National pride, National Contentment, National Health

National Parks again…so important, our national jewels, I must write more!

If you have not been to a national park, national monument, wildlife preserve, national forest or any other public lands in a while, get going.  These lands are this country's greatest treasures and   are stunning examples of beauty and splendor and peace.   They represent the best of "government of the people, by the people, for the people," and stand in sharp contrast to what's happening for-profit on our land.  Cities and towns and  highways are clogged with ugly development.  This spirit-killing growth is brought to us, all too frequently, by corporate power, the same power the Republicans want to turn our public lands over to for private exploitation.    

We had traveled too many miles along roads showcasing ugly to be tranquil.  Yet, as we stood on the edge looking deep into Bryce Canyon, the splendor erased our travel weariness and political unease.  To our right was a Japanese family on vacation.  Their darling little girl was delightedly jumping around as only a small child can do.  Her parents were snapping photo after photo, first of the canyon and then of the family.  On our left  were teenagers on a school field trip, stunned into a few moments of silence by the canyon's sheer beauty before  leaping into a photo-taking frenzy.  A young family from Canada asked me to take their picture.   They posed in such a proper manner I asked them to do something silly for a second photo.  They were at first embarrassed by this unknown woman, asking them to do something silly, but then they sprung into action.  I'll never see the "silly" photo but I'm willing to bet it's a favorite -- all four of them flung their hands in crazy directions and put their bodies into crooked crazy angles and giggled with delight.

Bryce Canyon

Happy people from all over  the world gather on our nation's public lands.  They bond over the beauty and majesty.  All through the land, with cameras clicking and folks oohing and awing, friendships are forming.  The Grand Canyon, Arches, Mesa Verde, the Statue of Liberty, Glacier, Crater Lake, Big Bend, Denali, Everglades, and more are high on vacation destination dreams.   Often the dream is to see all 59 national parks, 121 national monuments or to hike as many national forests as can be squeezed into a life time.

Big Bend, Texas

Everglades, Florida

Empire State Building,  New York

Mesa Verde, Colorado

Cascade Mountains,  Washington

If our Washington DC cocooned politicians would travel this country, outside their chauffeur driven black cars, with a walking stick and walking shoes, exploring the nooks and crannies like we do, there would be no talk of  public land swaps, giveaways or privatization.  If they allowed themselves to get down and dirty -- camp, hike, swim, fish, build sand castles, observe wildlife, talk with park visitors -- they too would "fall in love with this land".   Fortunately, our dear President Barack Obama  did just that when he and his family visited Yosemite this year.  It inspired these words:

"I think that the way a place like this imprints itself in you, especially when you're young, and carries on the rest of your life, is remarkable.  I do believe that when we get kids,  families, out in the open spaces, it changes them.  It roots you.  It gives you a sense that there's something bigger and grander than you.  It gives you a sense of order."

