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Posts Tagged ‘postaday2011’

Favorite Hikes: Negro Bill Canyon

Posted in Birds, Favorite Hikes, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , , on February 27, 2011| 2 Comments »

 

Morning Glory Natural Bridge -- Photo by Jay Wilbur

“I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read and all the friends I want to see.” John Burroughs  

Travels With Maggie

 I learned about Negro Bill Canyon Trail at the visitor center in Moab, Utah, where I asked if there was a good hiking trail on which I could take my dog.

Moab is located adjacent to Arches National Park that has fantastic trails, but dogs are not allowed on them. The kindly desk clerk directed me to take Highway 191 north to Highway 128, which parallels the Colorado River, and then to look for a small parking area at the trailhead after about three miles.

It was easy to find and soon my dog and I were hiking up a narrow canyon trail that weaved across a small stream.

My hiking companion at the time was not Maggie. It was Peaches, a beautiful golden cocker spaniel who was then 15 years old. Since this was my first significant hike since foot surgery, the dawdling footsteps of her four legs and my two legs were perfectly matched.

It was actually a great pace as the trail, with its tinkling stream, red rock walls, willow groves and other wonders of nature, deserved adequate time to be properly admired. After about two miles, the trail forked. Peaches and I took the path veering to the right, which went about another half mile before ending at Morning Glory Natural Bridge, a 75-foot tall, 243 foot arch span overseeing an alcove.

Here, in this grand and peaceful setting, with a canyon wren serenading us, Peaches and I ate a leisurely lunch from my small backpack before heading back. It was the last hike Peaches and I took together.

Negro Bill Canyon Trailhead sign off Highway 128 with the Colorado River flowing past on the far side of the road.

The next time I hiked the trail, I had Maggie, a black cocker spaniel whom I had rescued from a life of abuse. She had been a year old at the time, and from her actions on the trail I realized this was probably her first off-pavement walk, certainly her first time to cross a stream. She either had to be coaxed or carried across. .

While she never became the great hiker Peaches was, Maggie’s now quite eager to get off the beaten path. In that, she and I are alike.

*Negro Bill Canyon is named after William Granstaff, a cowboy who ran cattle in the canyon in the late 1870s. While the name is not exactly politically correct, it’s more so now since the name was changed from the original “N” word.

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Goldfinch Assumption Gets This Writer Thinking

Posted in Birds, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , on February 26, 2011| 4 Comments »

One of the lesser goldfinches Maggie and I saw on our morning walk. -- Photo by Pat Bean

“Our greatest strength as a human race is our ability to acknowledge our differences, our greatest weakness is our failure to embrace them.” — Judith Henderson

 Travels With Maggie

 Some days I wake up eager to write on a topic that burned itself into my brain as I slept, usually because the subject was on my mind before I went to bed. I consider these good days.

 On others, I wake brain-dead, wondering what in the heck I’m going to write about. This morning was one of these.

 Some days, Maggie sleeps in until 10 a.m. Others, like this morning, she wakes up early and immediately demands that I take her for a walk. Yes. I know. My children already have informed me that my canine companion bosses me around.

 But I welcomed her demands this morning, knowing that walks fertilize my brain. The birds clinging to a thistle finch bag feeder we passed did the rest.

I jumped to the conclusion that they were American goldfinches, which are extremely common all across the country. A closer inspection of the birds through binoculars, however, and I discovered my mistake. I was looking at lesser goldfinches, whose range rarely extends farther east than my current location in Central Texas.

An American goldfinch -- Photo by Pat Bean

 The adult males of both species are brilliant yellow and black (females are duller and in the case of the lesser more green than yellow), but the lesser has a black head and back, while the American only wears a black cap and has black wings that contrast with a yellow back. Both species are beautiful birds.

 And that got me thinking about the assumptions people make when confronted with differences in general. I suspect that erroneous assumptions, like my confusion as to which goldfinch I was seeing, are way too common. And just like my goldfinches, most of our assumptions usually have nothing to do with right or wrong.

