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Posts Tagged ‘postaday2011’

And Here’s the Rest of the Gypsy Lee Story

Posted in Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , , on April 14, 2011| 7 Comments »

 “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.

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My RV, Gypsy Lee, is Misbehaving

Posted in Nature, tagged , , , on April 13, 2011| 5 Comments »

 

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?

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Forget Your Age and Just Have Fun. I Do

Posted in Travel, tagged , , , , , on April 12, 2011| 12 Comments »

“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.

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One’s Own Backyard is Full of Amazing Magic

Posted in Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , on April 11, 2011| 6 Comments »

 

A Southern Arkansas sunrise provides a magical moment to all within its view. -- Photo by Pat Bean

 

“Each day I live in a glass room unless I break it with the thrusting of my senses and pass through the splintered walls to the great landscape.” Mervyn Peake

Travels With Maggie

I’ve seen hundreds of awesome landscapes since I began living and traveling in my RV, Gypsy Lee, seven years ago.

Whenever I visit an area, I take time to search out historic sites, lakes, parks and all the fantastic landmarks someone found important enough to write about in some guidebook.

What’s amazed me is that I find locals who have never taken the time to visit the places travelers come hundreds of miles to see.

“Always been meaning to go see that waterfall,” said an Oregon waitress when I was telling her about my morning visit to Multnomah Falls just east of her Portland home.

Pink life springs from beneath a carpet of dead leaves. -- Photo by Pat Bean

Then there was the Amarillo, Texas, grocery clerk who noted my Palo Duro Canyon T-shirt and asked me if the place was worth visiting?

“Lived here all my life and never seem to get the time to visit,” she said of the spectacular gorge that lay hidden only 30 miles away.

“Have you ever visited Yellowstone National Park,” I asked.

“Marvelous place.” She beamed as she chatted about seeing Old Faithful with her husband and two children.

I find it strange that people feel a sight isn’t worth seeing unless it’s hundreds of miles away. When I lived in Utah and work kept me close to home most of the year, weekends would often find me out exploring nearby landscapes.

Yellow pansies soaked with morning dew. -- Photo by Pat Bean

One Saturday it might just be a 20-mile journey on an unpaved canyon road to view “Tea Kettle” rock. Or on a Sunday, I would take a 150-mile round trip drive to board the old Heber Creeper train for the half-day ride through incredible scenery to Bridal Veil Waterfalls up Provo Canyon.

But while I’m addicted to the travel and the wonder that goes with it, I still know that most days all I need to do is step out my door to see something magical.

Yesterday it was a colorful sky with rays of sunlight streaming down toward earth. Today, as I walked Maggie, it was the magic of pink flowers poking up through a bed of last fall’s leaves.

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Refuge Morning: Fantastic Light and Pileated Woodpecker

Posted in Birds, Nature, Travel, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on April 10, 2011| 1 Comment »

 

My daughter Trish, grandson Tony and friend Tressie fishing off a Felsenthal dock early this morning. -- Photo by Pat Bean

 

“Morning is when the wick is lit. A flame ignited, the day delighted with heat and light, we start the fight for something more than before.” Jeb Dickerson

Travels With Maggie

My RV has been hooked up at Felsenthal National Wildlife Refuge’s Grand Marais Campground for the past few days, where I came to spend time with my daughter, her husband, and three grandsons.

It’s been a relaxing weekend. While they have spent most of their time fishing, I have lazed around, taken quiet walks with Maggie and watched birds.

Pileated woodpecker -- Photo by Noel Lee

I’ve also spent a good portion of my days inside my air-conditioned RV. While it’s only April, it already feels like summer here in Southern Arkansas, where high humidity gives the temperature an artificial boost. Thankfully, my RV has large side windows that let me enjoy the outdoors from the comfort of indoors.

Among the more colorful visitors to my camp site have been red-headed woodpeckers and blue jays. The 65,000 acre wetlands refuge lies near the Louisiana border and is part of the Mississippi Flyway for migrating birds, making it both a birdwatcher and duck hunter paradise.

Morning Reflections at Felsenthal National Wildlife Refuge. -- Photo by Pat Bean

Early this morning, I drove down to one of the refuge’s main fishing dock with my daughter, intending to take some photographs and then walk the mile back to my RV before the day warmed up.

My timing was perfect. I had fantastic lighting for my picture-taking and a cool breeze and cloud cover for most of my return trip by foot. .