I find it ironic that in this centennial year of our national parks, the Republican Party platform would have them struck dead, or at the very least turned over to profiteers for ruin and squander, as if squeezing the life out of them with draconian budget cuts has not been severe enough. 

~~~

"The parks do not belong to one state or to one section… The Yosemite, the Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon are national properties in which every citizen has vested interest; they belong as much to the man of Massachusetts, of Michigan, of Florida, as they do to the people of California, of Wyoming, and of Arizona.  Who will gainsay that the parks contain the highest potentialities of national pride, national contentment, and national health?  A visit inspires love of country; begets contentment; engenders pride of possession; contains the antidote for national restlessness… He is a better citizen with a keener appreciation of the privilege of living here who has toured the national parks."

~ Stephen T. Mather
 NPS Director, 1917 - 1929

Desecration in the Air

If you've been reading my blog these past many months, you will know the high value I place on public land.  Without a doubt, I consider these words of Wallace Stegner, 1983, to be absolutely true.

"National parks are the best idea we ever had.  Absolutely American, absolutely democratic, they reflect us at our best rather than our worst."

Just look at a few of the treasures we love right here in Western Washington.  Can you imagine any one of them spoiled with mining or oil drilling; the wildlife hunted to extinction; used for private enterprises such as casinos, golf courses, theme parks; or covered with private homes, with all the roads and power lines and clearing of the land that entails?

North Cascade National Park

Ebey's Landing National Historical Reserve

Rainier National Park

Snoqualmie National Forest

Olympic National Park

How would it feel if you suddenly came across this sign on your favorite hike in a national forest?

So imagine my shock when I find myself needing to defend our public lands, lands I hold sacrosanct.  To hear utterings from certain powers to "sell the land" or, horrifyingly, "turn them over to private enterprise".  I cringe.

Remember Reagan saying, "If you've seen one redwood tree, you've seen them all"?  We all laughed, calling him a fool and disrespectful of the most beautiful forest imaginable.

Redwood National Forest

Yet, I just read the 2016 Republican Party's platform which includes language threatening our public lands.

"Congress shall immediately pass universal legislation providing a timely and orderly mechanism requiring the federal government to convey certain federally controlled public lands to the states."

The provision calls for the immediate disposal of unspecified public lands leaving national forests, wilderness areas, national parks and wildlife refuges ripe for privatization, development or transfer of ownership.  But it doesn't stop there.  The Antiquities Act of 1906, protecting national monuments, is not safe either.  Repealing or gutting this act would put  such things as the Grand Canyon, Natural Bridges, Black Canyon of the Gunnison and the Statue of Liberty at risk.  As I continue to read, letting the words sink in, I feel alarm -- hard and bleak.  The Republican Party platform proposal is for desecration of our treasured public lands.

This is not how Republicans have always seen conservation.  In fact, how disappointed Teddy Roosevelt would be with his party's intended gutting of his greatest legacies.  During his administration he  was responsible for protecting  230 million acres -- 150 national forests, 51 federal bird preserves, 4 federal wildlife preserves, 18 national monuments, and 5 national parks.  Included in his mission to protect our lands from exploitation were the Grand Canyon in Arizona, Devil's Tower in Wyoming, Gila Cliff Dwelling in New Mexico and Muir Woods in California.   

To my mind, when we have park lands  and  historic treasures we protect and care for them, as was intended when they were set aside.       These natural wonders are our heritage.   Our sense of ourselves, our pride in our country, and our  spiritual wonder are all wrapped up in our nation's most beautiful, dramatic and historic places. 

I find it mind-boggling that there are anti-park folks or anti-government extremists who are unwilling to be good stewards of our nation's most special places.    As Terry Tempest Williams says, "If you know wilderness in the way that you know love, you would be unwilling to let it go." 

~~~

"Wilderness is an anchor to windward.  Knowing it is there, we can also know that we are still a rich nation, tending our resources as we should -- not a people in despair searching every last nook and cranny of our land for a board of lumber, a barrel of oil, a blade of grass, or a tank of water."

~  Clinton P. Anderson

    Senator, New Mexico

Spring Profusion

When we were traveling Brad and Yessi sent us a few photographs of our home's spring garden.  After considerable work last winter -- pruning, new gravel on pathways, rock edging, and mulch on the beds -- it looked quite spiffy when we departed and even better, fully leafed out and in bloom, when these photographs were taken.   

But then, alarmingly, the spring garden continued to spin onward and upward with sun, rain, sun, rain.  Growth was pushed like I've never seen before.  None of that cold drizzle, overcast stuff this year.  Nope!  By the time we got home, spiffy was no longer the operative word.   Think chaos, which reminds me of my favorite gardening book, A Gentle Plea for Chaos by Mirabel Osler.  There is a stylistic message here, don't you think?  

So, if for a moment you were wondering what I do when not traveling, this third of an acre garden keeps me wholly engaged.   Our in-town very overgrown woodland path is in the photograph below.   I've been working from west to east on cleanup and these Vine Maples (Acer circinatum) are on the eastern fence line so they still need attention.  I like trees open -- so a bird can fly through -- but that's not what we have right now.   Slowly and steadily I've been moving through the garden -- weeding, pruning, staking, deadheading, watering -- hoping before we depart for a fall trip I will have brought order to this madness.

The piles I've generated have been Herculean in size, leaving Ed-the-donkey to load and haul them off to Langley's green waste site.  Our three large compost bins were overwhelmed within minutes of arriving home.  

The gardened garden is still over-the-top-lush, but at least somewhat contained.  