One kind of beauty, one color of skin or one way of thinking may be no better or no worse than another kind of beauty, a different color of skin or a second, third or fourth way of thinking.

I suspect the world could do with fewer assumptions and more appreciation of differences. What do you think?

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It’s Daffodil Festival Time Around the Country

Posted in Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , on February 25, 2011| 7 Comments »

A front-yard daffodil tells us spring is not too far way. -- Photo by Pat Bean

“I wandered lonely as a cloud

That Floats on high o’er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd

A host of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the Breeze.”

   — William Wordsworth.   

I saw my first daffodils for the year yesterday. Five golden blooms had popped themselves up beneath a juniper tree.

“Quick. Take a picture. Before the deer eat them,” said my daughter-in-law, Cindi. “And then e-mail it to D.C.” The daffodils were still there this morning, however. The deer were evidently satisfied with the corn she put out for them. Like me, she worries about the neighborhood deer because development in this once rural area is destroying all their habitat.

D.C. is my son, the one who never wants a thermostat to drop beneath 78, but who is currently in Afghanistan, at a place where a frigid winter is still very much in charge of the landscape. While a picture of a daffodil might not warm his body, hopefully it will warm his spirit.

A field of daffodils in Cornwall, England -- Photo by Mark Robinson

Daffodils do that to people. It’s as if the energy that pushes up daffodils – sometimes through several inches of snow – is transferred from the golden petals to the human soul.

Camden, Arkansas, where my youngest daughter lives, hosts an annual Daffodil Festival, with this year’s event scheduled March 11-12. You might want to catch it if you’re anywhere nearby. If not, perhaps you can attend one of these other daffodil events:

       Annual Daffodil Parade, Puyallup, Washington, April 9

       Meriden, Connecticutt, Daffodil Festival April 30-May 1

       Gloucester, Virginia, Daffodil Festival, March 26-27

       Junction, Oregon, Daffodil Drive Festival, March 12-13

       Nantuckett Island, Massachusetts, Daffodil Festival Weekend April 29-May 1

       Fremont, North Carolina, Daffodil Festival, March 26

I could continue on for a while, but you get the idea. I’m not the only one who thinks daffodils are worthy of notice.

Have you seen your first one this year yet?

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Cedar Waxwings Cheer Up a Gray Day

Posted in Birds, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , , on February 23, 2011| 3 Comments »

 

Hundreds of cedar waxwings swooped from the sky and landed in the tree tops as Maggie and I walked past them this morning. -- Photo by Pat Bean

 “Happiness isn’t getting what you want, it is wanting what you got.” Garth Brooks

 Travels With Maggie It’s cool, damp and overcast here in Central Texas this morning. No sliver of golden sun, or even a rose-tinted cloud to brighten the day.

 The birds, however, seem to love it.

 I watched a pair of northern cardinals, a scarlet male and a yellow and red female, chase each other around a row of cedar trees outside my RV. A chatty mockingbird watched the courtship from a utility line above the trees, then flew off, perhaps in search of its own soul-mate.

The cardinals’ splash of color helped make up for the missing sunrise. But it wasn’t until later, after my dog, Maggie, finally woke and demanded her morning walk, that the day truly seemed cheery. Hundreds of cedar waxwings swooped down and settled in the tops of several trees our walk took us past.  Immediately they began calling back and forth among themselves, filling the air with bird twitter.

Cedar Waxwing -- Photo by Ken Thomas ( http://kenthomas.us/ )

 The light was such that the birds seemed little more than dark blobs against a gray sky. A look at them through my binoculars added a bit of their color, but my knowledge and imagination had to add the rest.

Cedar waxwings are striking birds with fancy crests, rosy-brown heads and yellow bellies. Red splotches on their wings, yellow on their tail tips and a black mask across their eyes make them look as if they’ve dressed in their best feathers for a masquerade ball.

 They’re actually the partying kind. I can’t recall ever seeing just one cedar waxwing.