The whipped cream and cherry topping for the morning was a pileated woodpecker that flew overhead and landed in a tree. My heart skipped a beat as I listened to the large yellow-eyed, red-headed bird’s rat-a-tat-tat knocking.

Life is good.

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Political Changes Need to Start Somewhere

Posted in Nature, tagged , , , , , , , on April 9, 2011| 4 Comments »

 

Perhaps a quiet walk beneath a blue sky filled with fast-moving clouds, such as here in Utah's Canyonland National Park, will invigorate the will of politicians to do what is right for the American people. -- Photo by Pat Bean

“America is a tune. It must be sung together.” — Gerald Stanley Lee

Just for Today

Talk these past few days about the government shutting down has been disturbing to me, and I’m sure to many other Americans. But I didn’t feel any relief this morning when I read that the shutdown had been averted.

Instead I felt angry with all the games too many of our politicians have been playing to booster their own parties, their own images, their personal agendas and their personal vendettas. I watch as we, the American people, try to elect leaders who will go against the current political grain, only to see the newly elected join it.

I don’t have all the answers on how we can change this ever-worsening situation, but I do have a few suggestions:

One-term limit of four to six years for all politicians so they can spend their days working for the people instead of working for re-election.

Salary and benefit packages of elected officials that are in line with those of the average wage earner of their constituents so they will be more in touch with those they were elected to serve.

Everyone, not just politicians, could benefit from taking time to smell the flowers, such as these in Maine's Scarborough Marsh. -- Photo by Pat Bean

Politicians who are more concerned with what is right then in staying loyal to their parties.

And, most importantly, a mandatory day once a month for politicians to walk a scenic landscape with Mother Nature to restore their souls.

These suggestions, in case you’re interested, come from an old broad who is proud to be a tree-hugger who yearns for world peace.

Perhaps, dear blog readers, you have other suggestions for changing the status quo in our nation’s capital. If you do, hopefully you’ll share. Change has to have a beginning.

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Cornell Link Helps identify Songster

Posted in Birds, Nature, tagged , , , , , on April 8, 2011| 6 Comments »

Carolina wren -- Photo by Dan Pancamo

“I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man.” — Chuang Tzu.

Travels With Maggie

A tiny bird sang and sang and sang all day yesterday from a perch high in the trees in my daughter’s Southern Arkansas home. It was frustrating because I could never find the songster. My son-in-law, Joe, even joined in the search.

I mean this was a persistent bird that serenaded us hour after hour. But every time we got close to where we thought the sound was coming from, the bird would shut up.

While many birders easily identify birds by their songs, I’m not one of them.

Finally able to stand it no longer, I did what any computer savvy birder does these days. I got online and begin checking out bird sounds on the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s website. http://tinyurl.com/dbbobp

My suspicion that our loud, high-pitched songster might be a Carolina wren, which is a common bird in the area, was confirmed.

I was once again a happy birder.

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Turkey Vulture Encounter Not Pretty

Posted in Birds, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , , on April 7, 2011| 7 Comments »

A turkey vulture looking almost as graceful as a bald eagle. -- Photo by Don DeBold

“We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope.” — Martin Luther King.

Travels With Maggie

My daughter, Trish, who one day may laugh again, lives at the end of a narrow road on the outskirts of Camden, Arkansas.

She’s learned to be careful driving the lane at night as deer lurk alongside the road and have been known to spook in the direction of bright headlights. It’s also common to see skunk, raccoon, squirrels, or armadillo scampering across the road – or lying dead along this rural stretch of rough pavement.

It was roadkill armadillo a few days ago when we were driving into town in Trish’s brand new minivan. And feasting on the upturned armadillo carcass were half a dozen vultures.

“Gads I hate those birds,” she moaned as we passed, to which I described their valuable role in helping keep our environment clean.

“I know. I know. But they’re still ugly.”

I don't think I'll ever convince my daughter there's beauty in this red-headed turkey vulture, but photographer Samuel Blanc, http://www.sblanc.com, caught the beauty in this picture.

Being one of those crazy birders who has never met a bird she didn’t like, I disagreed but then shut up as I knew convincing her otherwise was a lost cause. Now the cause is not just lost, it’s found its way into a parallel universe.

While driving home from work, my daughter came upon another roadkill scene and yet more vultures dining inelegantly. One of them, it seems, was even more reluctant than usual to forsake its evening meal.