Then, once I get to the east fence, it will be time to start all over again.  Like this Eucryphia, now in full bloom, pruned but not finished because before I completed the task I found a sweet bird's nest -- Bushtit, I think.  As I head back around in a month or so, this tree will be in my sights once more.  And the baby birds will be fledged

Bushtit - Google Image

Although you can't see the size of this hardy fuchsia, it is well over my head attracting the attention of humans as well as delighting the hummingbirds.  I also have a cape fuchsia (Phygetius capensis) that is even bigger.  They are usually in deer range providing a tasty treat but this year they are in giraffe range.

Does this sound like garden work grousing?  No, no, no, I love it.

~~~

"There can be no other occupation like gardening in which, if you were to creep up behind someone at their work, you would find them smiling."

~ Mirabel Osler

"Whatcha think Ed?"

May was our return home month, having spent much of the winter traveling in the SW.   Yet, here I am, after only two months at home, feeling my feet itch.  What is it about being on the road that is so captivating? And conversely what is it that turns me into a homing pigeon when I’ve been gone for a few months?  Back and forth goes my head and heart.  I want to be home; I want to be on the road; I want to be home; I want to be on the road, and on and on.  One might suggest the word malcontent as fitting.   I prefer, however, to think of myself as a homebody with a wandering gene.  Or am I a wanderer with a homebody gene?  Doesn’t matter.  I love both conditions and yearn for one and then the other.

Right now I might be particularly susceptible to wanting to be on the road because Brad and Ed and Benton are out and about in Thistle, as Brad hikes for GreenTrail Maps in the Wallowa Mountains in Oregon.  Both Yessi and I are home working to fulfill prior commitments.   For me this week it’s Airbnb and jury duty.  Next week's the same. Yessi is honoring  her obligations to bookkeeping and gardening jobs.   So here we are missing our guys and wishing we were traveling too.

When my feet itch I turn to my favorite travel blogs.   Just yesterday I saw this posting about a woman traveling by horseback.  She began in 2005 and has traveled 28,000 miles crisscrossing the U.S. and Canada, with no intention of stopping.  What is it about these wild schemes that captures my imagination?  “Whatcha think Ed?   We could sell Thistle and buy two horses?”   

roadslesstraveled 

Or there’s the biking thing too.  Not like we do it now, with our bikes being carried on Thistle for riding from time-to-time.  No.  I'm talking world-wide self-supported touring.  This couple has biked Colorado, Maine, New Hampshire into Nova Scotia and the Canadian Rockies putting 18,000 miles on their bikes.  They have also toured Italy, plus both the north and south islands of New Zealand.   Sixty miles a day is their commitment.  

Do I dare say it?   “Whatcha think Ed?”

roadslesstraveled 

Or backpacking way into the wilderness…with goats?  I can’t hike any more, but if I could, goats look like fun and useful companions.  

When we were on the Oregon coast this past winter we met a woman who was RVing with two goats and a dog.  She was traveling in an old and shabby vintage RV. The goats, with very long horns, had a stable in the back separated from her living quarters with a picket fence.  They had no back exit.  It was definitely a live together setup.  When she gave me a tour the odor was ripe.   Her plan was to move from one animal rescue spot to another, volunteering along the way.    I'm still kicking myself for not getting a photo and her contact information.

  

The Goat Blog  

Of course, you know how I love donkeys.  We could pack and ride into wonderfully marvelous places with donkeys.     Hum?   That would show that nasty ankle of mine!

Actually we have deep affection for Thistle, and it is challenging enough at times, but I do wish we’d begun adventuring at a younger age so we could be adding adventure-after-adventure to our Thistle Adventure.    I guess we all collect something.  I’ve been able to simplify our lives of stuff, weeding out continuously.  But my imagination, nope, not so much.  My head is jammed with a myriad of ways to experience the world.   

And this is why I love blogs!  I travel along with Leslie and Al in their Travels with HaRVy.  I follow the roadlesstraveled, Bumfuzzle, The Goat and Hiking Frogs. Other blogs come and go.  Spudnik Goes was one that ended as did the 180 Day Road Trip, but while they were active I enjoyed many an hour of armchair travel, dreaming dreams of adventure. 

Then there's boating!   

"Whatcha think Ed?"

~~~


"I bellieve that curiosity, wonder and passion are defining qualities of imaginative minds and great
teachers; that restlessness and discontent are vital things; and that intense experience and suffering
instruct us in ways that less intense emotions can never do."

