Category Archives: Nature

Jake And Maggie

September 15, 2014 Keevan 3 Comments

8/16/14

As we left Bozeman, Montana, on our way to Yellowstone National Park, we passed by a huge sign advertising an up close and personal experience with Grizzly Bears.

Fred’s typical response of “Do you want to stop?” was met with silence. I had images of cages of bears behind bars and expensive admission prices; it really wasn’t my cup of tea, as I don’t like seeing wild animals in confinement. But he pulled in and just as he started talking to the woman at the entrance booth, my phone rang and I was consumed with a conversation with our daughter, so really missed his entire conversation, and before I knew it, we were in the lot, parked, and walking around.

Meet Jake and Maggie.

Somewhere between west Glacier and Bozeman, after becoming insatiated about Grizzlies, I picked up this book “In The Presence of Grizzlies” by Doug and Andrea Peacock, which is an excellent book about the world of Grizzlies. Thanks to these folks, (an excellent highly recommend book by the way) I’ve learned just how complicated the Human / Grizzliy world is, politically, environmentally, and financially.

Without writing an entire essay on the subject, let’s just assume that Bozeman Grizzly Encounter is a pretty reputable place where they rescue grizzly bears from very unfortunate circumstances. These bears cannot be turned back into the wild, without getting themselves shot, so I guess this is a good solution. The bears are on display for short periods of time, well fed, have a reasonable environment to hang out in, and seem to have good spirits. (Yes I believe these intelligent animals do indeed have spirits.) The place is purely educational, costing $7.00 each, which goes for care and food.

Although I could have stayed for hours and hours watching these guys interact, we only met Jake and Maggie, as the other bears came out on a rotational basis, and we needed to get on the road before it got too late.

I had another entire memory disk of photos of Jake and Maggie, actually standing up on hind legs, wrestling with each other, and displaying incredible bear posturing. That disk unfortunately became corrupted when the card reader got banged and fell out of the computer during transfer. At least I did switch cards while there, so Jake and Maggie still live on in my photo collection.

❧

http://www.grizzlyencounter.org

Campervan, Camping, Nature, Travel

Lakes, Rain, And Gentle Souls

September 10, 2014 Keevan Leave a comment

8/13/14-8/14/14

Time for a nice easy drive down the highway. We followed 83 south through Montana, winding down the mountain, spending a quiet, peaceful, and restful night at Swan Lake. In the morning it was just a jaunt across the road to the lake, where we strolled around the beautiful pedestrian pathway watching the glass smooth lake come alive.

Mid-day we drove a few more hours to Seeley Lake. On the way down, there was definite smoky haze in the air as we we were heading straight for a fire area…But when we arrived, rain had started falling, the air was crisp and clean, and the campground was practically deserted. We set up our awning, sat on the van porch and watched the puddles form, until it became a downpour, at which time we came inside and cozied up for awhile with our books. A few hours later, the sun was out, and people everywhere exited their tents, trailers and vans to walk wherever they could walk. Life was fresh and renewed. The deer came out to graze and the birds and squirrels again took up their search for food.

River with reflection of trees and clouds in the sky — Clearwater River Near Seeley Lake

Seeley Lake was peaceful and quiet, so we decided to stay put for a few days. We were immersed in nature and beauty, and continued meeting interesting and inspiring people.

Paul, for instance touched our hearts. This gentle person with a huge soul kept us company, provided us with much valuable travel information, gave ups tips on which roads to take for the best experiences, and inflamed a torch that has been lit in us, about planning a trip next summer to Alaska and the Yukon! We shared thoughts on politics, the environment and most excitingly about the Absaroka Mountains, which we were soon to make our way over the top of.

Green marsh with river winding through it — Clearwater River Marsh

Pulling away from Seeley lake, after exploring a few back roads, we passed by the Bob Marshall Wilderness area.

Green meadows, miles of vast uncluttered land, and huge mountains in the background. — A Tiny Glimpse of the Bob Marshall Wilderness Area

Thank you Bob, for being the visionary you were.

highway signage about the bob marshall wilderness area — Bob Marshall Wilderness Area

Butte, Deer Lodge, and Dillon. We camped in Boulder Creek Campground along a little used winding road. We followed some of Lewis and Clark’s trail, and saw rocks the Sacagawea played underneath as a young girl. There is much history in this area.

