Showing posts with label #NPS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #NPS. Show all posts

Monday, November 26, 2018

Blondie in the Water -- True Tales of a Water-Loving Mom

Blondie in the Water eBook #BlondieH20


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At long last I am able to offer a free eBook for everyone who signs up for my newsletter! Announcing Blondie in the Water -- True Tales from a Water-Loving Mom. 

 To get your free copy simply subscribe to my newsletter here! 


 This book is a humorous collection of my fondest watery adventures to help me cope with moving from the oceanfront to Dirtville USA. It features family adventures to some of America's most prestigious national parks (including Yellowstone and Yosemite) while balancing my son's dislike of the outdoors with my intense need for being neck deep in any warm body of water.

 At the end of this blog I'll share one of the short stories so you can get a flavor of the rest of the book. Inside the book I've also included the first five chapters of Stealing Time, the first book in the series as well as a free bonus.

 You can download the first five chapters of both books, Stealing Time and Shattering Time as well as another free gift for signing up. 




Blondie in Bermuda – Ill-Begotten Fears

July 1997

It was July and Bermuda was the only place in the world I wanted to be with the sun on my shoulders and the gorgeous blue sea in front of me. I was excited by what I might find in the tranquil coves and lagoons littering the coast. The handsome and amazingly well-muscled man who just happened to be my new groom joining me on this adventure did not hurt the excitement factor either.

 We rented a scooter and made our way along the narrow winding roads while attempting to avoid the overloaded trucks taking their half of the street from the center. The island was breathtaking, filled with pastel cottages in shades of pink, blue, and salmon all with impossibly white roofs. As we meandered along oleander-lined streets, pink-and-white flowers reached out to touch us as we drove by. We continued to make our way to the outskirts of the island to find an isolated beach to explore.


We parked the scooter and headed to the water with snorkel gear in hand. While standing knee-deep in the water he cheerfully informed me, “Several years ago three people were eaten by a shark at this very spot.”

I looked around at the lack of bystanders that would need to pull our shark-bitten bodies out of the water. With false innocence, he looked at me and continued the grisly lesson, pointing at the lagoon’s edge. “Over there a ten-year-old boy lost his leg.” 

I looked but didn’t want to see. Seriously? These were not thoughts I wanted swimming beside me in the water. I was satisfied with the blissful ignorance we’d had at the beginning of the journey. What happened to the tranquil coves? Unhappy with my newfound knowledge about bloody and dismembered people, I took another swig of water and tossed the bottle in the sand.

“This is the part where you stick that snorkel in your mouth and bite it,” I said while trying to scrub my brain free of the horrible images he’d just planted. He obliged by sliding into the water smiling, knowing his tease had worked. It only took me a few minutes to brush it aside since I was too enamored with the tiny squid flitting just inches below the waterline, yet always out of reach.

The breathtaking beauty of the coral reefs teaming with life eventually overcame my ill-begotten fears. The colors of the palm trees, flowers, and lush greenery of the land paled in contrast to all the fuchsias, yellows, and blues of the fish darting and diving around the pink coral rocks.
The view of my man in swim trunks and snorkel gear was mighty fine, too. Later we returned to the scooter with my soggy bikini-clad body pressed against his, ready to explore another isolated beach—this one just secluded enough.

At the end of the day we returned to our room, aptly named “A Bit o’ Heaven,” for a steamy shower and fresh duds. With a blanket and a bottle of champagne in hand we took a short walk down the rocky slope to the beach in front of the hotel. We arrived just in time to watch the sun fade into the sea, both ready for part two of our exciting interlude in Bermuda.


            I’ve longed to go back and relive those amazing moments on the beach. But I’m afraid that adventure will have to wait awhile. As it would happen a few small problems have arisen since then, namely my beautiful blondie children. Right now, they’re clamoring for dinner and a chuck under their collective chins, so I must dash off. My current bit ‘o heaven includes the laughter, hugs, and everything else that comes with being their mom. 

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Sunday, January 1, 2017

Blondie in the Crystal Forest

Blondie in the Crystal Forest - A dry and hot adventure in the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest



In June, we spent three weeks exploring California and hitting several national and state parks. This is the first blog in that journey. I’ve not written new material since last summer about my travels and I’ve missed it. I hope to get into more regular travel blog pattern and even offer an eBook of my travel adventures. Stay tuned. In the meantime, if you’d like to stay in touch with what I have going on please sign up for my newsletter. As a bonus, I’m offering the first six chapters of my second book if you sign up. Click here to join the fun.