~ Kay Redfield Jamison 

Mapping Our Adventure

Our first go-to-tool when we're planning a trip is a map.  A new adventure's enjoyment and inspiration begins with a map spread out on the table in front of us.  We stare at it, plotting our course, and reveling in the options.  Just like Brad is doing below…

Looking at a globe or Google Earth can take one on a magnificant adventure as well.  So it's with shear joy that I vicariously share Brad and Yessi's summer mapping adventures.  This year, as well as last, they are mapping in the Wallowa Mountains in Eastern Oregon.  But they've also mapped in the Olympics and Cascades in Washington and Big Sur in California.

It's a summer working vacation for them.   They hike for Green Trails Maps, confirming trail accuracy by noting amenities like restrooms, water availability and camping sites, as well as  tracking trail problems.  Floods, wildfires, wind-fall or even too little trail maintenance can alter a trail's course or make it no longer viable.  

Green Trails has this to say on their website:

"Get ready for some epic backpacking!  Our GPS crews are on the trails getting the very latest data and trail conditions for our new map of one of the seven wonders of Oregon."

Yessi & Brad, Green Trails Maps GPS crew

This past spring when we were in Idaho traveling on 209 North we were forced to turn around on a road closed by wind-fall.  As we backtracked Yessi and Brad's trail verification work came to mind.  Clearly the 2015 Idaho map we had recently purchased from Delorme Atlas and Gazatteer had not been checked for accuracy.  A fact that could have been quickly accomplished with a single phone call.  And given the road had been out of commission for a number of years, it was an inexcusable mistake.  This is, after all, why we turn to maps for route finding and why Green Trails Maps is so dedicated to checking their maps for accuracy.

Speaking of maps, a friend just brought to my attention a site called myscenicdrives.com.   The usual mapping apps define the best route as the shortest or fastest but this site puts those criteria aside and goes for scenic.  Windows, BlackBerry, i-phones and Androids are all able to use this free service.  Just enter a zip code or city and state and up pop scenic roads.   This is the data I got  for Whidbey Island.   You can also find hundreds of hiking trails.  The site looks promising and no doubt will become part of our planning repertoire. 

There is also a free travel app to make your travels more educational called History Here.  I have not tried it yet but intend to do so soon.   It is offered by the History Channel, alerting you via your i-phone or Android, about nearby places of interest.   Or a couple of not-for-free apps to try are Roadside America, featuring off-beat tourist attractions or Roadside Presidents, providing birthplaces, grave locations and other related data or points of interest about U.S. presidents.

And a map for seeing where we've been is fun too.  This map is on the back cabinet doors in Thistle.  The red dots mark where we've traveled in the U.S. the past couple of years.

~~~

"Anytime I feel lost, I pull out a map and stare.  I stare until I have reminded myself that life is a giant adventure, so much to do, to see."

~Angelina Jolie

Political Mayhem Rethought

I posted the blog, below (in blue), a few days ago, but then withdrew it, probably before some of you  even had a chance to read it.   I was concerned about my broad brush approach even before I posted but I was determined not to show favoritism so plowed on.   I wanted to write about behaviors -- candidates, political parties and citizens -- without letting my personal candidate preference show.  In hindsight, a mistake.  After posting, readers challenged me and rightfully so.

The first criticism was about my lumping together all three candidates.  This felt very wrong to some readers, and I had to agree.  Trump definitely is the candidate who has overwhelmingingly won the disrespect and disgust of so many of us.   He makes a mockery of our political system and insults us all with his rude and ignorant behavior.  My generalization to make a point was unfair to both Clinton and Sanders.

Secondly, bundling together the voters as one huge block was unfair as well.  Some voters (most of my friends I will confess) are well read, well prepared to vote and are not mudslingers.  Once again I was speaking in generalities, but too many toes were unfairly stepped on.  For this I apologize.

What I have found very positive about this experience is that my friends trusted me enough to believe I would hear what they had to say, and I did.   Their criticism resulted in a number of deeply rewarding political discussions about specific candidates as well as citizenship behavior.   

And all these days later, the primary season almost over, let me state my delight at the history-making opportunity before us -- Hilliary Clinton as our candidate for President of the United States, a woman of great intelligence, experience and education. We will soon have, I hope, our first woman president.

                                      

~~~

"America has hosted 56 presidential elections -- 

33 of them before women received the right to vote.

