second for the experience of the canyon itself. I couldn’t help but be influenced in how I saw it because of Ann’s detailed descriptions in Down Canyon of the little things that she saw as much a part of the canyon as the river itself.   

Her book made me more aware of the whistle of a canyon wren, which I sometimes awoke to in the mornings, and such things as the orange globemallow and blue penstemon wildflowers that added color to the canyon floor.

Meanwhile, I’m reading Wind and Rock because in late September, I will once again be driving through southern Utah, through places like the Grand Staircase-Escalante Monument, Garden of the Gods and Lake Powell. I suspect Ann’s book will once again have an influence on how I see the red-rock landscape as we drive through it.

Books are magical. Don’t you agree?

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion Scamp. She is an avid reader whose mind is always asking questions (many of which are unanswerable), an enthusiastic birder, staff writer for Story Circle Network’s Journal, author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), and is always searching for life’s silver lining. She also believes one is never too old to chase a dream.

Posted in aging, Books, Journeys | Tagged | Leave a Comment »

Just The Facts, Please

July 14, 2025 by Pat Bean

In 2004, I retired from being a journalist. This was my retirement party with colleagues and friends all around me. And my son, D.C., who now subscribes to the newspaper, where it all started, is sitting on the ground third from left.

Aging My Way

A furniture maker creates an ugly chair. No problem, it’s firewood. A chef’s unpalatable casserole goes in the garbage. An artist doesn’t like a painting; they can toss it, use the back for a different painting, or paint over it.

But a newspaper journalist’s mistake is out there for the world to see, and can even be put out there for the world to see again 55 yearslater, which is exactly what happened to me this past week

My oldest son lives in the same circulation area for the small newspaper, The Brazosport Facts, whose back door I slipped into many years ago. I wanted to write for the paper, but without any experience the only job I was offered was as a darkroom flunky. The year was 1967, before the digital age and when film was developed using chemicals in a blacked-out room.

I conquered the task, however, and then became a nuisance in front of the city editor’s desk asking if there was anything I could do. Just to get rid of me, I suspect, he started sending me out on reporter assignments, which was how I began an award-winning 37-year journalism career.

I worked for The Facts, which my son now subscribes to and reads daily, for four years. It was the equivalent in my mind of a master’s degree in journalism. Of course I made mistakes along the way, but those mistakes only made it into the Facts twice that I can recall. One was a wrong name, and the other a wrong accounting number from a city council meeting.

Both times, I had to write a correction and an apology, one of which was repeated in the YEASTERYEARS column that my son read. It started off with: It seemed like such an appropriate assignment for Facts reporter Pat Bean to cover the opening for Pinto Bean (no relation) Ford …. and then went on to describe my mistake in a kind of funny memory.  

My son thought I would be upset at the mention of my goof. But I was simply delighted to be remembered after 55 years.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion Scamp. She is an avid reader whose mind is always asking questions (many of which are unanswerable), an enthusiastic birder, staff writer for Story Circle Network’s Journal, author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), and is always searching for life’s silver lining. She also believes one is never too old to chase a dream.

Posted in aging, Journeys, Writing | Tagged , | Leave a Comment »

Happy Hippy Advice

July 6, 2025 by Pat Bean

Aging My Way

“The mind is its own place, and in it self can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n.” — William Henry Hudson, from Paradise Lost

I follow a group called Happy Hippies on Face Book, which posts things old broad octogenarians like me can relate to. For example, I came across this one this morning: Don’t mess with me. I’m a wooden spoon, lead paint, no car seat, no bike helmet, pickup bed riding, garden hose drinking survivor.

Yup! That’s me.

And then there was this Happy Hippy post that I came across a while back. It described me so well that I copied it down in my journal: “Maybe the happy ending is that you fall in love with your life, eat your favorite foods, admire sunrises and sunsets, pick up the book you’ve been meaning to finish, dance to your favorite songs, buy yourself flowers and bring your mind back to how truly blessed you are,”

I think what it comes down to, as William Henry Hudson said, is choosing joy, no matter what is going on in your life — or whatever is going on around you. That’s wise advice for these times.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion Scamp. She is an avid reader whose mind is always asking questions (many of which are unanswerable), an enthusiastic birder, staff writer for Story Circle Network’s Journal, author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), and is always searching for life’s silver lining. She also believes one is never too old to chase a dream.