June 2016

I shut the trunk that was packed to the gills with our gear for the three-week vacation and sat on the bumper looking up at the sky. It was a cool Dirtville evening and stars were sparkling as far as the eye could see. I loved this little space just before a journey begins. The half year of planning and anticipating is over. The packing is done and all that stands between me and the adventure is a mere restless sleep. In the morning, we would leave on a trip that we’d be talking about for decades. I savored the moment of peace and joy. This would be a busy few weeks free of quiet moments like this. We’d be meeting my mother and sister-in law in Yosemite for several days and then to a beach mansion for a week. Quiet moments were about to be filled with laughter, nature, and family fun.

The next morning I woke early and readied myself before I woke my three kids, all sleepy and slightly less eager to face the morning as I had been. A month into summer break and they were used to sleeping until they woke naturally. We ate and jumped in the car, settling into our journey.
I watched the sun creep across the sky heating up the flat landscape and marking the passage of time and distance away from our flat, dry homeland. A half a day later the carefully chosen path brought us along the Petrified Forest National Park. In contrast, Dirtville, my fond name for our hometown, appeared teeming with lush greenery and huge trees, which I assure you is only a matter of perspective. Our previous summer’s eastward journey’s left us feeling wholly differently about our arid hometown.

“Hey kids, look up from your devices. We’re here!” I announced.
My son feigns deafness but my daughter is quick to respond. “Where’s here?”
“The Painted Dessert.” I respond heartily. Truth be told it was unimpressive. Mountains of gravel and lame brown dirt piles all the way to the horizon was not enough to pull the boy from his laptop.  
“Painted with what, a brown crayon?” My fourteen-year-old daughter exclaimed. We all laughed but the brochure we had showed glorious images of an entire palate of colorful dirt so I began reading aloud some of the promised sights as we made our way to one of the more interesting stops along the drive.



We stopped at a gorgeous vista of the painted dessert in it’s full glory. Every possible shade from brown to red was displayed in the ancient rocks and sand. It made me want to start painting again. The blazing sun scared us back into the car for another piece of road full of the brown landscape we’d already seen.


Finally, we stopped at likely the best choice in a day where we really needed to eat the miles up towards our ultimate destination. The Crystal Forest. in the Petrified Forest, sounded to my writerly mind like a magical place full of wonder and adventure. We meandered through the dirt, found the sign, and parked the car.

“We’re here!” I exclaimed excitedly again. I knew this was going to be a hard sell to the boy who preferred controlled environments and man-made luxuries like chairs, and dirt free footing, and most especially a cool bug free 72 degrees. The car thermometer blinked in disbelief an alarming 105.
Shorty responded. “Mom, if this is a forest how come all I see is flat dirt.”

“It’s a petrified forest.” I responded grabbing an ice-cold water out of the cooler, and debated shoving it down my pants for good measure.  I chose normalcy mainly for my teenagers who were mortified by my mere existence.

 “Son, tell them how the trees got this way.” My reverse psychology worked this time. Not only did he unfold out of the backseat and not clutch the cup holder and seat belt in revolt of leaving the comfortable car, he sorted through the miles of neurons relating to the science of petrification and educated us all what happened here millions of years ago. He explained gently to Shorty, my 8-year-old daughter and his favorite student, that the forest was covered by the sea and replaced with minerals leaving behind completely intact trees now made of rock. Milena passed and the ocean receded leaving the petrified trees. As the land moved out from under sections the weight of the trees, now made of stone and inflexible, cracked and broke away leaving large round chunks of petrified wood laying in the dirt.



We walked the ¾ mile petrified forest with hundreds of logs broken in strange crystal hunks shining in the blaring sun. Gorgeous colors and different layers made for beautiful landmarks of days gone past. The stark bleak surroundings of high dessert added to the contrast of the huge trees captured in time now lying flat on the desert floor.


Little shorty almost didn’t make it, or it would seem based on her melting in the hot sun. My son survived fueled by the spark of real live science to explore and he came to life explaining to all of us more about what made each color and other things I marveled that he had absorbed from the Internet.
We jumped back in the car and continued westward towards our destination of sunny California, passing through the Mojave Desert on I-40 putting our fond nickname for Dirtville to shame once again.  It wasn’t as hot as we’d expected only reaching 109.
















Once we entered California the bounty of the state was immediately apparent with the Garlic trucks filling the road with open beds full of cloves, unbound in any container. Wind farms as afar as the eye could see set up in the mountains made for a warm windy welcome. We stopped for the night in Bakersfield and the next morning we were back in the car enjoying acre after acre of orange groves and even passing the plant that packaged Halo oranges.