A Nice little rainstorm over the mountains to light our way and we landed in Bozeman for the evening.

Rain coming down from the clouds over mountains. — Driving Through The Rainstorms

Next post, we meet more unexpected acquaintances, of the four legged kind. ❧

Nature, Travel

Waterton Glacier Peace Park – Part 2

September 5, 2014 Keevan 1 Comment

Leaving Waterton

I just can’t help taking shots of these vast open spaces and majestic mountains uncontaminated with modern agricultural and industrial debris. The feeling of remoteness brings me peace. I could breathe in the beauty forever!

As we were driving on the road heading south through the park one evening, there was a digital sign on the road saying “Slow Down, Foxes on rodeway.”

Sure enough. They were there. One evening we caught this little Red, hurrying home with some dinner. And the next day, this sweetest little gal (I assume) was just waiting to be photographed!

A few last memories of this beautiful Canadian Park before crossing the border again.

Back Into Glacier

Many Glacier (A named area of the park) brought many mountains but few glaciers. Most of the glaciers in the park have melted away. At one point there were 150 named glaciers on the mountains, now there are suppose to be 25 glaciers left…we didn’t see that many. If the current warming trend continues, predictions are that by 2030, there will be zero glaciers left in the park.

Two Medicine road brought us no campsites, but did bring us another Grizzly. This fellow was gently galavanting his way around this lake, until he realized numerous “human creatures” were watching him from above, and then he lit out of there like nobody’s business.

America’s last really wild creatures. I hope we can find room in our hearts to make room for their habitats.

On that note, we left the park, and finally found our camping spot, right on top of the Continental Divide, in a sweet little forest service campground.

All of nature is not large and vast.

And some is right under our noses.

Feeling a bit humbled and awed. ❧

Campervan, Nature, Travel

Glacier-Waterton Peace Park – Part 1

September 2, 2014 Keevan 2 Comments

8/8/14 – 8/9/14

Mid-day entry into Glacier National Park. Too late for morning sun, and the haze was pretty bad from those devastating fires over west in Washington. But still plenty of gorgeousness and awesomeness along the “Going to the Sun” road. And some beautiful clouds to enjoy too!

As it was the weekend and we couldn’t find any camping inside the park, we just kept going out the east entrance and decided to head up to Waterton National Park, the other half of Glacier-Waterton International Peace Park, the only national park that encompasses two countries, and is looked after jointly by both the American and Canadian National Park Services.

Although we didn’t take any ranger led hikes, there are opportunities to go on hikes that are actually led by both American and Canadian park rangers co-jointly.

We love Canada. And Waterton was just exquisite.

After staying one night in a motel in the quaint little town of Cardston, we found ourselves in the park the next night late in the evening, and of course there was again no camping inside this park either on a weekend, but…being in the cool little Keevan, we silently slid into a parking lot right in the middle of downtown Waterton Village, laid our heads on our pillows and slept soundly, waking early to enjoy the peace and calm of the village before most of the other campers got moving around.

Oh, and while driving into the village at the dusk of evening, we did indeed spot our first Grizzly grubbing around on the hillside. My how beautiful it was.

Next post we meet more Grizzlies….

❧

Nature, Travel

North Through The Bison

August 31, 2014 Keevan Leave a comment

8/6/14-8/7/14

We slid into Missoula, Montana, on a hot sultry afternoon, to replenish a few necessities, namely dog food!

Then there was the customary gas up, and groceries, along with getting a couple of small propane bottles for the camp stove, before hitting a book store, and finding a “Benchmark” road and recreation atlas for Montana. Love these maps!!!

We traveled west back along I-90 and off into the National Forest to find a campground for our first real official night (many more to come) of camping among the Grizzlies. This campsite was pretty remote with lot’s of Bear Warnings everywhere, but, well, when in Montana, do as the Montanans do.

We’ve learned to be neat, clean, and secure, and actually have found it to be enjoyable knowing that our neighbor could be an 800 pound Ursus arctos horribilis.

