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Africa: First the Dream, Then the Planning

Posted in African Safari, tagged , , , , , , , , , on June 21, 2011| 1 Comment »

 “We all have our own life to pursue, our own kind of dream to be weaving. And we all have some power to make wishes come true, as long as we keep believing. — Louisa May Alcott

African Safari: The Dream

Frank Buck, a macho "bring-em-back-alive" hunter/explorer, provided the first generation of many of today's zoo animals. He also whet my dreams to visit the dark continent. -- Image courtesy of Wikipedia.

For the most part, I’ve been perfectly happy traveling only where my RV Gypsy Lee will take me. America has the most amazing and diversified landscapes – from Death Valley to the Grand Canyon and the Denali peaks to the Everglades’ river of grass – one can find anywhere.

Perhaps that’s only my opinion, but I’m sticking to it and challenge anyone to prove otherwise.

I’ve driven this country from coast to coast and border to border, finding beauty everywhere I go. People ask me what’s my favorite place, and I’m always hard-pressed to answer because I have so many.

But I also grew up reading Osa Johnson and Frank Buck’s tales of Africa. This dark continent so full of wild animals and mystery called to me. The truth is it called and called for many years before my dream of an African Safari finally became a reality four years ago.

Since this is a travel blog, and since Maggie and I, are currently camped out until mid-September here at Lake Walcott State Park in Southern Idaho, where I’m a volunteer campground host, I’ve decided this is the perfect opportunity for me to share my African adventure with you.

I began planning for the trip three years in advance, first telling my good friend, Kim, my travel plans. She and I, over the years, had already shared many adventures, like battling white-water rapids together and getting lost while four-wheeling up an unpaved, muddy canyon.

Osa's Ark: The plane that Osa Johnson and her husband used to study African wildlife, which she wrote about in "I Married African." Her book lit the fire in my desire to visit Africa. -- Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

“You’re not going without me,” she responded. And I didn’t.

Together, we decided to do the trip first-class, and for three years we each saved the approximate $10,000 cost that covered airfare, in-country transportation, guides, luxury camping (even in tents), daily safari trips, tips and souvenirs.

After pouring over brochures, we chose The Africa Adventure Company to make all arrangements for us, and our choice of tours was their 16-Day African Journeys’ Safari to Tanzania and Kenya, the cost of which I noted on their website http://africa-adventure.com/ this morning begins at $6,450. It was a bit less back in 2007.

Next Episode: Travel Details. Please journey with me as I relieve, from beginning to end, my African safari.

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A Peaceful Afternoon of Culture Exchange

Posted in Birds, Lakes, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , , on May 26, 2011| 3 Comments »

“perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all people cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.” — Maya Angelou

Travels With Maggie

A western grebe floats near Lake Walcott's shore on a liquid canvas painted with reflections. -- Photo by Pat Bean

One of the reasons I love being a campground host is the people I get to meet, like Jane and Greg from Australia, who arrived here two days ahead of their paid reservation.

This charming couple with the twangy accent had rented an RV to tour western national parks, and had been chased out of Yellowstone early because of snow.

They came knocking at my RV door after park office hours to tell me their dilemma. Since the park was sparsely occupied this rainy night, I took their name and information and told them to just select a site and the details could be straightened out in the morning.

But being a nosy old broad, I had to also ask a lot of personal questions, beginning with: “Are you two Aussies?” They, thankfully, were just as nosy about me and Maggie, and eventually we agreed to get together over a drink and before-dinner snacks the next afternoon.

A bench beneath a shade tree says "Come sit a while and visit with Mother Nature." -- Photo by Pat Bean

Lake Walcott State Park here in Southern Idaho was their last hurrah before heading back to their home in Queensland. We talked about their visit to Zion National Park, my favorite place in the universe, and their fantastic reaction to the waterfalls in Yosemite, which is the one western national park that has mysteriously escaped a visit from me.

This was their first visit to America and I told them of other of this country’s wonders they should see if they came back, like Texas’ Palo Duro Canyon. They, in return, told me of places I should visit in Australia, which is still on my To-Do list.

