This was actually my third time in Costa Rica. The Mate and I visited Son One when he was first working there six years ago. Then there was the time my zoologist dad took me deep into the jungle for an Organization of Tropical States conference when I was sixteen (I was too scared of the rainforest to walk alone–correctly, as it turned out, because the assembled biologists later discovered an extremely venomous fer-de-lance viper on the trail).
But it’s still a shock to realize how DIFFERENT Nature is there. Oh, it looks inviting as all get-out, from above.
Up near the Monteverde Cloud Forest, where usually, Son One told us, you don’t see anything but cloud.
But get in close, and it’s red in tooth and claw–even the plants. Like this ficus, or Strangler Fig, enthusiastically murdering its host tree.
Whatever you do, don’t imagine this process sped up.
In the jungle, it’s everyone for itself. Even a lowly fencepost becomes a host.
Kind of cute, unless you’re the one who has to keep replacing the fenceposts.
And don’t even get me started on the army ants. (Not pictured: army ants. You’re welcome.)
Because Son One is a classic naturalist, which is to say nuts about dangerous critters, he was REALLY hoping for a sighting of either a puma or a fer-de-lance–preferably both. We struck out on both, this trip, although we did score some stunningly large paw prints, and this official Pile o’ Puma Poop on the trail:
…You’re welcome?
Son One did manage to find one fer-de-lance (terciopelo, in Spanish, which means velvet–has anyone actually stroked that snake??), but he hasn’t sent me the photo yet, so here’s one from our last visit:
And this is why we hike in rubber boots.
But of course, of COURSE, Costa Rica is way more than things that want to kill you. It’s also a splendid riot of sound and scent and color. Like this motmot which welcomed us on our first afternoon:
¡Hola amigo!
And of course, of COURSE…monkeys. Since Son One’s specialty is taking people far from the madding crowd, we had an entire troupe of Capuchins to ourselves. (Here’s where I decided I need to invest in a zoom lens for my phone, but you get the idea.)
Son One, who speaks fluent Capuchin, warned us not to stand underneath. They like to pee on your head.
This thrilling wildlife encounter was somewhat undermined when we stopped for coffee at a place which puts out fruit for the birds…which the monkeys, of course, gorge on.
“Hey, I’m done with my banana. You gonna finish that muffin?”
As we headed back down toward the lowlands on a road whose steepness I couldn’t possibly capture with my phone, this tree caught me eye. The locals call it “Gringo Tree” because it looks like a white person with bad sunburn. But this particular one looked like E.T.
Phone home.
I‘m not saying North American Nature doesn’t have weird stuff. Just not THIS weird. Or wonderful. See you in the lowlands for Part 3!
If these images gross you out, you probably wouldn’t have enjoyed the kind of Costa Rica tour The Mate and I just went on, led by Son One, as a beta-test of his budding ecotour company, Liana Travels. Some of what we did required…let’s just say…trust. But in every way, our trust was repaid. Like putting that weird glop in my mouth, which just happens to be passionfruit, and just happens to taste…
…magnificent.
Tangy, sweet, magical–ok, still a weird mix of gloppy and crunchy, but that flavor! Later, when we saw passionflower vines in bloom, I fell even more in love.
Encantada
So I decided that passionfruit was a pretty good metaphor for Liana Travels. Go ahead, take a bite. First comes the surprise, then the reward.
Some of those surprises, I have to admit, were NOT pleasant, but those had to do with travel during COVID, not with Son One’s planning. Example #1: Upon arrival at San Jose airport, we stood in the Immigration line for 2 and a quarter HOURS, because there were only four clerks processing many airplanes’ worth of travelers. (I was certain we were catching COVID every moment we stood there. We didn’t.) Example #2: While waiting for our required test results to exit the country, our flight was cancelled. But the stress of those surprises was made up for by watching Son One’s calm, competent responses.
Nuestro guia
In upcoming posts, I’ll give a more conventional travelogue. But as an intro, here are two more surprises. #1, have you heard of the famous invasive Cane Toads of Australia? Turns out they were imported from Central America! I hadn’t known that, and found the information as fascinating as the huge toads are ugly.
also nocturnal
And #2, how about this flower? Here it is closed up:
…ohhhhkay…
And here it is open. I asked Son One its name. His answer: “They call it Butthole Flower.”
Well alrighty then.
Watch this space for more on our off-the-beaten-path Costa Rican adventures. ¡Puravida!
Except for a handful of exotics here and there, we’re about out of fall color here in Washington State.
