Posted in Nature, Travel, tagged Albert Schweitzer, glen canyon national recreation area, pat bean, postaday2011, Utah, weekly photo challenge: texture on September 10, 2011| 1 Comment »
“The true worth of a man is not to be found in man himself, but in the colours and textures that come alive in others.” Albert Schweitzer
Textures abound in this photo. Rock both slick and pebbly rough, grasses both silky and prickly and sky and clouds that one can imagine being as soft as Maggie’s fur.
Posted in Nature, Travel, tagged campground host, coyotes, Idaho state parks, Lake Walcott, night distrubances, pat bean, postaday2011, raccoons on September 9, 2011| 2 Comments »
“Life is too short to sleep on low-thread-count sheets.” – Leah Stussy
Travels With Maggie
I suspected raccoons, of which there are too many here at Lake Walcott, of causing the wee-hour disturbance, but she sheriff's deputy said it was a two-legged night wanderer. -- Photo by Pat Bean
A knock on the door in the wee hours of the morning is never good. But if you’re a campground host at a small Idaho park, as I have been all this summer, at least the first thought that runs through your mind is not “Who died?” ‘
Last night’s 1 a.m. knock on my RV, which wasn’t actually necessary because the headlights pulling into my site already had me hopping down from my over-the-cab bed to check out what was going on, was a sheriff’s deputy informing me that he had gotten a 911 call about some man wandering through the campground. The campers in tent site 27, he said, had made the call.
“Perhaps it was raccoons,” I voiced. “They get into everything at night.”
“Nope. I found the man. He’s parked down by the boat docks, drunk as a skunk and loopy as well. Gave me some story about UFOs,” the officer said. “I ran his license plates and he didn’t have any warrants out on him, so I just left him to sleep it off in his truck. But I thought someone should know.”
I thanked him for the information, and he told me to call 911 immediately if the man gave any more trouble.
I went back to bed, but of course not back to sleep. This was the third time this season that I had been awakened because of my campground host duties.
The first one involved me getting dressed and going down to the tent area to tell some idiot he couldn’t run his generator in the middle of the night to power floodlights around his tent.
“Ah. The generator’s going to run out of gas pretty quick,” he said in a “you gonna make me kind of way.”.
Lake Walcott sunrises are worth rising early to see even if sleep was stingy during the night. -- Photo by Pat Bean
“Now,” I said in my sternest mommy voice to the large red-faced guy with the paunchy stomach.
“OK,” he said, this time rather meekly, and wandered over to turn the noisy contraption off.
I love that mommy voice.
The second time I was awakened in the middle of the night here at Lake Walcott, it was a young couple with an infant who had been on the road until after midnight. They had forgotten the combination to the cabin they had reserved. Fortunately I knew it, and was soon back in my comfy bed, but of course not back to sleep
Of the many bits of trivia that floated through my head keeping my brain from shutting down last night was the time I had been the one to pound on a campground host’s door at 4 a.m. I was supposed to meet up with a group to hike to a place where we could see rare red-cockaded woodpeckers emerge from their nests at dawn – and had lost the combination to the gate lock.
I sure hope the bleary-eyed guy who gave it to me had an easier time getting back to sleep than I was having, I thought as I listened to Maggie’s snuffling snores beside me, and the yowling of coyotes off in the distance somewhere. Too bad he couldn’t know I was getting paid back for waking him.
Yup! What goes around comes around. It’s the only thing that makes life somewhat fair.
Posted in Travel, Weekly Photo Challenge, tagged Craters of the Moon, Idaho, lava henry david thoreau, pat bean, snake river plains, weekly photo challenge: pathways on September 9, 2011| Leave a Comment »
“As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.” — Henry David Thoreau
One can walk a pathway through 15-million-year-old lava fields at Craters of the Moon National Monument in Idaho's Snake River Plains. -- Photo by Pat Bean
Posted in Journeys, Travel, Wildflowers, tagged Bluebonnets, Lake Colorado City State Park, Mount Ogden, Ogden, pat bean, postaday2011, Wasatch Mountains on September 8, 2011| 7 Comments »
“Come Fairies, take me out of this dull world, for I would ride with you upon the wind and dance upon the mountains like a flame!” – William Butler Yeats
Mount Ogden from 25th Street in Ogden. She holds a part of my soul. -- Photo by Pat Bean
Travels With Maggie
I’m in Ogden, Utah, in the shadow of the Wasatch Mountains where I lived for a third of my life. It was a quick trip here from Lake Walcott State Park in Southern Idaho, where I’ve spent a leisurely summer volunteering as a campground host and enjoying Mother Nature’s daily gifts.
I know that when I leave Utah today this range of the great Rockies will be denied me for many months. And my heart is already feeling the loss.
Anywhere bluebonnets grow automatically goes on my favorite places list. Among them is Texas' Lake Colorado City State Park shown above. -- Photo by Pat Bean
I sold my home here, the one that got the Ogden Canyon winds each day as the mountains breathed in and out, seven years ago. I have no regrets. I’ve traveled all over the country half of each year, and spent the other half hopping between my children and grandchildren, most of whom are in Texas.
It’s been both great to spend time with loved ones, and great to travel this beautiful country of ours and take in its wonders. People often ask me what’s my favorite spot.
It’s a question I find difficult to answer because immediately dozens of places pop into mind. I’ve found beauty in every state I’ve visited, and that now includes 47. My goal, since I’ve already visited Hawaii and Alaska, is to have visited all 50 of our states by the end of next year.
