How'd that work out? Leaving the garden from late May to late June?

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Weeds flourish alongside beets that are protected from birds with wire screen. Damn the birds. Find your own food! (But not our blueberries, please.)

We just got home after a month away. We had a great time traveling to an early-June family reunion in Minnesota, with lots of side trips, then home through Canada's national parks. Fabulous!

However, it wasn't that much fun to see the garden upon our return. If you're used to seeing garden lushness on this blog, you may notice and enjoy the contrast with earlier posts.

We'd planted what we believe to be a modest patch in late April/early May and enlisted a gardener friend to keep it alive in our absence. She stopped by every other day or so whilst juggling her three other jobs and managing a complicated personal life. PK had set up "automatic watering" for much, but not all, of the smallest—but still too ambitious—garden we've had in years.

While we were traipsing about, southern Oregon temps soared into the 90s for days on end. Our automatic watering system turned out to be uneven. Let's just say that we have a lot of work to do!

Is it a good idea to leave your garden as plants are just getting started in late spring and early summer? No. It is not a good idea. It is really stupid. If we want to continue gardening and also traveling, we'll need to figure out a schedule kinder to our garden or just give it up for awhile.

Leeks survived sparse watering, onions did OK, and the rest of the garden limped along in absence of the daily attention required in early season. It will all come around with TLC.

The mostly-perennial bed got adequate water and managed to beat out the weeds. 

Two butternut squash plants will likely fill this space once they get enough water. They're sad now.

Oh the poor basil! These guys should be bush-sized. Tomorrow the plants will be weeded, deeply watered, fertilized and maybe even chanted over. Groooooommmmm. I am craving Caprese salad!

Let's just say this is a super lush patch of pig weed where we'd planted poppies, or so we thought. I'll be yanking those suckers out tomorrow and hunting for something colorful to fill the space.

Our blueberries are in full production and our wonderful garden keeper picked and froze many bags for us. I harvested some tonight for tomorrow's breakfast. Birds ruin about half the crop every year, including this one. We still get a lot of berries. We still like birds.

I can't complain about early summer zucchini, sweet yellow peppers,  a Walla Walla onion, and a few cherry and Early Girl tomatoes, some of which we ate for our welcome-home dinner. I'm sure the garden is glad we're back, but not the deer that had taken up residence under a huge holly bush convenient to our landscaping, which it has apparently been enjoying. Ok, garden, abundant water, fertilizer and TLC coming your way tomorrow!

Posts, so far, about our recent travels.

Cutting back on gardening to travel. Really?

Road tripping in the Four Wheel Camper'

Biking 100 miles in two days makes for a sore rear end.

Yellowstone Park, and getting along on the road.

Rolling Stones concert in Minneapolis, June 3, 2015

Changing Times in North Dakota and Theodore Roosevelt National Park

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We have fallen heirs to the most glorious heritage a people ever received, and each one must do his part if we wish to show that the nation is worthy of its good fortune." Theodore Roosevelt

A lone buffalo forages before the snows begin in Theodore Roosevelt National Park, South Unit, October 2008. On our recent visit, the grass was lush and the buffs were shedding their winter coats. Bison herds had been decimated by the time Roosevelt visited the ND Badlands in 1883. After he became President in 1901, Roosevelt used his authority to protect wildlife and public lands by creating the U.S. Forest Service and establishing 51 Federal Bird Reservations, 4 National Game Preserves, 150 National Forests, 5 National Parks, and enabling the1906 American Antiquities Act which he used to proclaim 18 National Monuments. During his presidency,Theodore Roosevelt protected approximately 230,000,000 acres of public land. (National Park Service). 

The first thing PK and I did when entering North Dakota in late May was to stop  at the western-most Visitors' Center on I-94 seeking info about the North Unit of the Theodore Roosevelt National Park. We'd visited the South Unit eight years ago and loved it. Now we wanted to explore the rest of the park.

PK and I were surprised and delighted at TR National Park's rugged beauty in 2008. Ancient wagon tracks tell a story about the past, and we imagined Teddy Roosevelt charging around here on horseback, becoming inspired  to protect public lands and the wild creatures that inhabit them. 

Really? "The young woman at he Visitor's Center said. "I can't recommend it."
Why? we asked, even though we know that the state's extensive oil extraction is heaviest in the state's northwest corner. Surely it wasn't impacting the park?! (Duh.)

She went on to describe how constant oil industry traffic has made the road from I-94 to the North Unit the "deadliest in North Dakota" and how oil operations near the park compromise the wilderness experience for park visitors.

There is concern that drilling could even occur in the park. (5-minute video.)

When I explained that I grew up in North Dakota and was curious about what's happening up there, she said,  "It would just make you sad."