Great. Just in time for all that extra darkness.
Many folks I know are working hard to adjust their habits or their personal environments, trying to stay one step ahead of seasonal gloom. And even though I’m a very un-SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) person, I find myself doing my own version of this on my walks, snapping photos of whatever brightness I can find during a sunbreak in an otherwise dingy forest.
Even the most pathetic little willow gets its moment in the sun
But what about when there is no sun? We have a LOT of those days here in the Pacific North-wet.
Pretty hard to get excited about snowberries
Ugh, why even bother to go out? Just plug in the Christmas lights.
I won’t dignify that question with a response, except to say this: today, on one of the greyest, most monochromatic days of the year, I made a startling discovery about light. Shining light. Turns out, our most emblematic native tree, the madrona, practically glows on days like these.
Shine? Sheen? Glimmer? Glisten? What else would you call this?
Now, this particular tree (on my neighbors’ property) is one I’ve loved for two decades; I even adopted its crazy loopy branches as my emblem when I became an author. (That’s another story.)
There’s just so much going on with this tree…
But my POINT is, despite a close relationship with this tree, I had never really thought about how its bark gleams when wet.
Neither the rest of the scruffy forest, nor its own dead branches can hide that light
And not just “my” tree–any madrona! Red or green, there’s just something about their surface, more skin than bark, that turns to spotlit satin in the rain.
After rhapsodizing for a while over what’s been under my nose for years upon rainy years, I headed home…and stopped dead at a patch of salal. Guess what?
Who’s all bright and shiny? YOU are!
So. Moral of the story: in this greyest of seasons in this greyest of regions, there’s plenty of light out there. All we have to do is accept the gift of gleam where we find it.
Anyone else have their own version of “the gleam”–maybe in a region much different from mine? Please share a description!
As March draws to a close, this will be my last Road Trip Retro post for now–and hopefully, ever! This is the time of year when, in “normal” years, we’d have just gotten settled back into the home routine: me working at the bakery, The Mate clearing fallen branches around the property and getting the lawn mower in shape.
It’s not a “normal” year. But things are turning that way, even though I’ll never think of “normal” again. (The other day I went into a friend’s house for the first time in 14 months and felt like crying with joy.)
So let’s finish up with Road Trip VIII, shall we? That year, three years ago, I became aware that we had fallen into a pattern with our first couple of road weeks. So I determined to NOTICE stuff that I might have bypassed before. Starting with this amazing “We Can Do It!”” cloud in Tacoma.
Seemed like a good omen.
Passing out of Oregon into California on Rt. 199 (a fave), I captured this sign which we’ve always enjoyed:
Who doesn’t love some good sweet cron on a summer day?
Visiting our favorite Prairie Creek redwoods, I decided to highlight the less obvious parts of the forest.
“Don’t take my picture! I’m shy.”Redwoods, shmedwoods. Look at me!
Visiting our wee cuzzies in Oakland, I tried to capture the sense of their neighborhood…
…and just up the road in Berkeley, this wonderful memorial to the Free Speech movement:
Dora, my bike, enjoying a lil’ break
Next up, SoCal. With our sons long graduated from college and my grandmother long since passed away, we visited a more obscure bit of coast, just the two of us…
Monaña de Oro State Park
…before heading into LA for the usual family & friends visits. Then, the Big Left Turn, and off into Arizona, where, for once, we rented a cabin near our favorite park-nobody-seems-to-have-heard-of, the Chiricahua National Monument.
2 years later, we came right back here and were treated to javelinas in our front yard!I adore this place. Sunrise on sycamores is just frosting on the cake.OK, I know- -I’m getting away from my “noticing the little things” theme…
In Albuquerque, I captured a piece of a “ho-hum hike” at the base of the Sandia range, right there in town…
New Mexicans are a little spoiled. But as a Washingtonian, I can relate.
…and finally remembered to give their spectacular cuisine its photographic due:
Green chile, blue corn…need I say more?
Speaking of noticing: we also finally decided to let Oklahoma show us its best stuff. Frequently terrible weather (blizzards, tornadoes) keeps us from crossing OK, but in 2018 we stayed in TWO different state park cabins, at either end of the state.
Boiling Springs State Park
Nothing breathtaking, but very pleasant (too cold for us to camp). And I got to see this porcupine asleep high in a cottonwood!
Yay for noticing muscles.
The eastern park, Lake o’ the Cherokees, featured 1930s-era cabins made by the WPA.