It was a cold day, and the extra chill of the approaching night, sent us off to our respective homes on wheels all too soon. But not before we had exchanged e-mails.

The next morning, as they pulled out in the gray dawn, we waved at each other, like two ships passing in a fog. Perhaps we’ll continue our friendship, perhaps not. Only time will tell.

But I feel richer for having met them and sharing the wonders of our two countries. I can’t help but think that this kind of exchange is where world peace has to begin.

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Life is Windy Days, Opportunities Missed and Glorious Sunrises

Posted in Birds, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , on May 24, 2011| 5 Comments »

My first sunrise for the year at Lake Walcott reminded me of lemon and blueberries. -- Photo by Pat Bean

“Living is strife and torment, disappointment and love and sacrifice, golden sunsets and black storms. I said that some time ago, and today I do not think I would add one word.” — Laurence Olivier

*Travels With Maggie

The wind blew last night, hard enough for my RV, Gypsy Lee, to rock and roll. I thought about sticking around Ogden for an extra day, but decided to drive to Idaho’s Lake Walcott State Park as planned. It was only 160 miles away after all.

Yup! Just 160 miles that took me through three dust storms and wind that almost blew me off the road before I exited Interstate 84 onto Highway 24 to Lake Walcott, with the wind continuing to taunt me the entire way.

Except for that, it was a nice drive beside the Wasatch Mountains, through farmlands, and past Snowville, just south of the Idaho border. The route then took me over Sweetzer Pass, either side of which is where the wind blew hardest, and finally over the Snake River.

Interstate 84, which follows Interstate 15 north to Tremonton before splitting, is nothing like the interstate south of Ogden, which snarled me in traffic last week on my way north. While there were occasional big semis, this four-lane highway from Ogden to Idaho was mostly a peaceful, scenic and uncrowded route.

A cheery robin outside my RV welcomed me back, too. -- Photo by Pat Bean

When I arrived at the park, I noted that while I had left Texas just as “summer” was arriving, spring hadn’t fully visited Lake Walcott. Many of the park’s grand big trees were still leafless. The lake, meanwhile, with its waves being influenced by the high winds, looked like an ocean. .

I though about about getting some photographs of the water lapping over the boat docks, but decided to rest awhile from my difficult drive first. By the time I awoke from a short nap, the winds had calmed and the lake was almost back to normal.

I was sorry I had let the opportunity pass, especially after park workers told me that the lake had been the worse they had ever seen it. In fact, the wind storm actually did some damage to one of the boat docks here.

Even so it felt good to be ba.ck. Last summer I was a campground host here for six weeks. This year I’ll be here all year. While park workers greeted my return with enthusiasm. Also extending a welcome note to my return was a spectacular sunrise and a cheery robin when I awoke to the next morning.

Life is good.

*And so ends my month long, 2,600-mile zig-zagging, sight-seeing journey from Texas to Idaho. Thanks to those who came along for the ride. But please tune in again tomorrow, the adventures are not over yet.

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Memories Hitch a Ride from Colorado to Utah

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

 “Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.” — Matsuo Basho

I passed by Mesa Verde National Park today, but last year when I came this same way I stopped for a visit and took this photo of the Balcony House. -- Photo by Pat Bean

Travels With Maggie*

I awoke this morning to an alarm clock of geese honking as they flew overhead. The sound, as always, soothed my soul. Wild things flying free, sharing the burden of making headway against the wind as they flew to whether they were going.

It was time for me to get up and get going, too.

While yesterday’s awesome drive over Wolf Creek Pass through the San Juan Mountains was a new experience for me, today’s drive would be through quite familiar territory.

Over the years, I’ve made numerous trips between my home in Northern Utah and family members in Texas. While I’ve always tried to find new roads to travel to get between the two states, more often than not on the return trip, I headed north at Santa Fe to Pagosa Springs and then went west on Highway 160 to Cortez and then north again through Moab to Ogden. It was the shortest way back home. .