It makes her sad for sure. She spoke about farms being dissected by oil company easements that greatly enrich some, but not all, of the locals; how oil companies, working in sparsely populated areas have hired quickly and carelessly from the "outside", introducing a criminal element into previously "safe" communities. How drugs and prostitution have blighted the area and  how many North Dakotans have been corrupted by the sudden influx of big money, creating distrust and discord in some small traditional farming communities that have suddenly outgrown all their infrastructure, and where some have become millionaires while others can no longer afford rent.

"This isn't who we are," she said, shaking her head.

She, and many others warned us about driving through the northwestern part of the state on our return to Oregon. Heavy truck traffic on two-lane roads and roads in poor condition were often mentioned. We ended up NOT driving through the  heart of oil operations in North Dakota under which the Bakken Formation lies, but skirted it. Wikipedia explains that the formation underlies the Williston Basin and occupies about 200,000 square miles in parts of Montana, North Dakota, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

Oil wells and grain storage units exist side by side along I-94
in the southwestern part of North Dakota.

Meanwhile, back at the South Unit, PK and I enjoyed a short
but lovely ride on the park's 36-mile loop drive during which
we saw buffalo herds and wild horses and hardly any people.

The Little Missouri River cuts through the park where Theodore Roosevelt
once roamed. This overview was accessed via a short trail.

Just a mile or so from the park,  I-94 cuts across the state's southern end, carrying loads of tourists going elsewhere. I suggest they stop at Theodore Roosevelt National Park  and see what  first inspired the Conservation President to preserve the public parks and lands we value so much. 

Oil on the move. Everywhere.

We visited Minot, North Dakota, the northern city where I grew up and graduated from high school, during our return to Oregon, a journey we're still on, now in Saskatchewan headed for Canadian national parks. 

More about Minot and North Dakota's true wonders coming soon. 

Earlier posts about this road trip:

Road tripping in the Four Wheel Camper'

Biking 100 miles in two days makes for a sore rear end.

Yellowstone Park, and getting along on the road.

Rolling Stones concert in Minneapolis, June 3, 2015

Ok, OK! I Take It Back About the Rolling Stones

Minnesota rock fan, and former high school classmate Skip
Ristvedt, paved the way for PK and me to attend the concert.

I didn't have high expectations for my first Rolling Stones concert Wednesday in Minneapolis. (I know! I swore I wouldn't go in an earlier post, which you can revisit below, if you like.) I had to eat my words, but they didn't taste so bad.

We had cheap (by Stones standards) stadium tickets, $115 each., thanks to my friend, Skip and his friend, Chad.  Rain was predicted, and en route to the concert, the skies delivered a serious deluge. It was pouring sheets. So weather was a factor. But mostly, I have a short list of beloved Stones songs and don't care all that much for the rest, and I'm even kinda sick of the ones I do like, and damn, after all these years of playing the same songs, aren't the Stones getting sick of them, too?

Apparently not. The Stones rocked all those old numbers, absolutely killed it. I loved every minute. And, in an amazing sign of cooperation and beneficence from the weather gods, the rain that had been falling for hours stopped at 8 p.m. when the concert opened with Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, and by 9 p.m. when the Stones surged on stage with their rock n' roll dominance, patches of blue even appeared. Party time!

Jumpin Jack Flash - A video link grabbed from YouTube that gives a good idea of the concert's razzle dazzle and energy level.  I was unable to download my own short video because I forgot my password! Grrrr.

PK and me happy to be at TCF stadium in Minneapolis.

Since the Stones have stuck together and have been playing for 50-some years, and the main guys, including Mick Jagger, are in their sixties and seventies, age always comes up. Aren't these senior citizens in danger of croaking on stage? Don't they already look half dead?

I think the Stones, especially Jagger, make age a non issue. They prove that people in their sixties and seventies can blast away like much younger rockers. They prove to older folks like me, that is people who work at remaining physical and involved in what they love, that life in their seventies, and maybe their eighties, doesn't have to be the downward spiral we know is eventually inevitable. We can still have a great time and do whatever it is that creates joy and vitality. I can't sing or perform, but I can still dance, and dammit, I will until I drop.

Mick Jagger dyes his hair, works with a personal trainer and amps up his training in the months before touring, and whatever he does, works. From my far away stadium seat, the guy looked and moved like he's 20-something. There was no hint of fatigue despite his endless strutting and pouting and whipping his various garments around and changing his shirt multiple times and running up and down his ramp and singing the old songs like it was the first damn time he ever belted them out.

I swear. I never thought I could get caught up in one of the most ancient songs, Can't Get No Satisfaction, but they closed the concert with it and like most of the 50,000 people in the stadium, I was gyrating and contributing to the general roar.