 These birds only visit Texas in the winter. They migrate north for the summer. Smart birds. Come warmer weather, Texans will be yearning for a cool, damp, overcast morning like today.

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Avocado Milkshakes and Salted Duck Eggs

Posted in Travel, tagged , , , , , , , on February 22, 2011| 5 Comments »

The three figures on the right welcome visitors to the Chinese Center in Austin, Texas. I suspect each  statue represents something, but have no idea what. Do you know? — Photo by Pat Bean

                       ____________________________ 

“Assumptions allow the best in life to pass you by.” — John Sales

Travels With Maggie

My big adventure today was drinking an avocado milkshake.

Just the thought of such a thing when my granddaughter, Jennifer, insisted I try it, made my stomach turn. While I love avocados, I simply could not get my mind to imagine them tasting anything but nasty mixed in a milkshake.

Yes Virginia. There really is such a thing as an avocado milkshake. And it's yummy. -- Photo by Pat Bean

I kept saying I’d rather just have a chocolate shake during our hour-long drive from Harker Heights to Austin, where Jennifer, her best friend, Ellen, and my daughter-in-law, Cindi, were all excited about visiting the Asian market in the Chinese Center. All three are big fans of Asian food.

The salted duck eggs were a popular item at the Asian market. Photo by Pat Bean

While they bought such things as salted duck eggs, chow mun noodles, mochi and other exotic goodies not available in your regular supermarket, I contented myself with just a box of hibiscus tea.

The four of us ladies then had a Chinese Buffet Lunch at the Fortune Restaurant (good and reasonably priced) before Jennifer was back to talking about those avocado milkshakes again. They would be our dessert, she said, and her treat.

While a chocolate shake still sounded better, I didn’t want my granddaughter to think her Nana was a wimp, and so agreed I’d try her avocado shake. Jennifer bought one for each of us at the Lily Sandwich Shop around the corner from the Fortune Restaurant in the Chinese Center.

I have to admit it was quite tasty. Perhaps I should have bought some of those salted duck eggs, too.

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Who We Were Doesn’t Have To Be Who We Are

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on February 21, 2011| 3 Comments »

Maya Angelou reading her poetry to the nation during Clinton's 1993 presidential inauguration. -- Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

 

“I always love to hear people laugh. I never trust people who don’t laugh … I also like people who love themselves. I don’t trust people who don’t love themselves.” — Maya Angelou

Travels With Maggie

I was asked this week, after I wrote about David Hasselhoff (Feb. 17th blog), who had been my favorite person to interview during my 37 years as a journalist. Without a second’s hesitation, I replied, “Maya Angelou.”

I had the honor of spending an hour with this earthy, acclaimed poet before she gave the 1997 “Familes Alive” address at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah. Amazingly, I found this very same speech online at http://tinyurl.com/63tg8eo I suggest, if you have time, that you read it.

Angelou had been 69 at the time, She stood six-feet tall and had an ample body that should have made her look grandmotherly. It didn’t. She oozed confidence, and sexuality in a way I had never seen before. I remember thinking back then that if this what age had in store for me, bring it on.

My first introduction to Maya Angelou came in the early 1970s when I read her "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings."

A huge audience had come to hear Maya speak. I, for one, drank in every word she spoke. Here was a woman who had risen from suffering racial discrimination to reading her poetry before the nation during a presidential inauguration.

Her life is clear evidence for all of us that where we start out in life isn’t where we have to stay.

The newspaper story I wrote from my interview and Angelou’s speech stirred one angry letter, however.

I quoted Anglelou quoting a 1950s’ folk song that had a Black man saying: “The woman I love is fat and chocolate to the bone, and every time she shakes some skinny woman loses her home.” Angelou demonstrated the shaking, and said she loved to make people laugh. And everyone in the audience obliged her.

In response, the letter writer accused me of encouraging discrimination against “skinny women.” I suspected she was a woman who had never laughed at herself. How sad.