On one of those trips, back in the late 1970s, I took the longer, steeper way home, heading north at Durango to Silverton and on to Grand Junction, Colorado. It was one of the first solo cross-country trips I made. And I can still recall the excitement of traveling through such fantastic country.

In my memory I can still see Twilight Peak from Highway 550, a route I didn't take this day. -- Photo courtesy Wikipedia

Up above Silverton, I came around a high, sharp curve and there, floating almost in front of me, was a hang glider. I pulled my car over to the side, got out and waved. To this day I still wonder where he came from and where he was going to land.

This day, however, I continued west through Durango, past the shadow of Mesa Verde, which I visited last year, and on to Cortez, where I stopped to resupply my refrigerator with fresh vegetables from a local market.

At the far side of Cortez, I turned north on Highway 491, which used to be Highway 666 until the name was changed because of the number’s “devilish” association. I’ve driven it under both names without any mishaps.

I ended the day’s drive in Utah, at a small RV park in the town of Monticello, where I slept soundly with the La Salle Mountains looking down on me and my dog, Maggie, curled up beside me..

*Day 9 of the journey, April 27, 2011

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A Perfect Colorado Day Ends Badly

Posted in Birds, Lakes, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , , on May 3, 2011| 7 Comments »

“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in, forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day, you shall begin it well and serenely…” Ralph Waldo Emerson

Gypsy Lee in a better place than a dinky RV park in Alamosa. -- Photo by Pat Bean

Travels With Maggie*

My grandmother believed that trouble came in threes. I can’t tell you how many times in my life she was proved right, which is why I should have been more worried at the first setback of my perfect day.

My two previous overnight campgrounds were Colorado state parks with trails to walk, lakes to sit by, scenic landscapes out my window and birds to sing me awake in the morning. I expected tonight’s stay at San Luis State Park, just 20 miles down the road from the Great Sand Dunes, would offer much the same.

And well it might have if it hadn’t still been closed for the season – even though my Trailer Life Directory of RV campgrounds, my travel bible, said it opened for the season April 15.

The next closest campground I could locate was a KOA in Alamosa. It was another 25 miles to drive, but the directory’s ratings gave it a thumbs up, along with noting that it opened for the season on March 13.

Wrong again. It didn’t open until May 1.

A pair of mallards cheer up any day. -- Photo by Pat Bean

I then realized my RV was pulling to the right and discovered the front passenger tire was low. My nearly new tire, I saw, had a nail in it. Quickly, I retreated to a tire store I had passed about five miles back up the road, thinking it would be an easy fix. Wrong.

Before beginning this trip, Gypsy Lee, which has over 115,000 miles on her, underwent some major wear and tear repairs, including new wheels to replace the corroded and cracked old ones. They were shiny, spiffy and expensive – and required a special key to unscrew their lug nuts, which someone had forgotten to give me.

The small Alamosa tire store, which was also a service station, couldn’t solve my problem. And by now it was after 6 p.m. and every place else was closed for the evening, even the place in Texas where I had bought the wheels. As a last resort, I called them thinking they could FedEx the part to Alamosa overnight.

I had air put in my tire, hoping it was a very slow leak, and retreated to a dinky RV park a few miles away where campers were allowed to dump their gray (dish-washing and/shower) water on the ground. I was not a happy camper. I might have whined a bit, except Gypsy Lee has a rule against such self-pity.

The best thing I have going for me as a lone female traveling this great country of ours is the confidence that I can handle what the road throws at me. This wasn’t the first, or the worse mishap, I had overcome in seven years of traveling.

So while I didn’t get a peaceful night’s sleep because of worrying about my situation, I awoke ready to solve it.

Thankfully my tire still had air in it, and the local Firestone tire shop I called as soon as they were open, said they could solve my problem. If they broke the studs getting the locks off, the sensible woman on the other end of the line told me, then they would just replace them. It wouldn’t be all that expensive.

