State of Wilderness

Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge: Winter Birds

Tons of Ibis, Cormorants, and various duck types

We spent the afternoon yesterday exploring a small part of Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge and the Trinity River area. The daily total was 29 species seen, for a total of 49 for the year so far, not a bad start towards my goal of 200 species for the year.

I did not see the rails I came here to find, but we did have a rare treat while walking along the Willow Trail: a bald eagle was spotted overhead, and then we spied another eagle sitting at the top of a nearby tree. It was huge, much bigger than we would have expected a Bald Eagle to be. It was brown and white streaked, even on the head, not solid brown on top like a juvenile Baldie. We suspected what we saw was a Golden Eagle, which has been reported over there in that area (although maybe not in January?). It would have been awesome to have a picture to show for that, but Jason did not bring the camera while we were walking around (what? why?). Now that I am thinking about it, though, perhaps it was a big red tailed hawk?

We drove around Shoveler Pond (2.5 miles), and it ended up being a slow drive because these two ladies in a pickup in front of us kept stopping to look at the birds with their binoculars. I get it…that is what we were all doing….but they did not have continuous forward movement and did not use pull outs to move aside for faster traffic. There was a LOT of stopping and no way around them.

I was feeling some anxiety because my older kids were at home and had some issue with the oven while trying to bake a pizza for lunch – turns out they child-locked it, I did not even know that was a thing – and also wanted to get home to make use of some Sebastian nap time to get things done. Also, after a bit, it was the same birds over and over again. Look, more coots, more herons, more egrets…okay nothing to see here, time to move on. I don’t know what is the proper etiquette for this kind of thing, but I felt like giving those slow ladies a piece of my mind. At the very end, they finally pulled to the side at one of the pull outs, and then gave us a dirty look while we passed. I gave it right back! Thought about adding a hand gesture, too. I don’t know what that says about me.

I have this idea of exploring all the wildlife refuges within driving distance of Houston this year, and this was a nice start, despite those ladies.

2017: Can You Do a Blue Wave Without a Pussy Hat?

2017 did not go the way I was expecting, at all.

When it started out, I was moving along with the intentions I set forth the winter before: investing time in planning adventures with outdoorsy friends, working on growing my birding year list, trying new state parks with my family, hiking, camping, taking little trips to explore nature, doing a little geocaching and biking here and there – the typical things my family does, usually because this is what I want to be doing.

But then something happened, and I guess really the seeds of what happened were planted in November, with the election. I had some feelings about the election that I was working through. I wanted to take the feelings of despair I was feeling and use them for motivation but I didn’t know what to do. On the way to work, I would typically listen to the Thom Hartmann show, because it came on before one of my favorite programs, Democracy Now. Thom’s radio show would usually end with some call for people to get involved in our democracy, and he also made some statement that resonated with me about “now is the time to double down our efforts”. Also, I had this desire to find people in my community who were more “like me”, who thought like I did.

Somewhere in there, I had been spending an occasional Sunday afternoon in a cooking group that I had found via Facebook. It seems we must have gotten together soon after the election and found ourselves talking about it. We all realized we were all on the same page with our thoughts. Later, the woman who hosted those events invited me to another group. We started meeting in homes together about once a month following the Women’s March.

In the spring, the March for Science was happening and I planned to go. My friend from the cooking club and then the neighborhood club had introduced me to yet another group or two, and next thing I know, I was making signs at the house of another woman, and meeting a few other women from this other new group at the march with our signs. There were so many new groups forming and so many people to meet, so many chances to get involved. By the time March rolled around, I had fully become a part of the Resistance.

In the end, I found my tribe through all this. I became much more interested in these efforts than in the hobbies that I previously was spending my time in. This is why I wasn’t writing much in here anymore. I felt like this journal was mostly for my outdoor experiences, and I was having tribal experiences instead.