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Morning Walk With Caressing Breeze, Deer and a Dandelion

Posted in Birds, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , , on February 20, 2011| 7 Comments »

 

Have you ever taken the time to look into a deer's eyes. Perhaps you should. -- Photo by Pat Bean

”  Though it sounds absurd, it is true to say I felt younger at sixty than I felt at twenty.” — Ellen Glasgow, “The Woman Within”  

Travels With Maggie

 There have been many thrilling minutes in my life. When I was young, I watched my babies breathe in and out as they lay asleep, and felt the grasp of their tiny hands around my fingers. Each of their achievements – from taking their first steps to bringing home their first paycheck, made my heart sing with joy.

After my babies had flown the coop, I was free to chase other thrills, like rafting the grand canyon, going on a safari in Africa, and even jumping out of an airplane. It would not be unfair to say that I’m a bit of an adrenalin junkie.

But when I took my dog Maggie on her walk this morning, I felt more alive than I think I have ever felt before.

The sky was full of puffy rose and lavender tinted clouds that let one know the sun had risen even if it wasn’t visible this overcast day. A cool breeze stirred the hair on my bare arms, but I wasn’t cold. The caress on my skin felt like a gentle lover’s touch, one I never wanted to stop

The purple buds on this mailbox cactus appear to be straining for warmer weather so they can burst forth in joyous blooms. -- Photo by Pat Bean

.

I wasn’t alone in my enjoyment of the moment. The coolness gave Maggie, now 13, a briskness to her steps that, like mine, have begun to slow. She walked with ears flapping in the wind, and her short cocker-spaniel tail, straight up, a signal to the world that she’s in charge.

I was vividly aware of everything around me, the cedar waxwings crowding the leafless branches of an oak tree, the straining purple buds on a huge cactus in a mailbox planter, the eyes of a deer staring at me as I approached and a single dandelion in a winter brown yard.

In my younger days, I would have probably only seen the deer, and even then would not have taken the time to look into its eyes and make the connection I did this day.

While a few of the older female writers I’ve been reading lately, like Diana Athill in “Somewhere Toward the End,” spend too many of their words bemoaning what age has taken from them, I have nary a complaint.

With age has come acceptance of myself, deeper understanding of how the world works, and the wisdom to know that the simply things in life can be as thrilling as getting to the top of the mountain.

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Rio Grande Valley: Where Colorful Birds Light Up the Trees

Posted in Birds, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , on February 19, 2011| 5 Comments »

Green Jays at a feeder in Bentsen State Park in the Rio Grande Valley. -- Photo by Pat Bean

 “Hear! Hear!: screamed the jay from a neighboring tree, where I had heard a tittering for some time, “winter has a concentrated and nutty kernel, if you know where to look for it.” — Henry David Thoreau, 28 November 1858 journal entry.

 Travels With Maggie

 I was sitting here in my RV, currently parked in my oldest son’s Central Texas driveway, pondering what to write about on my travel blog this morning. The answer came to me when my daughter-in-law, Cindi, brought me an article about colorful birds that she had clipped from the Killeen Daily Herald.

 She had been awed by the photo of a green jay that accompanied the story, and knew that this avid birder would probably be awed as well. It was a bird she had never seen, and had no idea that it was quite common in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley, where South American birds hang out in the winter. 

An Altamira oriole lights up a tree branch in the Rio Grande Valley. -- Photo by Pat Bean

 If you want to see colorful birds and escape from cold weather as well, this is the place to go. Thousands of RV dwellers spend entire winters here, cozily hooked up in towns like Harlingen, Welasco, Padre Island and Brownsville.

I’ve spent a few winter weeks there myself, always coming away with new birds for my life list. This southern tip of Texas is home to Laguna Atacosa National Wildlife Refuge, where I saw my first aplomado falcons; Estero Llano Grande State Park, where last year I got my first tropical kingbird and pauraque; Santa Ana State Park where my first great kiskadee called to me from an overhead branch; and the World Birding Center at Bentsen State Park in Mission, where green jays abound at bird feeders scattered about the park and flame-colored Altamira orioles decorate the trees like Christmas lights.