The end of this tale is less pretty than the vulture. Seems the last one to fly away decided it might look good as a hood ornament on my daughter’s new car, which hadn’t yet 1,000 miles on the odometer.

The vulture put a dent on the vehicle’s hood before realizing this wasn’t such a good idea.

“Dang (actual word used censored) turkey vultures and their ugly red faces,” she darkly muttered when she finally got home and showed me the minor damage. She was gleeful that the bird staggered as it flew away.

I think all hope is lost for me to convince Trish that vultures are actually beautiful and a gift to the world. Wouldn’t you agree.

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State Parks High on my Overnight Travel Stops

Posted in Lakes, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , , on April 6, 2011| 4 Comments »

White Oak lake State Park: A place to sit a while and watch the clouds roll by. -- Photo by Pat Bean

Travels With Maggie

Arkansas has 52 state parks, 26 of which have facilities to accommodate RVs.

I know because finding state parks along my route is part of my regular trip-planning routine. If it were possible, I would spend all my on-the-road nights at state parks rather than commercial ones.

These public campgrounds are usually less expensive, have larger sites, and almost always come with a view and trails that Maggie and I can hike.

Hollyhocks growing near the Wonder House at Queen Wilhelmina State Park in Arkansas. -- Photo by Pat Bean

Two of my favorite Arkansas campgrounds are White Oak Lake and Queen Wilhelmina. The first is located just 20 miles away from Camden, where I will start my travels for the year next week. I’ve visited it a couple of times but never stayed overnight because of its close proximity.

In a perfect traveling world – well the one that I prefer – I travel about 150 miles than camp for two to three days so I can become more personally acquainted with a landscape.

Queen Wilhelmina, meanwhile, is almost exactly 150 miles from my daughter’s home. I came upon it a few years back when I was driving the Talamina Scenic Byway between Arkansas and Oklahoma.

The park, located high on a ridge in the Ouachita Mountains was too inviting to pass by. I decided to stop for the night, although I had only traveled 20 miles this day.  Five days later I finally left to continue my journey.

This time around I’m planning to spend my first night on the road at yet another Arkansas State Park. Stay tuned and I’ll tell you all about it next week.

“What you’ve done becomes the judge of what you’re going to do – especially in other people’s minds. When you’re traveling, you are what you are right there and then. People don’t have your past to hold against you. No yesterdays on the road.” William Least Heat Moon, “Blue Highways”

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Secret Garden and Chaos Both World Realities

Posted in Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , on April 5, 2011| 1 Comment »

 

Every garden should have a pond -- Photos by Pat Bean

“Where you tend a rose, my lad, a thistle cannot grow.” — Frances Hodgson Burnett

Travels With Maggie

News in the world today is not good. Anybody who doesn’t know this is suffering from reality disorder.

We may soon be eating radioactive fish. There are shooting wars aplenty including gang wars in our own country. We’re suffering from loss of freedoms because of terrorist threats, and from corporate greed that’s making the rich richer and the poor poorer. We have a melting ice cap, diminishing wetlands and rain forests, and politicians running amok all over the globe.

The purple tulips

How does a person stay sane amidst all the chaos? It’s not easy.

The red turtle

As a former journalist who was deeply embedded in world affairs for 37 years, I spent the first six months in retirement rarely reading a newspaper. It was a nice reprieve.

But I’ve now returned to my morning dose of worldly events, and because it’s still one of this country’s few newspapers that doesn’t believe Britney Spears, Charlie Sheen or Lindsey Lohan’s shenanigans belong on its front page, the online version of the New York Times is my first newspaper-with-coffee choice of information these days.

Belle in the meadow -- Photo by Pat Bean

What I read rarely cheers me up. But I have an antidote, my morning walk with Maggie, where I let Mother Nature’s reality convince me there is still hope for the world. For the past week the walk has simply been around my daughter’s five-acres of land in Camden, Arkansas.

The view includes my daughter’s “Secret Garden,” which is still under construction. And yes, it is named after the book of the same name by Frances Hodgson Burnett written in 1910. It was one of my favorite books as a child, and one each of my children also read and loved.

If you haven’t read it, you should. It’s still in print and you can even download it for free on your Kindle. Meanwhile here are a few of the peaceful sights Maggie and I have been seeing this past week.

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