I made like 50 new friends this year, several of them that I consider my “inner circle” now, and we did so much together. We met to write postcards, to meet candidates, to hear speeches, to plan events, to support those running for office, to engage voters, to stand up for the things that meant something to us. We were calling our representatives on a regular basis to voice our opinions. Some of us were able to sit down with our local reps and talk to them, or be involved in virtual town halls. We attended rallies and marches together. We ate and met for drinks together, even howled at the moon together to express our frustration with the political theater and yet our strength in our female pack. We made signs, hosted fundraisers, listened to (and sometimes critiqued) speeches, and went block walking. We spent time learning about election strategies from various courses and classes, learned about environmental issues from the Citizens Climate Lobby, and went to listen to former politicians talk to learn from their experience (Al Gore, Joe Biden come to mind). Many of those people in the group were getting on the ballot themselves, running for everything from precinct chair to running for Congress. We were registering voters and working on getting the vote out. And we will be doing MORE of those things this year, to prepare for the 2018 midterms.

This is a photo from an event I planned in September to bring candidates and voters together. I was very proud of this event. This was a helpful kickoff event for some campaigns and helped the candidates get their petitions signed to get on the ballot without having to pay a fee:

I feel like through all of this, I have learned so much about myself, about what matters to other people, about leadership and about politics. This is something that is bigger than any of us as individuals, and it is part of the legacy we will be leaving. I was so proud to see my middle son decide on his own to write a letter to his Congressman expressing his thoughts on climate change and a desire to move away from the use of fossil fuels, and it was so exciting to see that he got a letter back in response (even though it was full of typical GOP speak). It has not been in vain, this example we are setting.

There were a few other surprises this year. I did not think at the beginning of the year that I would be invited to speak at a conference in Connecticut and get to go exploring their wineries with a former colleague and her friend, or that I would end up visiting Reno’s wild horses and hiking in Lake Tahoe, and the trip to Switzerland came out of nowhere. I still have stories I want to write about that trip.

This coming year, I know a little about where it will lead but not all. I just found out that I was confirmed to be a speaker at a HUGE conference in Denver in the summer, so I know there will be a trip to Colorado next summer, and that I will visit Bastrop again in the spring, and I am sure I will keep birding, geocaching, hiking, biking and exploring the state parks with my family. Also, though, I will be keeping the Resistance alive, because it has become a part of me now that I feel I won’t be able to let go. I know there is a tough fight ahead of us but I really feel like the left has been energized so much through this past year, that there is no way that there will not be a blue wave coming in 2018, and it will be so exciting to feel like I was a part of it.

I still don’t have a pussy hat, though. 😉

The Swiss Spiritual Experience

It was eleven am on a Sunday morning in Lucerne, Swizterland, and church bells were calling across the city, drawing the faithful to the steps of Hofkirche St. Leodegar. A motion of energy, the click clack of women’s heels, the compulsion that led me to try to open the doors of every church I saw in my week in this country, the timing of events all pulled me along with the others in the vicinity to enter the ornate wooden doors and find our own personal wooden seat for Mass.

This cathedral, a distinctive site on the Lucerne skyline, had been calling people in this same manner since at least 1639, if not before in its many manifestations as an Benedictine abbey, monastery and universal church going back to the 8th century.

As the service began, a line of altar boys entered the space in front of the altar from the right hand side, followed by an elderly priest. They formed a half circle in front of the altar, the priest in the middle in a green and white sash. The service began with music, followed by a reading. It was not in English, but if I closed my eyes and concentrated, I could almost follow along.

My mind drifted back on some of the experiences from my trip. In Basel, I had walked nine miles over six hours, experiencing as much as I could soak up in the time I had. During that time, I stopped by the Basel Minster, a long-standing cathedral, marveling at the vastness of the holy space. As I had approached the altar, I felt I could even hear the remnants of past music, the whispers of past voices. I saw motion to my right, and realized it was not the past leaving its prints, but rather the present, as the music was coming from a woman softly playing a song on the organ.

The whispers were those of courteous and reverent voices of other visitors in the second seating area behind the altar. I was curious about the second set of pews behind the altars in some of the churches that I saw, and I learned later it was to separate the rich from the poor during services.

In Elizabethenkirche, musicians were playing a concert near the altar. I entered the coffee shop in the back corner and ordered a latte, then sat at one of the two tables inside the corner of the church to enjoy a respite from my walk and appreciate the music. In the opposite corner, there was a sign indicating one could climb up the winding staircase(s) to the tower, so I started up. The staircase started winding tighter and tighter in the ascent, and at some point, my courage failed me and I decided I would rather not get wedged up there. I had the image of myself stuck somewhere near the top and no one to hear my plaintive cries for help. Perhaps I just got scared of losing my footing on the slippery stairs, or maybe it was the fear of heights that stopped me. At any rate, my heart was beating fast as I made my slow, careful descent.