 While you might not take notice of all those plain little brown birds in your backyard, the colorful ones you’ll see in the Rio Grande Valley just might amaze you.

My favorite hangout when visiting the area is the 1015 RV Park in Welasco. It’s not fancy and the sites are small, but it’s inexpensive and within easy walking distance of Estereo Llano Grande State Park, where I spent most of my time anyway.

 It’s one of those numerous Rio Grande Valley places where the birds hang out.

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Will the Real David Hasselhoff Please Stand Up

Posted in Travel, tagged , , , , on February 17, 2011| 7 Comments »

 

David Hasselhoff as I remember him back in about 1989. -- Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

“There is a certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse! As I have often found in traveling in a stagecoach, that it is often a comfort to shift one’s position, and be bruised in a new place.” Washington Irving

Travels With Maggie

A text from a grandson last night took me on a journey down memory lane. It was the only traveling I did yesterday.

“So um, david hasselhoff is here in lake jackson (Texas) hosting a reality show, how random,” 16-year-old Dallas alerted me.

It was an opportunity for this former journalist to impress her grandson by informing him that I once interviewed Hasselhoff. Of course my grandson wanted to know the details. After a bit of brain scratching I told him as much as I could remember.

It was about 1989, after Hasselhoff’s stint on “The Young and The Restless” and his role as the “Knight Rider” had ended. When I met him he was the bare-chested life guard hero of Bay Watch.

His reason for appearing at the Layton Mall in Northern Utah was to promote his newly begun career as a singer. Tall and good-looking, and not yet 40, Hasselhoff’s appearance had the ladies there to see him all a giggle.

“Take off your shirt,” several of them urged him. He didn’t, however. He sang, and he joked with his mostly female audience, but remained gentlemanly and modest.

Thinking back on that day now, and comparing it to some of Hasselhoff’s more recent shenanigans, left me thoughtful. The years change us, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse, and sometimes a bit of both. You see Hasselhoff ‘s current reputation doesn’t take into account his long-standing charitable efforts with the Make a Wish foundation, or his numerous visits to children’s hospitals around the world.

It makes me glad to know that when I interviewed Hasselhoff , I got to see his better side.

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Favorite Hikes: Mesa Arch Trail in Canyonlands

Posted in Favorite Hikes, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , , on February 16, 2011| 6 Comments »

The view through Mesa Arch -- Photo by Pat Bean

A close up view through Mesa Arch -- Photo by Pat Bean

“I see my path, but I don’t know where it leads. Not knowing where I’m going is what inspires me to travel it.” — Rosalia de Castro

Travels With Maggie

The trail to Mesa Arch seems too short and too gentle for the magnificent reward it gives hikers. Midway in the half-mile loop is a window to the La Salle Mountains 35 miles away, and a view of the Colorado River 1,000 feet below.

Although you may have never hiked the trail, you’ve probably unknowingly seen the arch, which stands on a ridge edge in the Island in the Sky section of Canyonlands National Park. It is a favorite subject for photographers and is a common image found in outdoor magazines, like National Geographic Adventure, and on post cards and T-shirts.

A view of the La Salle Mountains over the top of Mesa Arch. -- Photo by Pat Bean

All the guide books say the best time to hike this half-mile trail is sunrise, and photos I’ve seen of it in this light are magnificent. Sadly, I’ve never seen it at this time of day, and my photographs lack the brilliance of the morning sunrise. Even so, it was a view I would not have wanted to miss.

Actually, there were many other views I wouldn’t have wanted to miss in this Southern Utah Park, especially the Island in the Sky section, which is so aptly named. Sticking up over 1,000 feet from the terrain below, this sandstone mesa offers 360-degree views of the terrain below.

In addition to the Mesa Arch Trail, there are plenty of  not-so-short and not-so-gentle hikes for the more adventurous. I’ve done a few, all with scenic beauty around every turn. I hope you have, or will, walk some of those paths. You should have plenty of energy left to do so after you visit Mesa Arch.

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