The drought was wicked hard on the land with more than just dead grass but barren patches where there once was life. We passed lush fields of corn, apple orchards, and endless orange groves in every stage of life from tiny saplings to mature trees, and even entire groves left to die in the hot sun.
Despite the horrible drought, the farmers seem to kick out massive crops of lush green produce. I can only imagine how much that water costs during these hard times. We passed thousands of cattle all with heads stuck through feed troughs surrounded by nothing but dirt, readying for the slaughter. Poor saps had a rather boring last few months with nary a blade of grass to crunch between their teeth.

I’d been to California years ago, but had started in San Francisco and worked down the coast. This view of California gave me a great new appreciation for the delightful bounty contained within. I knew of all that Cali produced but to see it live and in person was a life changing scene.


Stay tuned for part two of our California Adventure, coming soon.



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Monday, September 30, 2013

Blondielocks along the Yellowstone River Part 2 -- Blondilocks and the Three Black Bears

Blondielocks and the Three Bears -- 

Part 2 Black Bear Edition



Yellowstone National Park, June 2013

The sunrise greeted us with a spectacular display over the mountains on our second day in Yellowstone. The day would prove to be incredible -- outdoing our first day by a mile (Read about Blondielocks and the Three Bears Grizzly edition Day 1 here). We drove south from our cabin along the Yellowstone River in Montana down to the Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming and made our way towards Old Faithful. 


The view off the balcony of our cabin.
We saw a mass of cars filling a parking lot near the petrified tree. Previously, where there were cars big critters were making an appearance. Parking the car near a National Park film crew van we made our way down a wooded path getting excited for what we might find. Down the road a crowd of people gathered around a ranger's pickup truck. A magical moment was afoot -- a mother black bear and her two cubs were laying under a tree about 25 feet down a hill. 


Mama and black bear cubs. Look how full his little tummy is!

The ranger welcomed us by saying, "You are witnessing a once in a lifetime scene." He had tears in his eyes. "I've been watching this mother bear in the area for years. This is the first time I've seen her with twins." He whispered excitedly. "She is usually hiding the cubs because of the grizzlies." 

The ranger continued, "She was standing up not fifteen minutes ago nursing the cubs when I got the call." We watched the trio lying in the grass, cubs asleep with the mother keeping a sleepy watch. A nice man in the front of the crowd moved aside and let my kids get closer so they could see. 

Lady Luck was with us again today. I promised to pay her in chocolate if she kept hanging around.

"Sir, ma'am." The ranger stopped a couple who were attempting to walk down the road toward the petrified tree. "You need to walk slowly in tight groups. We don't want the mother bear agitated." The couple waited patiently for another few people to join them down the path to the petrified tree.  

I was curious and asked him about it. He answered, "Bears don't have very good vision. If they see a large group they won't view it as prey. They ignore it as something too big to eat." 

"I thought we weren't allowed to be within 100 feet of a bear in the park." I said. 

"You're not. That's why I'm here to control the situation." He touched the bear spray and pistol on his belt. "I've asked everyone to keep calm and follow proper bear etiquette." An image of Goldilocks came to mind with her very poor treatment of the bears. 

"She must have mated with a cinnamon bear to have two cubs of such a different color. In the fifteen years I've worked in this park I've never seen it." He was very chatty and I picked his brain for about fifteen minutes until the mother bear began eyeing the crowd. We decided to not be greedy and moseyed off to see Old Faithful. 

Lady luck had her pick of the chocolates from the gift shop and I got a delicious coffee to sip on as we watched Old Faithful spew its magic minutes after we stepped outside.
The most famous attraction at Yellowstone: Old Faithful
Later in the week we were heading back to Old Faithful Lodge, my son's favorite place, and at the top of my list as well. Just down the road from the petrified tree area several cars were pulled over. We made a parking spot, against park rules since we were partly blocking the road, and walked towards the crowd excitedly.

A cinnamon bear cub was clinging to the very top branch of a tree swaying back and forth about 40 feet in the air. With the help of another spotting scope we saw the mother black bear resting under a tree. It had to be the three bears we'd seen earlier in the week. The coloring was the same, black mama and cinnamon baby. The second cub was not in sight and we hoped a grizzly hadn't gotten to him. Likely something had scared the cub up the tree a while ago, given the relaxed state of the mama bear.

A ranger interrupted our discussions asking us politely to move our car. We obliged and made our way to the lodge for lunch clicking through our cameras to see if we got any good shots. None of us did.

That night we drove through the Lamar Valley on the north eastern side of Yellowstone. A herd of pronghorn antelope were skipping through the tall grass along the river and buffalo were roaming contentedly. 