Two mornings later, I was taking an early morning walk in Interlaken when I noticed a peculiar site in the distance; two churches of distinctly different architecture sharing the same skyline. I walked past fancy hotels and through a park to get over to that area to satisfy my curiosity. First, I came across what appeared to be an old monastery or convent attached to a Catholic church, plain and simple in details in the inside. Next to it stood a Protestant church, the two having shared the skyline and property for hundreds of years in harmony. The Schlosskirche, as this area is called, first housed 30 monks and then 300 nuns starting in the eleventh century. Later, Reformation swept through Europe and the Protestant church was built.

Their harmonious dichotomy seemed in line with that in my heart, part skeptic and part saint. The night before, I was stopped on the way to a bierhaus by a couple who asked me to participate in a survey on faith. The first question had me rank how religious I was on a scale of 0-10. I rated myself a 7, but then started to question this myself as the following questions dealt with my actual adherence to religious practices. How regularly do you go to church? How often do you read your Bible? Have you ever committed these sins (list)? Do you believe you will go to Heaven, and if so, (reflecting on these admissions of sins), why?

One of the questions dealt with how I viewed Jesus, and it was this thought, plus that of my cultural conditioning and spiritual upbringing, that I was contemplating on during my mental wandering in the Sunday Mass, perhaps seasoned with good old Catholic guilt. Perhaps I had just viewed too much iconography during this week of exploring Switzerland. I had answered that I thought of Jesus as a prophet, as a teacher, as the “Lamb of God”. During the biblical age, lambs were brought into the temples as blood sacrifices, their bodies wasted as their throats were sliced open. Jesus was not meek, though, in the spirit of lambs, but rather stood firm against the misrepresentations of faith. He raged like a lion against the money changers in the temple, and refused to back down to the Pharisees.

Perhaps I had just been touched by the imagery of the Lion of Lucerne, a monument to the Swiss Guards killed in the French Revolution. I had literally just come from the Lion Monument before the church service, and couldn’t help linking the spear in the lion’s side and the tears rolling down his cheek to the day of the Crucifixion. The conflicting feelings of lamb and lion I felt inside of me, my forgiveness towards those who sinned against me and yet anger at being treated badly, as well as the call to purity and to a sinful nature. I had on one hand the understanding that religion might just be a human construct to make peace with our own mortality, but on the other the feeling of faith in my heart that could not be quenched with reason and a guilt for not having been attending church on the regular.

All these thoughts and more stirred up inside me as the choir picked up, first a harmony of female voices to the left of me, then the deep bass of men’s voices on the right accompanying them, with a touch of organ or orchestra mixed it. The music intensified my feelings, and I felt a single tear roll down my face, like the one carved into the Lion. I wiped it off and it was time to leave, but the marks on my heart might stay behind.

Cascade Falls, California

I found myself with some time to myself on the back end of a work trip to Reno, about 23 hours worth. I decided to use that time to explore the Lake Tahoe area, a place I had heard mentioned so many times but had never been.

If you have never been, you should go. I don’t care who you are, you should go. I made some loose plans and didn’t have an expectation of what I was going to see, so all things were a marvelous discovery, from the drive in (after a sideline journey through Carson City) along the Clear Creek area that follows along Hwy 50, a road that wraps around a mountainous grade, to the picturesque drive through Zephyr Cove. My hotel wasn’t much to rave about (Howard Johnson), but it was walking distance to a public beach access.

I checked that out first, and was brave enough to enter the cold, clear water. I floated around a bit, marveling at the mountains around us and how relaxing it was there in the water. I could have stayed longer, but I felt a pull to go hiking or at least geocaching up in the Emerald Bay area. So after about 45 minutes at the beach, I got out of the water and changed my clothes into something dry and headed out that direction in my rental car.