The lake itself…bleah. But awesome cabins!
Passing through Missouri (another rarity on our eastbound journeys), we stopped to recreate in some federal scenic river land. The name escapes me–but this beaver didn’t!
Well, HEY, cutie!
Cutting down through Tennessee, we treated ourselves to a date in Nashville.
Pause for a moment here to send lots of love to poor ol’ Nashville.
With our friends in the Blue Ridge of North Carolina, I tried to focus more on the background of the place–its rhododendron thickets…
(with Mate in foreground)
…though who can resist a mountain sunrise?
No muscles required here.
At the apex of our journey–my home stompin’ grounds of Durham and Chapel Hill, NC–I focused my camera on some of my personal NC icons:
Mom in her pickup (hauling horse trailer)…my parents’ shoe collection (part of it)……Mom’s loom (the smaller one)–here w/ Son Two, aka Grandson Two…Chapel Hill’s Tarheel fire truck (Go Heeeeeeeeeeeeels!)
…and, of course, the culmination of every annual NC pilgrimage, the ACC Men’s Basketball feast:
Allen & Sons BBQ, slaw, hushpuppies & fried okra. Again–no noticing muscles needed here. Dare you NOT to notice.
Heading north this time, we made a straight shot to our other cousins, in southern Vermont, where all the little things I might have noticed were immediately blanketed by snow.
Sorry, Red Rover! Be right there.I felt OK sharing this photo because everyone’s so hidden under their hats. Whee!
Heading home through Kentucky: isn’t this the best bike path bridge ever?
Louisville Loop
Stopping for a bike ride in Topeka, KS, we pretty much stumbled onto this historic site: the school where Brown v. Board of Education began.
At least it’s a protected site, if not exactly promoted. Then again, we were there on a Sunday.
Heading for the Rockies, we took advantage of some friends’ spending a sabbatical in Colorado Springs.
Pike’s Peak sunrise from the kitchen window–are you kidding me? Gotta love the juxtaposition with the light pole.
A hike at Mesa Verde, where we had the trail to ourselves…
…the Mate couldn’t help but notice how much Gretchen likes standing at the edge of things.
Our annual get-together with Adventure Buddies (you know ’em well by now) Tom & Kate was near Page, AZ. Just noticing this piece of the map (so near to the Grand Canyon) was new to us.
The Mate auditioning to be a mushroom rockJabba the Rocks–off the beaten path, just hangin’ out…
One thing we did that I’m not real proud of: took a boat tour on Lake Powell to see Glen Canyon, or what’s left of it. What I mostly noticed? My conflicted feelings.
Uff. Something so wrong here.
Finally back in Washington, going for a walk as we waited in the ferry line, I kept the theme going, capturing the beauty of our Salish Sea environment…
No place like home.
…every tiny bit of it.
Ditto.
Thanks for riding with me through most of the past ten years! Tune in next time for something a little more current, ok? And be well.
Here we go. This horrible year, 2020, I am thankful for…
…being able to feel thankful. (Will that become the new meaning of “2020 hindsight”?)
…a friend who sent me the link to the podcast, “A Way With Words,” where I learned, just in time, of the word “respair,” which means to have hope again. Seriously!!!! Yes.
…flowers.
…mushrooms taking the place of flowers when flowers are not available. (Could there be a lesson here?)
Beautiful local veggies also filling that flower-role, and way tastier.
…Zoom (can I get an Amen?).
Say “Happy Birthday, Dad!”
Beauty close to home.
Thanksgiving dinner made of leftovers, and no pie, because–the Mate’s birthday cake is the queen of all!
Happy Birthday, babe.
Togetherness in any form, even masked. Health. Democracy. Music. Things I will never, ever, ever take for granted again.
As always, I would love to hear some of the things floating to the top of your list!Still standing? Let’s give thanks.
Full disclosure: this post has nothing pithy nor deep to add to your thoughts today. This is full-on escape. I was able to take last Sunday with my overworked Ironwoman Goddaughter to drive, then hike up to nearly 7,000 feet on the Cascades’ Pacific Crest Trail to breathe some clear air and see some fall color.
Keep trekking long enough and, with luck and faith, just mayyyybe some beauty will reward you.
Yes! Not all uphill walks are this glorious, so I’ll take ’em where I can.
Pretty much muted by joy and gratitude at this point.
This kind of scene actually hurts to behold.
Not forgetting the trees for the forest…
****celestial music****
Time to head back down…still keeping thoughts at bay.