The night was uneventful, so we left the campground and headed up to our first stop, The National Bison Range. We took a lovely 21 mile gravel road loop that meandered up, over, down and around hills, bluffs, forests and stream beds. Most of the wildlife (there was much more than just bison) was busy being wildlife and staying sheltered, but we did have fun. The scenery and landscape was Beauty to Behold.

Dirt road to drive through range. — Road To Wild Bison

Barely saw this mother black bear chasing her two cubs up the hill after playing in the pond. The cubs were faster than mom, so they didn’t get in the picture 🙂

Or…I was too slow to capture them.

Enjoyed these Whitetail Deer – we are used to Mule Deer, so thought them just beautiful, flashing their white tails as they crossed the meadows!

Savored the sight of Bison on the hills, and a few old lone Buffs, staking out their wallows.

Leaving the range, we continued up toward Kalispell, crossing through the Nine Pipe Wildlife Refuge just as the daylight was going behind the mountains.

We were a little sidetracked by the refuge, so only made it as far as a Wallmart Parking Lot in Polson for this dreamy night.

I’m once again way behind here on this blog, so forthcoming will be posting a few more photo galleries of the parks we’ve visited, and some of the sights we’ve seen, so I can get a little caught up.

❧

Boondocking, Nature, Simple Living, Travel

Wandering Along The St. Joe

August 18, 2014 Keevan 2 Comments

8/4/14 – 8/5/14

Leaving Idaho, we pulled ourselves away from Harrison and the Osprey, and passed by St. Maries, where we wandered along the gorgeous St. Joe River.

Even though campgrounds line the river, many were full of campers / aka fishermen enjoying some fishing.

As night was fast falling, we were kind of grumpily looking for a nice little spot, when we came across a dirt road pullout with two campfire rings right on the river. We pulled in, set up, ate some quick dinner, and settled in until morning.

Rugged mountains, clear flowing water, and many colors of beautiful rocks greeted us along with the morning sun.

We walked the river, enjoyed the scenery, collected some rocks, guessed what they were, and wondered about minerals.

At one point in life, we would have hauled this bounty of collected rocks around with us, and taken them home for memories. Now, after learning to enjoy life with less stuff, we created a sacred circle of the rocks on top of a stump and left them for the next person to enjoy, or for Mother Nature to take back to the river with next winter’s storms and flooding river banks. We’re learning to enjoy the beauty of the moment, without having to possess it’s artifacts.

Growing right along a path, where back country hikers travel off the main trail to camp in this same spot, we found this delicate little beauty, Monotropa hypopithys.

And lots of these purple Asters.

Languishing in the Beauty, we eventually packed up and continued down the highway, which, by the way, turned into gravel the moment we crossed the Montana border. Stopping for a toilet break at the next camping spot we were gently reminded that we were now entering GRIZZLY country.

I really hope that a hunter out hunting bear knows the difference between a black bear and a Grizz, but I suppose unfortunately there are some hunters out there that really don’t know. Anyway, I really enjoy these signs posted everywhere. They are educational for the rest of us!

❧

Nature, Travel

Coffee With Osprey

August 14, 2014 Keevan Leave a comment

8/4/2014

We left Coeur d’Alene and headed south to the bottom tip of Coeur d’Alene lake. We hadn’t been here in years and really wanted to see the area, and although still beautiful, the lake here is now also lined with million dollar homes, and resorts. And Osprey.

We stopped in Harrison, still a cute and quaint little town, where we enjoyed some really good coffee (sometimes very hard to find on the road) and bought a book on birding in Montana…since that was our destination.

Harrison has a wonderful wildlife refuge area, so we took a side trip and wandered around the lake marshes and rivers.

Everywhere we go, these beautiful Osprey are on the increase, with people telling us how they see so many more of them than ever before! They are great birds to watch and study, being so big and present.

We watched this family for awhile. Mom, Dad, and Baby in the middle. (just a wee little head barely poking up between the twigs.)

Osprey Family (you can barely see that tiny head in the middle.) — Osprey Family

We watched as dad went off for a quick meal for junior.