It turned out they actually had a key for my wheels in stock, which they sold me for future emergencies. I was back on the road, my pocketbook only $22 thinner, within about 15 minutes.

Now let’s see. If I count the two closed RV parks and the nail-in-the-tire, that makes three things that went wrong yesterday.

If my grandmother was right, I had another perfect day ahead of me.

Continuing Day 7, April 25, 2001

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A Day of Mountains, Snow, Sand and Water

Posted in Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , on May 2, 2011| 1 Comment »

Great Sand Dunes National Park in the shadow of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. -- Photo by Pat Beab

“The more sand that has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.” Niccolo Machiavelli.

Travels With Maggie*

I reached John Denver’s “Rocky Mountain High” today. My journey west on Highway 160 took me through the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, the highest being 14,351-foot tall Mount Blanco. The steep winding road through the mountains topped out at a 9,468-foot snow-enhanced summit.

Since Maggie and I hit the mountains a bit past sunrise and well before sunset, we didn’t get to see why the mountain was given its Spanish name, Blood of Christ. The name is supposedly for the reddish glow the mountains take on in morning and evening light.

Even so, I was properly awed by the Sangre de Cristos’ splendor – and I was properly thankful for the new brake pads on my RV, Gypsy Lee, as Maggie and I dropped down the far side of them. And properly surprised at the detour we took off Highway 160 to see the Great Sand Dunes.

Located at the base of the snow-covered Sangre de Cristos were giant pink piles of sand, some as tall as 750-feet. I couldn’t help but feel they were geographically out of place. Which of course made them all that much more special.

Estimated to be anywhere from 12,000 to a million years old, the dunes were formed by mountain erosion transported by the Rio Grande River and its tributaries. The sand pile grew, and in some places is still growing, because the tiny wind-blown granules are trapped in a curved valley.

The dunes became a national monument in 1922, and a national park in 2000. I lingered at the visitor center and among the sand for a couple of hours before ending my detour and getting back on Highway 160.

Up to this point in time, it had been a perfect traveling day. Little did I know the pitfalls of travel that lay ahead of me. Tune in again tomorrow and I’ll tell you the tale.

Continuing Day 7, April 25, 2001

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La Junta: A Place Where Lady Liberty Holds a Torch

Posted in Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , , , on April 28, 2011| 2 Comments »

Lady Liberty in La Junta, Colorado. -- Photo by Pat Bean

Redbud blossoms say spring — Photo by Pat Bean

 

“Education is learning what you didn’t even know, you didn’t know.” — Daniel J. Boorstin

Travels With Maggie*

I stopped at La Junta, Colorado, to see the Koshare Indian Museum, but it was closed. Instead I took a walk in the City Park adjacent to the museum, where I was surprised to see the Statue of Liberty.

Of course not the real thing, just a miniature replica presented to the city by local Boy Scouts. Why was it here in this small town that sat on the banks of the Arkansas River (which by the way I had already crossed several times since leaving Texas just six days ago) and in the path of the old Santa Fe Trail?

This inquiring mind needed to know. It was the homework I set myself for the evening.

La Junta, I learned first, had its beginnings as a construction camp for the Santa Fe Railroad, which, when completed, marked the beginning of the end for the Missouri to New Mexico foot path. After the railroad work was completed the construction camp almost died, but then the railroad built a depot and roundhouse at the site and it bustled once again.

In 1881, the camp was incorporated and named La Junta, which in Spanish means the junction.

As to the Statue of Liberty replica, I learned there are over 200 of them scattered around the country in 39 states. Iowa, with 27, has the most, with Kansas coming in a close second with 26, and Missouri, with 25, taking third place.

The statue in La Junta is one of 17 for Colorado. A complete list of the statue sites, just in case you have an inquiring mind, too, can be found at: http://tinyurl.com/4q5a7gw

The statues were Kansas City Scout Commissioner J.P. Whitaker’s idea for celebrating the Boy Scouts’ 40th anniversary in the 1950s. Anyone with $350 plus the cost of freight for the 290-pound, 8.5-foot tall copper statues could get one.