In a month this color should be blanketed by snow. But it’ll stay with me when I need it most, in the coming dark months.
Thanks, Ironwoman Goddaughter. We needed this. God knows we all need something LIKE this.
May you all be well and find some inspirational beauty where you can. Till next time…
First of all, my northwestern friends–yes, I KNOW “seastars are not fish.” But most folks know that sweet story of the guy saving stranded seastars by tossing them back into the ocean, and in that story they’re “starfish.”
That story’s moral: in the face of huge, inexorable challeng, making tiny, individual change is still worthwhile.
I THINK this is that kind of story. Although for a while there, it felt more like the penultimate chapter of Catch-22. (Spoiler alert: if you’re intending to read Catch-22 and just haven’t gotten around to it yet, you should stop reading my blog right now.)
The whole thing started a couple of weeks ago, when I noticed a large mass of debris floating near the rocky edges of Iceberg Point, part of the San Juan National Monument which I’m grateful to call my big backyard. I contacted our wonderful Monument and BLM people and hoped for the best.
Days passed, and still the debris floated. But you could see it was degrading into bits.
After a week, the large chunks disappeared. “Oh well,” I thought, “they’re someone else’s problem now. But somebody oughta get that small stuff.” Then…”Hey! Great excuse for a paddle excursion!”
I had it all planned: net, garbage bags, wetsuit, gloves, tide chart. Then the smoke from the west coast wildfires sent our air quality numbers up near 200 and our ocean under a thick blanket of scary-looking, cold smog. (Think “The Nothing” from Neverending Story.)
By the time the skies and my calendar cleared, another week had passed. But finally, FINALLY, I was on my way. Oh, that felt good.
Here I come to save the day!
Up close, I found that the barbage gyre was–of course–styrofoam, and most of it had–of course–already crumbled into those tiny, hellish bits. Actually, MOST of it was probably already in the bellies of marine life testing the flavor of those white things. That thought spurred me through the messy task of circling and scooping the gyre.
Yesss!!!
After about 25 minutes, I had all I could gather (not to mention fit into the trash bag stuffed between my knees). MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. Then I looked toward the shore.
Uh-oh.
Here’s where Catch-22 came in. See, through 30 chapters, we have Yossarian wrestling with flashbacks, hinting at the scene behind his PTSD. Not till the second-to-last chapter do we see the scene in full: Yossarian in mid-flight, trying to save the life of his bombardier Snowden, binding Snowden’s leg wound and comforting him as he whimpers. Only when Yossarian’s first-aid task is complete does he discover…he’s treating the wrong wound. The real injury, the one that’s killing Snowden, is deep, internal, and entirely beyond Yossarian’s ability to cure.
Those big chunks of marine garbage? They weren’t gone. They were just lodged in a cove, slowly breaking into more and more horrible bits for idiots like me to scoop.
Shit.
There was nothing I could do in my weenie little boat. To salvage some sense of accomplishment, I balanced one floating chunk on my prow and paddled home, deflated.
You’re not the boss of me, garbage.
But! Let’s get back to the starfishy side of things, shall we? I happen to live on an island whose unofficial motto is, “Come For the Scenery, Stay For the Community.” (OK, that’s my PERSONAL motto; I don’t think anyone else says that. But they could.)
I got back on the email. Two days later, I and my BLM friend had organized a small crew to go after that cove-garbage from the land. Our most intrepid member, Mike, donned a drysuit and went after the junk from the water.
Waiting for Mike to get his drysuit on, and feeling grateful not to be Mike.
Most chunks had to be hauled with ropes. I got the smaller bits, like this sail.
I can’t even tell you how satisfying that work was. Well–maybe I just did.
Hey, anyone missing a large sailboat?
Next day, true autumn weather moved in and the sea turned nasty (but beautiful–like a Nasty Woman). We knew we’d acted just in time to prevent the total disintegration of that garbage pile.
We also knew, in the grand scheme of our poor ocean, what a minescule gesture our work had been. You don’t need me to tell you that either. The wound is deep, internal, and possibly even beyond our ability to cure.
But, like the rescued seastar–our work made a difference to that place. And to us. Nothing like a tiny dose of action, in the face of global pandemic and potlitical instability, to make you breathe a little deeper.
Now I’ve just returned home from a ceremony honoring those signs and moving them to their next home, as they were not constructed to withstand fall and winter weather. And I’m finally feeling moved to write again…about the limbo I’ve been in.