Posted in aging, Art | Tagged , | 6 Comments »

A Wondering-Wanderer Memory

July 4, 2025 by Pat Bean

Aging My Way

”Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” – George Bernard Shaw.

Fourteen years ago, I was driving along the Columbia River on the Washington side. I know this because of a photo I took, and which was dropped into my email as a memory.

I get these reminders daily – and they delight me. Many of these photos are similar in nature to the one above of the Selah Cliffs information sign near Yakima, where I took a hike on an interpretive loop, and a bit beyond with my canine companion Maggie.

I looked for, and found the basalt daisy that grows only in this area, and where other plants find it hard to survive. According to the Washington State Department of Natural Resources, the Selah Cliffs is situated in one of the driest parts of the state, in a landscape of bedrock and talus formed from the approximately 12-million-year-old Pomona basalt flow. This basalt lava flow traveled from west-central Idaho to the Pacific Ocean about 373 miles, making it the longest known lava flow on earth.

As a wondering wanderer who now is mostly nesting, the memory of this day from my past enriched my present day, as good memories always do.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion Scamp. She is an avid reader whose mind is always asking questions (many of which are unanswerable), an enthusiastic birder, staff writer for Story Circle Network’s Journal, author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), and is always searching for life’s silver lining. She also believes one is never too old to chase a dream.

Posted in aging, Favorite Hikes, Favorite Places, Travel, Writing | Tagged , , | 2 Comments »

Beauty and Birds: Look Around You

June 19, 2025 by Pat Bean

Add Tucson’s Agua Calliente Park, where I saw this green heron, to the list of places to visit for beauty and birds. — Photo by Pat Bean

“Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.” – Confucius

Aging My Way

During the nine years I was traveling around America in a small RV with my canine companion Maggie, I was often asked what place I liked best. The question always had me stumbling for an answer. To name just one and leave out all the rest of Nature and man’s wonders just seemed wrong.

Everywhere, and I do mean everywhere, I went had its own kind of beauty. This was brought home to me at an overcrowded El Paso RV Park where I was parked on a cement slab with large RV rigs hooked up six feet away to both my right and left.

I was bemoaning the fact that I had been stuck here because nothing greener was close enough to reach before dark.  And then I happened to glance outside my RV window.

Strutting across the cement was a California Quail with six young chicks following her. The sight made me rethink my idea of beauty, especially since one goal of my RVing years was to see as many species of birds as I could.

Meanwhile, here are a few other special places I’ve visited that have impressed me in one way or another – and where I got a new bird for my life list.  

Maine: Acadia National Park, where one can stand on the top of Cadillac Mountain and be the first person in the United States to have the sun touch their face. I saw a black-billed cuckoo here.

New Hampshire: Flume Gorge, for an unforgettable hike and birds like an ovenbird and a black-throated blue warbler.

Oregon: Brandon National Wildlife Refuge, where my bird list grew by a pelagic cormorant, black turnstone and a whimbrel.  

Utah: Zion National Park, a longtime special place for me, and where I saw a California condor flying overhead. These birds were brought back from the edge of extinction and I wrote about their recovery several times.

Texas: Brazos Bend State Park, even if an alligator sometimes required me to detour off a favorite hiking trail. It was here where I saw my first pileated woodpecker, a close look-alike of the extinct ivory-billed woodpecker.

And I could easily list another 100 sites without much thought. Look around you. Beauty is everywhere.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion Scamp. She is an avid reader whose mind is always asking questions (many of which are unanswerable), an enthusiastic birder, staff writer for Story Circle Network’s Journal, author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), and is always searching for life’s silver lining. She also believes one is never too old to chase a dream.

Posted in aging, Birds, Favorite Hikes, Favorite Places, Journeys, Nature, Tucson Points of Interest | 2 Comments »

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