Meanwhile, when I leave here tomorrow, I will leave a piece of my soul secreted away in the Wasatch Mountains that guard Ogden. .I trust the mountains to guard it well until I return and once again stand in their shadow. Just as I hope the bluebonnets of Texas will still remember me when I gaze upon them once again next spring.
Posted in African Safari, Nature, Travel, tagged fiddler on the roof, hot air balloon, magical gifts, pat bean, postaday2011, Serengeti, sunrise sunset on September 6, 2011| 4 Comments »
“Sunrise, sunset
Swiftly flow the days
Seedlings turn overnight to sunflowers
Blossoming even as we gaze
Sunrise, sunset
Sunrise, sunset
Swiftly fly the years
One season following another
Laden with happiness and tears”
From Fiddler on the Roof
The magic in a day is easy to find when it begins with a golden sunrise photographed from a hot air balloon flying low over Africa's Serengeti.
Travels With Maggie
As I’ve aged and become an old broad, as sadly has my spoiled but faithful dog, Maggie, whose natural years left are fewer than my own life expectancy, I’ve come to view each day as magical.
But the magic also exists in a quiet Southern Idaho park, where one would be a fool not to acknowledge the gift of the hours with every sunset. -- Photo by Pat Bean
The writer in me realized early on that what didn’t get written down one day would never be exactly the same as would be written the next. Age in me has taught me that each day is a gift that vanishes with the sunset. What we’ve done, or not done, is over and ended. We can’t call it back.
All we can do is wake with the sunrise and live the next day through. Be they hours filled with joy or sorrow, they’re still a magical gift not to be tossed away lightly.
Posted in Lakes, Nature, Travel, Wildflowers, tagged autumn, dogs, Idaho parks, Mother Nature, pat bean, postaday2011, spring, stanley horowitz, summer, Travel, winter on September 4, 2011| 2 Comments »
“Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all.” – Stanley Horowitz
Spring at Lake Walcott, when it arrived in June, brought trees laden with pink blossoms. -- Photo by Pat Bean
Travels With Maggie
Most of Lake Walcott's many trees were still leafless when Maggie and I arrived at the park in mid-May. -- Photo by Pat Bean
Fall is coming to Lake Walcott. It’s early. This Southern Idaho park was still sleepy with the last breaths of winter when I arrived here mid-May. Most of the trees were still leafless and running my heater, at least at night, was a given.
The days, however, slowly begin to warm and before soon foliage blocked my view of the lake, while dandelions dotted the park’s manicured lawns with yellow and pink blossoms colored a tree just outside my RV, Gypsy Lee.
Spring lingered for a long time here. It wasn’t until July that I had to first use my air conditioner, and even then it always went off when the sun went down. August brought with the first days when temperatures reached the 90s, but still most days the mercury’s high only hovered in the mid-80s.
Rarely was there a day that wasn’t perfect for the long walks my dog, Maggie, and I took daily through the park.
` While so many parts of the country have been experiencing record-breaking heat, Lake Walcott has had an unusually mild summer. And now, just a little more than a week before I am leaving, it’s treating me to hints of fall. Within a 120-day period I’ve experiences all four seasons.
As I looked out on the Landscape surrounding Lake Walcott, at the frosty sagebrush now grown tall, and the rabbitbrush all aglow in autumn colors, I remembered to thank Mother Nature for her gifts. -- Photo by Pat Bean
I thought on this as I looked out on a landscape yesterday of frosty sagebrush, now grown tall in this high desert, interspersed with the fall display of golden-topped rabbitbrush.
I give thanks to Mother Nature for the beauty she gifted me. I also give thanks that I have eyes and a heart capable of appreciating her gifts. May it always be so.
Posted in Travel, tagged books, Kathryn stockett, pat bean, postaday2011, the help, Travel on September 4, 2011| 6 Comments »
A Sleep-In Day for Maggie and Me
“A book is the only place in which you can examine a fragile thought without breaking it, or explore an explosive idea without fear it will go off in your face. It is one of the few havens remaining where a man’s mind can get both provocation and privacy. ~Edward P. Morgan
Books and Authors
I couldn't resist this picture of Maggie, all snuggled up and sleeping in with her Teddy Bear yesterday morning. -- Photo by Pat Bean
It was only 42 degrees when I woke up yesterday morning. I snuggled down into my covers, reluctant to start the day with the sunrise as is my usual mode of operation. Instead I reached for my Kindle. I had read Earlene Fowler’s “Spider Web” after getting into bed, before reluctantly putting it down to get some sleep.
But this morning, since I wanted to stay snuggled up, I begin listing to my audible copy of “The Help” by Kathryn Stockett.. I had a hard time putting it down to finally get up and fix coffee about 10 a.m. Reading is bed is my idea of sleeping in on a cold morning.
By the time I got up, the day had warmed to 70 degrees. Maggie, however, who is the true late riser, was still snuggled up on the couch with her Teddy Bear by her side and the quilt I had thrown over her. I couldn’t resist a picture of her.
A good read
I also couldn’t resist continuing to listen to “The Help,” and did little else yesterday except that. I think I needed a down day – and I’m glad I took it. . I finished the book today when I was working in the entrance kiosk here at Lake Walcott State Park.
The book takes place in the early 1960s in Jackson, Mississippi, a time when a lot of history was being made, most of it not good at all. The book took me back to those days as it followed the clandestine activities of a young white women and two older black maids. I highly recommend the book, which I understand was recently made into a movie.
Think about taking a down day to read it. .And then let me know if you had as much trouble putting it down until it was finished as I did.
“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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