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The Tao of Willie

Posted in Books, Journeys, Travel, tagged , , , , on February 4, 2013| 12 Comments »

Would you have recognized this photo as being Willie Nelson? I didn't. -- Photo by Pat Bean

Would you have recognized this photo as being Willie Nelson? I didn’t. — Photo by Pat Bean

“I believe in the strength found in being yourself, and don’t give an elephant’s ass about trying to fit in or be normal. There is no normal. There’s only you and me.” – Willie Nelsol
An Unrecognizable Photograph
When I was in Nashville this past fall, I took a backstage tour of the Grand Ole Opry. At one point in the walk-through, the guide stopped at one of the 18 or so dressing rooms and asked if we knew the identity of one of the photos on the wall.

I’m ashamed to say I didn’t, even though it was the photo of one of my favorite musicians.

It was Willie Nelson, whom I spent reading all about yesterday in a little book called “The Tao of Willie: A Guide to the Happiness in your Heart.” I had picked the book up at the Opry’s gift shop but just now got around to reading it.

The Familiar Willie on the cove of his book written with Turk Pipkin.

The familiar Willie on the cover of his book written with Turk Pipkin.

In the book, Willie talks about a time when he tried to fit in. I’m sure that’s the time when that dressing-room photo was taken because he hasn’t looked that way in years and years.  The book is full of Willie’s wisdom gained over a lifetime, and some funny jokes some of which had me rolling on the floor. Here are a few of my favorite Willie quotes:

“We’re all angels flying too close to the ground.”

 “Above all other things I believe in the universal truth of the Golden Rule.”

 “It’s true. My heroes have always been cowboys …the cowboy way believes that if you do things according to that sense of right, it’ll work out to everyone’s advantage.”

And then these words from Willie that I especially like:

“At the beginning of this book, I wrote that if you love me you are my friend … but there are also exceptions. If you throw trash along the highways or foul our rivers, I’m sorry to say you are not my friend …  If you think that people whose skin is a different color from yours are beneath you, you are particularly not my friend …  And if you mistreat those who are smaller or weaker than you, you are not my friend.”

Machu Picchu. -- Wikipedia photo

Machu Picchu. — Wikipedia photo

Bean’s Pat: Amazing Places to See http://tinyurl.com/an3w7yv Machu Picchu. My arm-chair traveling blog for the day. What an amazing place. Perhaps one day I’ll see it in person. If you have, tell me all about it

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Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Journeys, Travel, tagged , , on December 11, 2012| 4 Comments »

last sunset on the road

The rv park wasn’t all that great, but the sunset made everything perfect this last night on the road of this journey. — Photo by Pat Bean

            “We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” – T.S. Eliot

Adventures with Pepper: Day 55 Continued

            Today’s plan was to drive to Memphis, stop at the Graceland RV Park, then spend a couple of days exploring the city, much like I had done in Nashville.

   

One of the many squirrels that delighted me and taunted Pepper during this journey. -- Photo by Pat Bean

One of the many squirrels that delighted me and taunted Pepper during this journey. — Photo by Pat Bean

         After my leisurely morning of birds, a walk with Pepper and a small pot of cream-laced African coffee, I set out on my short drive to the city Elvis called home.            As I neared Memphis, my quiet, peaceful morning turned into a cacophony of loud traffic and a tangled web of too crowded roads leading into the heart of chaos – and yet once again I changed my plans. .

            When I came to the turnoff I needed to take to carry out the plans that had been brewing in my head for the past week, I drove right on by. I knew that one big city in a week, away from Mother Nature, had been just right. An echo of that week would make me as sick as eating too much candy.

             I had decided to drive on for about another hour, and then stop at the first RV park that looked decent. I figured that wouldn’t be a problem, since for the first time in two months I was driving on an interstate and not a back-country road.

            It was over three hours later, after I had passed Little Rock, Arkansas, however before I found one. It was not very inviting but I stopped anyway because I didn’t want to continue driving after dark.

            Tomorrow would take me into Dallas, where my oldest daughter lived, and bring an end to this leg of my journeys. I’m glad you came along for the 6,000-mile, zigzagging ride from Idaho to Texas — past dinosaur bones, up and over the Rocky Mountains, sleeping among prairie dogs, winding through  the Appalachians on the Blue Ridge Parkway, through the Smoky Mountains and finally hooking up at the Grand Ole Opry.

            It was a fun trip. Where do you think we should go next?

            Book Report: Still slowly moving forward. Wish I was in a faster lane, but then I’d miss the flowers along the way. It’s hard being a writer when you always afraid you’re going to miss something.

         

The Wondering Wanderer's blog pick of the day.

The Wondering Wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

   Bean’s Pat: Song for Today http://tinyurl.com/bm4tz9w It’s all about Pooh and Christopher Robin and feeling young again.   