Homework completed, I was once again a satisfied traveler.

A road trip is so much more than just traveling down the road taking in the sights with the eyes. The brain needs a bit of stimulating vistas to make it a complete travel experience. Well, at least that’s the way I prefer to travel.

*Continuing Day 6 of the journey, April 24, 2011

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A Kansas Sky in the Rear View Mirror

Posted in Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , , on April 26, 2011| 1 Comment »

Kansas in the rear-view mirror -- Photo by Pat Bean

“Life becomes precious and more special to us when we look for the little everyday miracles and get excited about the privileges of simply being human.” — Tim Hansel.

Travels With Maggie

Maggie and I left Kansas and its winds behind today as we drove west on Highway 50 to John Martin Reservoir State Park in Colorado. Route 50, like the more famous Route 66, was created in 1926 as part of the original U.S. Highway System.

But while only bits and piece of the more famous Route 66, which stretched from Chicago to Los Angeles, remains today, the longer Highway 50 is almost intact, stretching from the Atlantic in Maryland to Sacramento, California. Originally it went all the way to San Francisco, but that section got eaten up by larger roads, not much different from what Highway 50 did to earlier travel routes.

Portions of Highway 50 used to be part of the Santa Fe Trail, back when travel depended on feet, human or animal. That unpaved trail, stretching from Missouri to Santa Fe, New Mexico, was heavily used from 1822 until the railroad came to Santa Fe about 1880.

Today’s drive was quite peaceful, with little traffic, giving me time to consider how fortunate I was to have four wheels carrying me smoothly to my destination. My passing RV spooked a striking male ring-necked pheasant in the grasses beside the road and I got to see him skitter away, his red and green head bobbing and his long tail waving behind him.

As I drove, gaining elevation, I could see father behind me than ahead. It was a puffy-white cloud day, and the sky looked like a sea with white-capped waves. The image in my rear-view mirror was striking enough that I snapped a picture of it as I drove. Not too smart probably but there were no other cars in sight.

Time passed fast and soon we were pulling into the campground, where I backed my RV, Gypsy Lee, up next to Hasty Lake. Robins, Eurasian doves, great-tailed grackles, blue-winged teal floating in the lake and a twittering titmouse welcomed us.

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Kansas: Meadowlarks and Oz-like Winds

Posted in Birds, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , , on April 25, 2011| 5 Comments »

A scene from Dorothy's House -- Photo by Pat Bean

Western meadowlark, photo by Kevin Cole

 “It’s a warm wind, the west wind, full of birds’ cries; I never hear the west wind but tears are in my eyes. For it comes from the west lands, the old brown hills, and April’s in the West wind, and daffodils.” — John Masefield

Travels With Maggie

Kansas: The sunflower is the state flower and the western meadowlark its state bird. While I was a bit too early for sunflowers, I saw lots of western meadowlarks. This is a bird whose beauty I failed to see until I first looked at it through binoculars 12 years ago.

It’s golden breast, adorned with a black necklace, is so brilliant that on seeing the feathers magnified I forgot to breathe for a bit. Now when I see one flitting alongside the road as I drive, and I saw lots this day, I remember the intensity of the golden color even if all I see to identify the bird is its outer white tail feathers as it skims the grasses in the opposite direction from the road.

Besides meadowlarks, I also experienced plenty of Kansas’ Oz-Land winds, although not quite as bad as the one that sent Dorothy’s home flying out of this world. The state, in case you’re interested in trivia, is named after the Kansas Indians, who were once known as People of the Wind.

While the wind blew outside this morning I, appropriately, toured Dorothy’s House that sits beside Liberal’s Coronado Museum. Both the historical museum, and its recreated kitchen of Aunt Em’s time reminded me of my grandmother’s home, perhaps because I was born the same year the Wizard of Oz movie was released.

Two antiques on display at the museum, an icebox that was kept cool by a daily visit of an ice wagon and a treadle sewing machine that was foot-powered, had strong memories for me.