I drove out of the touristy area that included little shops, hotels and restaurants, and headed further down a road that turned into more of a camping and outdoor recreation area. Bear signs started to appear, and hiking and biking trails looked like an inviting place to explore. Signs about Pope Beach and Baldwin Beach beckoned, but I was on a mission to get to a couple of geocaches with high favorite points. One was a virtual at the Emerald Bay overlook. This view was so beautiful, and I could have have stayed here a while, but the pull to explore further was strong.
I was trying to find the best place to park to look for an allegedly awesome regular sized geocache, and ended up in the trailhead parking in the Bayview Campground. After parking and looking around, I realized this was not the right spot to approach the geocache. However, I saw a sign that said “Cascade Falls”, with an arrow pointing in a direction that I felt a pull to go. I debated on the wisdom of this decision. I was not actually prepared for a hike. I hadn’t packed any of the ten essentials. I really wanted to know what was down that trail, though.
I saw a man coming back down the path, and I asked him how far away the falls were. “About a mile,” he answered. I asked him if the trail was hard. “It’s not hard…but there are a lot of rocks”. Okay, not sure what to do with that information, but I decided to roll with the “not hard” part and ignore the “lot of rocks” part. Later, I was cursing myself for ignoring the latter…but I made it back safely enough to write this little story a couple of weeks later so it’s not like it killed me. Although I did feel like it tried.

The trail started out very nice, and I wondered what rocks the man was talking about as I strolled along a soft pine covered trail. It was everything I wanted it to be: a soft forest trail with a view of a glistening lake, and snow peaked caps teasing me in the distance. Eventually, though, rocks began to appear, just a few here and there that I needed to work around. The soft forest floor began to be replaced with uneven stones. I had to concentrate on not falling, and on listening for sounds of bear and making sounds of my own to send them notice in case they were there (not sure how much of a danger it was, but there were bear boxes in the campground and signs all about).

I came upon just a handful of hikers along the way. Towards the end of the hike, I asked a couple how much farther it was, and the man gave me some tips about how to approach the falls, that there was a way to follow the water down below the trail to get above them. I followed his advice, as well as steering towards another family who had already made their way to the top of the falls. I even took a family photo for them. Another couple arrived shortly after, and I was caught off guard by a smell after they had found a cozy spot to sit above the falls. I kept forgetting that marijuana is legal for recreational use in California, as it was a common smell I kept coming across during this trip. And why not.

I could have spent some time marveling at the flow of the water from these little creek-like flows down to the torrent that raged down the mountain, but I did start to worry about making my way back before dark, and I really should have brought some water with me. I headed back, feeling glad I made it all the way to the falls but also being annoyed with myself for not coming prepared to hike. Also, I should have taken some safety precautions, like at least sending Jason a ping to know where I was. I kind of didn’t want to make him jealous of my good time, and also didn’t slow down enough to concentrate on that task.

I came across some young people taking selfies on top of the boulders, and I felt my age and maturity as I lumbered past them, probably flush faced and open mouth breathing. After some time lurching around the rocks, I finally made it back to the soft forest again.

I finally make it back to parking and realized the best parking for that geocache was at the overlook where I started. I found it and it was totally amazing. In the end, I felt very happy with my experience.

When I returned from my trip, I told a couple of friends about this, and both of them acted like I was completely crazy for making that hike. One of that never would have considered that adventure in the first place, and the other one would not have attempted it without a friend/companion along for safety.

I am not a person who has been afraid to have adventures alone, for better or worse. My sense of adventure has always been higher than my fear of danger, I suppose, and I don’t let things like not having a companion stop me. I like exploring new towns, trails, places by myself, although there are times I have felt like I wished I had a friend with me. When I was driving around Reno looking for the wild horses, I had a strong feeling of wishing Jason was with me, but I think it was mostly because I think he would have really enjoyed it (well, and also he makes me laugh). We couldn’t afford to all come along, though. I did invite my exhusband’s sister to join me on my trip in Reno, but she couldn’t/didn’t commit and then wasn’t answering my calls before my trip. It would have been fun to share that experience with Jason or my former sister in law, or any of my friends, but that is not the way it played out and I wasn’t willing to sit alone in my hotel lamenting the lack of a friend.
I saw some great views, had a good time by myself, and, when I got back into the town area, had a killer eggplant parm sandwich for dinner. I can’t wait to go back someday and bring my family to see this area. Also, I have some unfinished business there, which I will explain about in a later post.