If you've never gone, try to catch a Stones concert. It'll make you feel young again! Just like it does for the Stones.

Here is my earlier post about the money-grubbing Rolling Stones in which I railed against outrageous and fluctuating ticket prices and refused to attend the Minneapolis concert even though I've always wanted to see them and we were going to be in Minneapolis anyway. 

Travel - Sometimes Sweetness and Light. Other times, NOT.

This post was composed over a few days, in and out of Internet service. As I complete it, we're camped at Cottonwood Canyon Campground in the Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota.  Yesterday we left Yellowstone National Park after a quick visit and an exit via what has to be among the most spectacular drives in the world, the Beartooth Highway. 

One of way too many OMG views from the Beartooth Highway.

Cell service at our campground is 3G, so with my iPhone's Hotspot, I'm able to plug into the Internet. Hopefully the post will be done before power runs out or I get too cold sitting outside. Our campsite along the Little Missouri River lacks electrical or other services. And now on to Yellowstone highlights along with some musings about our privileged travel life.

The awesome power of Yellowstone Falls cannot be overstated. 

Lest anyone think that traveling for prolonged periods means unmitigated joy,   trust me, it's not always so.

Sometimes I feel like I'm giving the wrong impression. True. We are privileged and grateful to see and experience some of the greatest natural and cultural wonders of the USA and sometimes other countries. We're often stimulated, awe stricken, flabbergasted, wonder-besotted. But sometimes, between incredible places, we.....get homesick. Get tired of our close quarters Need our own spaces. Bicker. What I'm trying to convey.....life on the road is not perfect. Close, but not quite.

The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone below the great falls. Just wonderful. I lost my sunglasses here, leaning over a barrier to take photos.

Springtime in Yellowstone. Buffalo and bears are on the move with young. The meadows are verdant. The skies are dramatic. The USA's first national park never disappoints. 

Here's another thing. We don't always stay in our camper, in case you got the mistaken impression we're hardcore.  If we have family or friends along the way, and we're invited, we gladly accept. Also, we've learned that if it's raining, snowing or otherwise stupid to hunker outside, we'll get a motel. Temperatures 20 degrees or less also drive us to places with hot showers and wide-screen TVs. We're old, but we're not stupid.

Leaving Yellowstone Park via the Lamar Valley, where numerous photo workshops were being conducted. A workshop was here, searching in vain, with cannon-sized lenses, for an osprey nest. Lacking a cannon-sized lens, I opted for wildflowers with the Lamar Valley in the background.

During numerous trips to Yellowstone, I'd never before hiked the boardwalks at Mammoth Hot Springs. Wow. Just unbelievable. 

Travertine deposits making magic at Mammoth Hot Springs.

We left Yellowstone National Park after a quick two days, one night. It was fabulous, of course.  We camped at Mammoth Hot Springs. Oddly, heavy traffic roared around the campground until well after 10 p.m. and resumed when I was jarred awake at 5 a.m. But you don't visit Yellowstone to camp. You camp in Yellowstone so you can be close to all those amazing natural wonders.

A few of the neon colors at Norris Geyser Basin created by heat-loving algae

Last night PK and I were holed up in a hotel in Billings, Montana, adjacent to a medical clinic treating cancer and other patients. How we arrived at this hotel is another story having to do with my TripAdvisor ineptitude. The clientele was mostly patients on medical journeys, and their families, not recreational travelers like us While we're in our modest room planning where to camp tomorrow and deliberating whether our butts can tolerate another bike ride, the people on either side may be in dread about medical tests, test results, or treatments.

This juxtaposition puts me in the crux of travel ambivalence. We're skimming on the top of life right now, as I see it. But one day, it could be me or PK awaiting test results or unpleasant treatments or a terminal diagnosis.  So before we're the patients and no longer the skimmers at the apex of the life-is-good chain, we're going for it.

That's me, in a photo taken by PK, proving I was on the trip, with Yellowstone Falls behind. This is one of my favorite places in the world.

FYI - I'm pushing the "publish" button at 9:28 p.m. under a full North Dakota moon and with light-seeking insects crawling on the screen with my iPhone providing wifi.  I love it. I'm also getting cold! Time to crawl into the Four Wheel Camper.

Riding The Trail of the Couer d' Alenes

A young moose crossed the The Trail of the Couer d' Alenes bike path in front of us not far from Harrison, Idaho. After a brief stare down between marveling us and the bemused moose, the animal entered the river on the other side of the trail.

As we rolled into our camp at Harrison, Idaho, after a two-day 100-mile RT bike ride, PK dismounted and said, "Whew. I don't know whether we should be relieved or proud of our achievement."