I remembered waiting for the ice man to come to my grandmother’s home before she finally broke down and bought one of those newfangled refrigerators, and I remembered the time I played around on her sewing machine and put a needle through my thumb.

Gosh! I hadn’t thought of those things in a long time.

Back outside in the wind, Maggie and I only made it to Garden City, just 65 miles up the road from Liberal, before calling a halt to our travels for the day.

“I’m tired of fighting the wind,” I told the clerk when I checked into RJ’s RV Park.

“Perhaps,” he said as he assigned me to a site on Tinman Alley, “it will be calmer tomorrow.”

I doubted it. After all, unlike Dorothy, I was in Kansas.

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Vernon to Liberal: An Ordinary Day on the Road

Posted in Birds, Journeys, Nature, Travel, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on April 24, 2011| 5 Comments »

I think Maggie was as surprised as I was on seeing a circular sidewalk, landscaped with funky art, that led nowhere off to the side of the Western Star RV Ranch in Liberal, Kansas. -- Photo by Pat Bean

I saw turkeys alongside the road when traveling Highway 83. — Photo by Pat Bean

 

“He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.” Albert Einstein

Travels With Maggie

After rising early, drinking my cream-drenched coffee while posting my blog, catching up on e-mail and reading the New York Times online, then waking and taking my dog, Maggie, for a walk, I decided to get a few extra miles on the road this day.

I did just that – making it from Vernon, Texas, to Liberal, Kansas.

Vernon lies along the route of the former Great Western Trail and millions of cattle passed through the town during the late 1800s. Liberal lies along the route Coronado took in his search in the mid-1500s for the mythical Seven Cities of Gold.

The distance between the two historic cities, if you take Highway 287 west to Childress and turn north on Highway 83, is 261 miles. It was an eye-opening journey.

The landscape was mostly occupied by agriculture fields with an occasional oil rig plopped down in the middle. Sometimes the pump was rusted and still, sometime rusted and pumping.

The flatness of the land was broken by stumpy hills whose summits looked out for miles and miles to an almost endless horizon.

A multitude of birds were out enjoying relief from the high winds that had dominated the outdoors for the past several days, during which I had mostly only seen turkey vultures. This day I identified robins, great-tailed grackles, house sparrows, mourning doves, meadowlarks, red-tailed hawks, horned larks, rock pigeons, Eurasian collarded doves and even a half dozen wild turkeys.

Then there was the dinosaur near Canadian, a funny name for a Texas city I thought. A bit of internet research after I had settled in for the night told me the town was named after the Canadian River. Since the river’s headwaters are in Colorado, that left me wondering where the name of the river came from.

I’m still wondering about that, but I did learn more about the dinosaur that sits on a prominent Mesa for the viewing pleasure of Highway 83 travelers. The 50-foot brontosaurus was created by artist Gene Cockrell and named Audry after his wife. You can see a picture of the long-necked creature – the dinosaur not the wife – at RoadsideAmerica.com

I laughed when a huge RV overtook and passed me towing a fancy barbecue smoker with all the works. Then I wondered where those folks were going to settle for the night and if I could finagle an invitation to dinner. The rig disappeared over one of the hills, however, and I never saw it again.

Almost before I knew it, the miles were behind me and I was hooking Gypsy Lee up at the Western Star RV Ranch on Highway 54, five miles outside of Liberal.

The park had a a circular sidewalk, leading nowhere and with funky landscaping art, where I took Maggie for a walk. A patch of sickly grass with stickers, however, lay between it and the graveled RV area.

Poor Maggie got a sticker in her paw. She stopped, lifted her foot and demanded with a painful look that I Remove the nasty offender! After it was out, I then got the toasty brown-eyed look that said Carry me to the sidewalk.

Of course I did. She’s the boss, or so my kids are always telling me.

I also shared the red beans and rice leftovers from the night before with her before we settled down to watch an episode of Castle on my DVDs. She got a doggie treat and I got some peach yogurt to eat as we watched.

As my travels go, it was just an ordinary day. But I loved every minute of it.

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