Limbo. Two definitions come to mind,* neither of them Biblical:
1) “an uncertain period of awaiting a decision or resolution; an intermediate state or condition”
2) “a West Indian dance in which the dancer bends backward to pass under a horizontal bar that is progressively lowered to a position just above the ground”
(*both definitions from Google)
Things that seem stuck in limbo:
–since the COVID shutdown, millions of people’s education, jobs, projects, plans–hell, our lives.
–the forward movement toward racial justice that many of us deeply want to believe in , as the forces against change gather for counter-attack, and as weariness or fear threaten to overwhelm action.
–somewhere in all of that–me. And, very possibly, you.
I don’t want to go into the details of my own personal limbo, which has to do with my two creative passions, writing and music. I want to write about avoiding the “how low can you go?” part of limbo.
Here’s what I am doing to “stay high” in this uncertain period:
Like probably most people in the world right now, my sense of the calendar has gone all wonky. I’m frequently not sure what month it is, let alone the date. Day of the week? Forget it.
Fortunately or unfortunately, I know all too well what year it is.
The arrival of fresh cherries and strawberries at a fruit stand took me by surprise. Wait–it’s Solstice already? Since then, I’ve been trying to pay more attention. Salmonberries have helped.
Salmonberries are a huge thing around western Washington. Whether battling them as ferociously scratchy pests around our yards or admiring their bright pink flowers in Spring, we probably spend more time thinking about them than we even realize. And then they make berries!
If looks could taste…
I used to make fun of salmonberries for being so un-delicious: The only reason anyone even thinks about eating you is because blackberries aren’t ripe yet.
But (again, like a lot of folks) I’ve been walking even more than I usually do, and trying to pay even more attention to things besides the global pandemics of COVID and racism. So I’ve been nibbling salmonberries again, as part of my noticing–and guess what? Turns out if you wait to eat them till they’re so ripe they’re juuuuust about to fall off their thorny ol’ bushes, they’re actually pretty tasty.
So what else merits my noticing, and my thanks?
The tide. Twice a day. EVERY day. Talk about essential work!
I know this isn’t exactly a glam shot, Tide–but this is you your work attire.
And some of the humblest of flowers–look at these ones here, engaging in a socially-distanced Easter bouquet!
C’mon, guys, it’s June, not April. Shouldn’t you be decorating for wedding season?
That’s more like it.
What basic, REGULAR things are you feeling grateful for right now? Postal carriers? Baby birds? Marshmallows on display shelves? Let’s celebrate the regular where we can find it!
Around here–and probably around anywhere in the Northern hemisphere not covered with asphalt–May means wildflowers. Yes, like that childhood riddle, except that here May’s bringing more showers than April. My walks lately have been interrupted by…
Sea pinks
and
Larkspur (with Death Camas)
not to mention
Spotted Coralroot orchid, in its own ray of sunshine
Oh–and the salmonberries!
Not as delicious as you’d hope–but who cares?
But this month I also love to notice and give praise to a subtler kind of new growth…the kind that puts BOTH the “ever” and the “green” into “Evergreen State.” I’m talking about the fresh, new tips of our conifers. Now, pine trees make you suffer all sorts of pollen-clouds to get up close and personal with their newborn bits, but firs? Fir tips you can fondle.
Softer than you can imagine! (Also edible to more than just deer, though some might dispute the idea)
And hemlocks…well, their tips are just an adorable mini version of the firs.
Awwww…!
Not to forget our non-coniferous evergreens: the noble salal. You might focus on their honey-sweet, bell-shaped blossoms…but I’m looking at the bright, baby-soft new leaves.
Aren’t they sweet? Stop looking at the flowers.
Of course no forest looks truly LOTR-fantastical without ferns of some kind, or all kinds. The type we have around here don’t start as fiddleheads (thereby saving themselves from human over-consumption), but they do stand out–if not UP–as cutely floppy, gawky adolescents:
“Let’s be fronds.”
The most amazing new bit of green May growth to my mind, though, is one of the least visible: the mosses. On today’s walk, I was noticing one of my favorites turning slightly more golden, thinking, “Yeah, almost midsummer, time for these beauties to be dying back,” when I looked closer, and–whoa. Check this out:
Rated “M” for Mature
Fruiting thimgamagigs! Right out there for all to see, shameless! Gorgeous! Fresh! New! Woohoo!
Gimme an “E”! “V”! another “E”! “R”! Gimme a “G”! another “R”…!
OK, you get it. MAY we be green. MAY we be evergreen. MAY we be happy.
Wing's World 