Pronghorn Antelope in Lamar Valley
Now where were the deer? It was all we needed to capture that old song.



A few snapshots and we continued our way along the beautiful landscape. As it was unavoidable, we stopped at a picnic area to use the outhouse. Some of these little wooden structures were vented but this particular one must have been too close to the stream to allow such niceties. Never in my life have I smelled such horror. As Shorty's mom I got to stay in for two rounds as she needed my help to not fall in the dreaded contraption. 

Thankfully we were rewarded when we came out gasping for fresh air, nearly sick from the fumes. A few people were talking excitedly down by the stream. Happy to be as far away from the ick as we could get we breathed in the fresh smell of grass and pine and made our way towards them.

"What's going on?" I asked looking in the direction of their gaze into the woods. 

"We just saw a bear up beyond that crooked tree." The man pointed up the hill across the shallow stream. 

"Heading away from us right?" I asked looking down at Shorty and holding her a bit closer. 

"Who knows? He could double back." The man said. "It's our first bear sighting. We got here a month ago and haven't seen one yet! Did you see the claw marks on the tree near the outhouse?"

I hadn't but would go back and check it out on our way back to the car. I told him of our grizzly sighting the first five minutes in the park (Blondielocks and the Three Bears, see part 1) and the mama and cinnamon bears from earlier in the week. They looked at us in astonishment. Shorty backed me up shyly nodding and saying "The baby bears were so cute." 

We talked for another few minutes and decided to find the rest of our family. As we walked away I asked lady luck to consider a donation to this couple. We had been blessed with an abundance so far. Not that I was complaining. She smiled and pointed upstream. The rest of our group was there with a gaggle of die hard naturalist. Two of them had spotting scopes and were very generous letting us all gawk into them. 

My mother in law was hogging one scope and talking a mile a minute. She fit right in with the die hards, being one herself. She told us a red fox and pup were up in the woods about a quarter a mile away. We looked intently up the hill and saw trees and shadows. Waiting my turn, I got a peek in the scope and helped Shorty see as well. 

The mother fox was lazing between two trees. She glanced in the pup's direction flattening her ears nearly rolling her eyes and looked away. Her offspring must have been driving her batty -- I knew the look. In another scope we could see the pup stomping his little feet in the dirt creating a cloud and running back up a small hill having an absolute ball. With the naked eye you could see a puff of dirt in the shadows but nothing else. It was amazing to see fox in the wild so comfortable in their surroundings. I couldn't help but think of the bear not too far off and hoped it wasn't doubling back for a pup snack.   


Red Fox watching her pup.

As the sun lowered in the sky we decided to get back to the Lamar Valley with its wide open spaces to see more animals with nary a single tree to block the view.  


Lamar Valley, where the deer and antelope play.
On our drive there we saw movement in the hilly woods above us. We stopped the car and pulled out our cameras. It was a black bear who kindly answered the age old question for us -- "Does a bear poop in the woods?" He confirmed this with gusto before our very eyes standing on the end of a log -- His large bear ass pointing in our general direction and let loose. We all laughed and had to explain the saying to wee Shorty. I marveled at how outrageous Lady Luck was with her excellent timing. I was going to have to give her something more than chocolate. 

Does a bear poop in the woods? Yes. Off the end of a log apparently.
We ended our day making our way up the Yellowstone River marveling at all the glory of the park. We had all been blessed with so many special memories during the week with all the bear sightings topping them all. Even our poo stories were special.

Yellowstone will always be in my heart and we hope to go back in a few years. It is such a huge place there is no way to see it all in one visit. Next time we will explore the southern half and maybe find Lady Luck again.  For more information on Yellowstone, visit their website: http://www.nps.gov/yell/index.htm.

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Friday, July 5, 2013

Blondielocks on the Yellowstone River -- Part 1 Grizzly Bears at Yellowstone

Blondie on the Yellowstone River -- Blondielocks and the Three Grizzly Bears


Enchanted by Yellowstone!

As I'm writing this my family and I are heading into Yellowstone National Park for our final visit. Our adventure started a week ago and began dramatically. Within ten minutes of entering the West Yellowstone entrance we spotted a grizzly bear about 75 yards across a shallow part of the Madison River. He was a big one at 500 lbs or so. Grabbing our cameras we jumped out of the car and stood along the opposite bank in awe watching him meander down the steep slope. Our excitement grew as he approached a tree and lazily scratched his back along the rough bark.

Grizzly Bear sighted just as we entered Yellowstone.

I kept a close eye on the animal knowing that grizzly bears can run as fast as a racehorse. It would take him a few seconds to reach us if he wanted to -- luckily he ignored us. We filmed him calmly walking along the bank of the river and he disappeared up the hill into the thick forest.