 Exactly zero of those elections featured a female nominee from one

 of the two major political parties.

Until Hillary Clinton."

~ Ezra Klein

Original Blog Posting 6/3/16

Political Mayhem

This blog is my travel journal. Along the way I also post my thoughts about life as observed from the road. Naturally political observations appear from time-to-time. How can they not? But I do not intend to engage in campaigning nor do I want to tangle up my comments about campaign behavior with political preferences.

As this primary season unfolds I've narrowed my thoughts down to two central concerns:

1).  Campaign behavior of the candidates and their parties, and

2).  Voter complicity in the madness.

The three candidate choices before us represent only what we're left with after weeding out too many others to even recall their names. That elimination process was long and arduous, leaving many of us exhausted. Nevertheless, here we are, painfully engaged in the last gasps of this endless primary.

The remaining candidates, in hugely varying degrees have spewed lies, distortions, threats and insults. Misogynist, racist and xenophobic behavior has been beyond the pale. What we're left with is a campaign, for President of the United State, for heaven's sake, that's a morass of bad behavior.

                                     

Us voters are left to sort through conflicted, twisted, ignorant, bigoted and dishonest claims.  A difficult task at best, but still it feels like we've shirked our citizenship duties by not fully embracing the job.  With mudslinging and ugly disturbances we fight among ourselves.  Too many of us have followed the current mood-of-hate and displayed our own discriminatory lapses.

Our government, our nation, is too important for this boorish behavior.

Rather than enlightened political debate we're engaged in bumper sticker idiocy.  The seriousness of good government is overwhelmed with narrow, self-serving ideologies, along with an almost prideful disrespect for knowledge, truth and polite behavior.    

I hope, with all my might, this nation finds its head and heart again.

 

~~~

"Choose a leader who will invest in building bridges, not walls.  Books, not weapons.  Morality, not corruption.  Intellectualism and wisdom, not ignorance.  Stability, not fear and terror.  Peace, not chaos. Love, not hate.  Convergence, not segregation.  Tolerance, not discrimination.  Fairness, not hypocrisy.  Substance, not superficiality.  Character, not immaturity.  Transparency, not secrecy.  Justice, not lawlessness.  Enviornmental improvement and preservation, not destruction.  Truth, not lies."

~ Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun

"Yes, We Have No Bananas"

It's early.  We spent the night in Thistle, parked at Brad and Yessi's home.   Ed's tea and my coffee are in front of us, along with our computers.  Our hotspot is feeding us internet.  The dog cuddles nearby.    But where are the bananas?  Our typical breakfast is a banana each but, Yes, we have no bananas.    We just purchased a huge bunch of lovely yellow bananas yesterday, but Thistle's fruit bowl shows only one wrinkled shrunken orange, an onion, and some stray grapes. 

                                         

                                     

Oh, right!  We were staying at home the night before and the bananas we purchased for our kitchen there needed to be removed  to prepare for our Airbnb guests.   They were shuffled to the little kitchenette in our office, but didn't make it to Thistle's kitchen.  And there you have it...no bananas.

Yep, three kitchens and as many beds and closets and coffee pots.  Enough places and options to feel like the well-heeled Americans we are, yet we're drowning in disarray.  Underwear is always in that other place, where we're not, along with the bananas.  But believe me, it's more than bananas and underwear.   The list is long and seemingly endless...socks, pajamas, Benton's leash, computer charge cords, even garden snips.

Although we're perennial simplifiers, we try to maintain key items in triplicate.  Even then we end up with two at one place, one at another and none at the third.  The organizational details of multiple dwellings challenges us.  We mumble in frustration, "where are the bananas?"

Perhaps we'll figure this out but right now having a home we rent out as an Airbnb; an office, that also serves as our prime bath and sometimes kitchen; and Thistle with kitchen, bath and bed, three miles to the west, our also home, is chaotic.  Beds, bananas, and underwear everywhere and nowhere.  

Fran - breakfast in Thistle

                                                      

~~~

“The nature of life is mess, chaotic, exquisitely beautiful, excruciatingly painful, immensely joy-filled, and unpredictable.” 

~ Debra Moffitt, Garden of Bliss: Cultivating the Inner Landscape for Self-Discovery