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Long Drive, Good Book

Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Books, Favorite Places, Lakes, Travel, Writing, tagged , , , , , , on October 5, 2012| 1 Comment »

“A book should serve as the ax for the frozen sea within us.”  — Franz Kafka

Adventures with Pepper: Day 14

Canada geese on one of the two small lakes at Mark Twain Landing near Morgan City, Missouri. — Photo by Pat Bean

It was a long drive today, 275 miles from Seneca, Kansas, to Morgan City, Missouri — through the kind of country that I had been passing for the past couple of days.

I used it as a sort of sabbatical for my brain and eyes, which had been going full blast ever since I had left Lake Walcott State Park in Southern Idaho some 1,500 miles ago.

For the first time since starting the trip, I occupied my mind with something other than the passing sights. I listened to an audible book, Brandon Sanderson’s first book of his trilogy, “The Way of Kings.”

Sunset on the second of the resort’s two lakes. — Photo by Pat Bean

I loved his “Mistborn,” trilogy and was finally getting into this one.  Sanderson, who finished up the epic “Wheel of Time” is not a fast read, but he gives one plenty of things to ponder.

And when I got to my chosen campground for the night, the Mark Twain Landing, I continued my slow day by taking a walk with Pepper. Later, I sat outside with her and a Jack and Coke to watch the sun go down over a small lake. It was if my body signed with relief.

Book Report: Travels with Maggie is now up to 54,615 words. It really is true, at least for me,  that the more I have to do the more I get done. Perhaps I became too accustomed to having to find time to fit my personal writing in between work for too many years.         

The Wondering Wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

Bean’s Pat: Do Vampire Writers Write at Night? http://tinyurl.com/8qldry5 This one’s for my writer readers, who find themselves wondering instead of writing.

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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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Lake Walcott Birds

Posted in Birds, Lakes, Nature, tagged , , , , , , , on August 14, 2012| 4 Comments »

            “Be as a bird perched on a frail branch that she feels bending beneath her, still she sings away all the same, knowing she has wings.” –Victor Hugo

Minus One Sharp-Tailed Grouse

 

Only occasionally do I see western tanagers at Lake Walcott State Park. — Photo by Pat Bean

           I keep bird lists. These include a life list for all the bird species I’ve seen, a yearly bird list and a list of Lake Walcott birds. My life list stands at 702 bird species, the one for the year currently at 203 and the one for Lake Walcott, minus 1.

That one bird is the sharp-tailed grouse. Of all the birds that have been seen in the Lake Walcott area, it’s the only species not on my world list. Admittedly, it’s a rare bird for here, normally preferring more northern habitat, but I keep hoping.

Lake Walcott has, however, given me two lifers. A rare migrating Sabine’s gull that winters at sea, primarily off the West Coast, and a gray partridge, that calls Lake Walcott home year-round and which I’ve seen, among other places here, out the rear window of my RV.

Yesterday evening, the lake hosted a flock of Franklin gulls, a bird I’ve frequently seen but this was my first sighting of it here at the park. I think the flock was  just passing through because there were none of these gulls still around when Maggie and I took our walk this morning.

But white pelicans are on the daily bird-watching menu here. — Photo by Pat Bean

The visiting gulls, which both look and sound a lot like laughing gulls, were far enough out on the lake when I saw them that I had to use my binoculars to make an identification.

Birds I see here at the lake almost daily include white pelicans that make their nests on the opposite shore from me and which gather in great numbers below the dam where the Snake River froths up white as it flows down and over some rock ledges.

House sparrows, American goldfinches, black-headed grosbeaks, house finches, house sparrows, white-crowned sparrows, brown-headed cowbirds, Brewer’s blackbirds, red-winged blackbirds, mourning doves, robins, killeer, and broad-tailed and black-chinned hummingbirds visit my camp site almost daily.

And black-headed grosbeaks make daily visits to the bird feeders I put out. — Photo by Pat Bean

Common nighthawks and a variety of swallows fly overhead each evening. A red-tailed hawk frequents a huge nearby cottonwood tree; I wake to the hooting of a great-horned owl and the cooing of doves.  I watch western grebes, Canada geese, quacking mallards and an occasional pied-billed grebe and northern pintail swim about in the water.

Life is good for this wondering/wandering birder here at Lake Walcott. If I were to send a postcard, I’d say: “Wish you were here.”

Book Report: “Travels with Maggie” now stands at 31,331 words. While that’s just about 600 more words than yesterday’s final count, I did a lot of slashing and rewriting to make things read smoother. Rewriting can be both easier and more difficult than the first time around, which I already knew. The good news is that I’m having fun with it.

Bean’s Pat:  10,000 Birds http://tinyurl.com/8t62xry Check out these bee-eaters.

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Favorite Places” Glen Canyon Recreation Area

Posted in Favorite Places, Travel, tagged , , on July 14, 2012| 2 Comments »

“For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.” — Robert Louis Stevenson

Color  Stop

My RV,Gypsy Lee, couldn’t help herself. She just had to pull over to the side of the road so her driver could take some pictures of this awesome scenery. — Photo by Pat Bean

 

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