As we climbed in the car I noticed the kids' comatose look from days on the road disappeared. In its place was a look of enchantment. The Yellowstone they'd heard about for months was finally a real place, not just a picture in a book. We were astonished at our luck and tried to explain that people spend weeks in Yellowstone and don't ever see a grizzly bear. For me it was an immense thrill to see a bear in the wild. There was the glory of the beast but also the danger that if he chose to attack he could at any moment.

Our next sighting was five minutes later where several cars were at a pull out looking intently up. We found a bright white mountain goat way up the cliff effortlessly clinging to the rocks. A few quick pictures and we excitedly made our way through Yellowstone and the north entrance towards Mammoth Hot Springs. Our eyes were eager for more animals with all of us searching the forests and meadows as we drove.

See the white dot? That's a mountain goat!

Enormous bison were munching grass along the roadside, nearly as big as our van. One raised his tail and stepped towards my open window snorting as I took a picture. The dude was pissed. We watched him cross the road behind our canoe and charge a male bison on the other side of the road. I lost track of him as we drove around a curve my heart beating fast.


Pardon the angle but I was scared ... 
A puff of what we thought was smoke greeted us in a bend in the road -- it was steam rising from the ground. It was Mammoth Hot Springs and the smell of sulfur rotten eggy-ness permeated the car. Around the corner an amazing sight -- a pure white hillside, with tinges of yellow and steam rising all around. The mineral deposits from millions of years were built up to create, in places, what looked like the surface of the moon. Now we were all enchanted.

Mammoth Hot Springs -- a bit like the surface of the moon.

Just into the shops and hotels around Mammoth, a female elk waited at the crosswalk looking as if it were one of the tourists, my memory adding a hat and shawl. Elk and their newly born calves lounged on the grassy knolls between buildings as if they were waiting for the picnic to arrive.

Female elk patiently waiting for our car to pass.

Elk and their young waiting for the picnic. Be right there ladies!

It was as if we'd entered a magical land with surprises around every corner. The landscape was surreal as well, changing from thick hilly forest when we first entered the park to meadows and rolling hills, and near Mammoth strange vistas of dirt covered hills with rocky crags poking out here and there. How could there be so many different landscapes in one place?

At Mammoth, we got out of the car and found a park ranger on our way to get lunch. Bubbling with excitement we told him of our grizzly sighting. He was very impressed and told us he hadn't seen a grizzly yet this season despite being in the park nearly every day. One of his duties was to hold bear talks with visitors and knew all the places you might spot one. He told us that there are 150 grizzly bears in the 2.2 million acres of Yellowstone. To see one was rather like finding a needle in a haystack. 

After lunch we exited the park and headed north to a cabin along the Yellowstone River where we set up for the week -- a gorgeous spot with mountain vistas all around.

View of the Yellowstone River from our cabin in Montana.

Our luck held the whole week as we saw 2 other grizzly bears, one in the evening near Elk Creek walking below us. 
Grizzly near Elk Creek. You can see the damage to a tree in the foreground, perhaps by this bear.
The other bear lazing under some trees along the roadside between Canyon and Mammoth. The later being the most thrilling sighting. We saw a mass of cars pulled over and we parked along the road and walked a hundred yards or so to see what the hubbub was.

A grizzly was sleeping in the grass in the shade of some pines about seventy-five yards away. The bear was relaxed and seemed oblivious to the thirty or so humans gawking at it. After about ten minutes it startled awake, probably some kids running back and forth noisily across the road. Their parents could have used the talk from our ranger friend about being quiet and walking in tight groups near a bear. Running triggers their attack response much like a dog wanting to chase a rabbit.
OK, this might be a black bear, but for the blog we'll call it a grizzly. Wink!
The bear stood up and looked right into my eyes, or so it seemed. This time the safety of our car was out of reach and with very cute and delicious short blonde people wanting to run away, we decided to slowly, in a tight group, to beat feet back to the car not wanting to be part of one of the few bear attacks a year. We were relieved to return to the safety of the car!

Our week at Yellowstone was full of magical adventures and we leave now with not only with pictures and souvenirs from the gift shops but memories my kids and I will cherish forever.

If you want more on Yellowstone, visit their website here: http://www.nps.gov/yell/index.htm.
Part two of Blondielocks and the three bears -- Black Bear edition is here. 


    Connect With Me

    When I'm not working on Stealing Time you can find me on my social media at the links below. You can find my book on Amazon, iTunes, Barnes and Noble and other outlets at the links below.


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