I didn't know either, but I think it was both. Relief that we were off those torturous bike seats and proud that we'd managed to go the distance. 

Our ride started Tuesday, May 26. Skies were foreboding when I peeked out of the camper at 5 a.m. This was the big day we'd anticipated since we began planning this road trip a couple months earlier and, in a way, five years ago. In 2010 we'd tried the Trail as we were returning from a wedding extravaganza in Montana. It was also our first trip with the Four Wheel Camper.

Then we'd camped at Idaho's Heyburn State Park close to a trail access. We were in a rush to get home, but we managed to do a 20-mile out-and-back ride along the flat rails-to-trails bike path. It was heavenly, and we pledged to return someday. But on this chilly morning we shivered in the cool damp as we hiked uphill to a sweet little coffee and quiche place, The Tin Cup, in Harrison, where we were camped along Lake Coeur d' Alene. Over breakfast, we eavesdropped as the locals discussed the weather. It was going to shower off and on and a thunderstorm wasn't out of the question.

Today's ride was just shy of 50 miles from Harrison to Wallace, Idaho, and once we left Harrison, it would be about 37 miles to the nearest services, or shelter, in Kellogg, Idaho. Did we want to ride in the rain? Or chance a thunderstorm with no where to hide?

Even as we hashed it out, we pumped our tires and stashed snacks and overnight-stay stuff into our bike bags. We were going. What's the worst that could happen? We could get cold and wet?

No. The worst that could happen was we would regret that we'd wimped out and missed an experience and a place we believed to be worth the trouble it was to get here.  

The skies started spitting five miles out, and the dark clouds glowered. The shower was enough to dampen our clothes, if not our spirits. It looked like heavy rain ahead, and we stopped to put on what passes for rain gear in our biking wardrobes. Half an hour later, we ditched the rain gear. Other than an occasional sprinkle, and riding through puddles left behind by the angry clouds that kindly got ahead of us, we remained dry, warm, and mostly happy. I'll get to the "mostly happy" part later. 

  

We'd made the right decision, and we knew it as we glided through bird-filled marshes along a trail decorated by wildflowers. The Trail of the Coeur d' Alenes is a classic rails-to-trails ride - mostly flat, although our ride was slightly uphill the last 12 miles.

The Trail has water on one side or another for much of its 71-mile distance. (We rode just shy of 50, one way.) This is in the chain of lakes region where lakes, rivers, and marshes, and all the wildlife that loves such places, make for f great scenery and abundant wildlife. Very few people, though.

Still. Fifty miles, even on a mostly flat trail, is a long way for people of any age who aren't in great bike shape and neither PK or I are even close to what we were five years ago when we were training for a 65-mile bike event.  One thing that we are, though, is officially old.  I'm finally beginning to admit that things get harder......

As we rode, I took inventory of my infirmities brought into focus by remaining in a bike-riding (unnatural) posture for several hours. All body parts are affected, but one is paramount - the butt! Mine was feeling crushed and pulverized after only  20 miles with  80 miles to go, counting the return trip. Yikes! 

Somehow, when you ride frequently, the nether regions become hardened off.  Or something. You get used to the saddle. I'm broken in now and maybe in a week can jump back on the Specialized. 

PK just outside of Kellogg. Shall we stay or shall we go? 

We could have stayed in Kellogg and cut about 24 RT miles off, but by the time we got there and had lunch, I was revitalized, curious about the town of Wallace, which was being touted as a way better place to spend the night by Kellogg residents we talked with over lunch. And hell, I can do anything for the hour (about 12 miles) it would take to get there. Since I was suffering more than PK, he let me make the call. He was game either way.

Our first stop in Wallace was the Northern Idaho Brewery, City Limits, where we enjoyed congratulatory beers and were entertained by our exuberant wait person, Andrea Leveque, a total ski babe living the life here in the Idaho panhandle. 

Wallace lived up to its reputation as a town with "character," good food and lodging. It claims to be the "center of the universe." But I know people in Ashland, Oregon, who would dispute that.

We stayed at the Ryan Hotel, a vintage boutique place lovingly restored. This is the "lobby", second floor. We loved our suite, pampering ourselves after a day on the trail. If you're passing through Wallace on I-90 and want a classy yet affordable accommodation, give it a try.

PK checking out a Sprinter-type unit  along the bike trail near Kellogg.  I wouldn't be surprised if one of these is in our future.

The South Fork of Coeur d' Alene River not far from Kellogg. It looked healthy enough but locals said it, and all area creeks and rivers, are running at far less than normal flows.

A bit downstream, the Coeur d' Alene picked up volume and one boatload of trout seekers.

That adorable young moose, one more time.

At the end of the day, I had to repack in preparation for the next leg of our journey. Somehow, I managed to bring too much!