The Yellowstone Trip Back in August of 2010, Patti and I took a trip with Amy and Aaron to a number of national parks and other memorable places on the way to Yellowstone and Grand Teton. These included the Badlands, Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse Memorial, Black Hills, Wind Cave, and Medicine Wheel National Historic Site. The Badlands are well-named. They are other-worldly bad. Over-the-top bad. But beautiful as well in their own stark and sere way. We took them in, and drove on down the road. Next stop, Mount Rushmore, the iconic faces of Washington, Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, and Lincoln peering down from their mountain home. Per the brochure, it took six years to carve the faces in the cliff, six years spread over the fourteen years it took to raise the million dollars for the project. The faces are up to six stories high from chin to crown. Taking a road off to the side of the mountain, we caught a different camera angle, the side of Washington’s face. We had a bri...
The Olympic Mountain range, that is, and a glorious National Park. A campsite on the ocean: tide pools full of strange creatures, exotic to a Wisconsinite. Walked the sea-stacked beach along the breaking surf roaring through the mist. Invited a couple to share our view of the sun setting over the Pacific. Another campsite on the Hoh, a rainforest river with headwaters high on a Mt. Olympus glacier. The water, a slate-blue, colored by sediments of rock pulverized by the power of ice. As usual, Pisces-me had to take a plunge in the bracing-cold water. Hiked the rain forest trail where every plant had another species growing on it, Which had a third species growing on the second one. An incredible array of life watered daily by moisture-laden mist from the ocean, And rainfall stopped in its tracks by the mountain range to the east. Returned to our river site to find two elk a short distance upstream. Left the forest for another site on salt water, the Strait of Juan De Fuca, S...
Nature’s Warning I stoke the furnace of the fiery sun to keep the planet from freezing. I twirl the Earth to darken the night to allow for creatures sleeping. I sprinkle stars around the sky, create worlds for doing and dreaming. I blow-up the wind in gusty breaths to cool the planet’s warming. My huge hurricanes of late are very destructive to give mankind a warning. I, Nature, cannot be challenged for you are just part of me, and when you hurt me, you hurt yourself as well.
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