Leaving On A Hunting Trip "Be Back Soon" — Leaving On A Hunting Trip “Be Back Soon”

Mom is waiting patiently while junior is screeching up a storm.

Hope He Hurries Back. This Baby Is Hungry!

It’s hard to see below, but dad has a nice fish in his talons. I think this whould make any fisherman green with envy to see how quickly and adept he went and picked out his kids meal.

Dad gives the fish to mom, who in turn is feeding junior.

Now that everybody is happy, well fed, and well caffeinated, we can get on with our trip along the St. Joe River.

❧

Camping, Nature, Simple Living, Van Living

All The Comforts Of Home

August 13, 2014 Keevan 2 Comments

7/27/14 – 8/5/14

Nine days spent in Coeur d’Alene, all of them between 90 and 102 degrees. Luckily we found this lovely campground just ten miles from town and close to the lake. Like all else in life, when the weather is not cooperative, you just have to deal with it.

Sometimes too, a person really needs a down day, where one can just relax, catch up on reading, blogging, maintenance, and hygiene.

For fun on this recent down day, I put together this little photo shoot of our temporary Home Sweet Home.

Bedroom / Reading room (when not made up as bedroom)

Power! (for keeping up with this blog :) — Power! (for keeping up with this blog 🙂

Of course, not all campsites are quite this spacious, but when you find one like this, you better enjoy it! We did.

We’re off and heading to Montana next. Good bye sweet campsite. We’ll hold you in our memories.

❧

Campervan, Camping, Nature, Travel, Van Living

Giant U-Turn; Redmond to the Sierras

July 24, 2014 Keevan 2 Comments

We spent an entire week in Redmond, just outside of Bend Oregon, with our dear friend Beverly. We totally relaxed, slept in a real bed, fixed lots of delicious food, and played the board game Aggravation until all hours of the night. It’s nice to be able to take these types of breaks once in awhile to recharge and just enjoy some downtime.

Bev was such a gracious hostess!!!

We were seriously on our way to North Idaho, but while hanging around Redmond, we learned that both our kids and their significant others and children, had planned a camping trip to the Tahoe National Forest, just outside the Lake Tahoe area back in eastern California.

A small seed was planted, and after checking the map and figuring out the milage, we made a decision to go camping with them all.

A Giant U-Turn was made from our spot on the map in central Oregon, and we rode with the wind down the highway back to California, for just a small side trip. About 300 miles of a side trip.

Into the sierra’s we went, and the family we did meet.

Pine forests as far as one can see, thunderstorms in the afternoons, green meadows crisscrossed by streams and rivers. Awesome white puffy clouds against azure skies.

A wonderful time was had by all, relatives from both sides of extended families joined in on different days to make for lots of fun, food, campfires, fishing, hikes, and good talks.

Love you people dearly!

Can’t wait to meet up again somewhere along this long winding road. Thank you for a wonderful visit.

❧

Camping, Nature, Travel

Blue, Blue of Crater Lake

July 10, 2014 Keevan Leave a comment

6/29/14 – 7/1/14

The richest blue, the deepest blue, the most peaceful blue. It’s a magical blue. There is no other blue like the blue of Crater Lake.

We camped here for three days and two nights.

Whenever we go to National Parks, the people are so friendly and interesting. You meet folks from near and far. You meet folks from this country, and from many other countries. You meet people that are genuinely interested in beauty. You meet people that are interested in nature and geology and science.

I wish I could say the same about all camping spots, but unfortunately I can’t. So many of the State Parks and County parks, and private parks have just become places to party. To trash and scream and run generators, and bring porch swings, triple grilled bar-b-ques, boom boxes, atvs, dirt bikes, kids plastic basketball hoops, and whatever else is desired. There’s really not much camping left in campgrounds, especially when they are located near larger metropolis areas.

So when you find a campground run efficiently and kept clean, where the sites are spacious and at least a tiny bit private, it’s worth mentioning.

Crater Lake National Park campground is just that. A certain number of sites are reservable, for those type of campers who always reserve ahead of time. A certain number of sites are not, for the rest of us. And there are numerous electrical hook-ups for those type of campers who use hook-ups, which is great, so the rest of us don’t go crazy listening to generators roar in the middle of the wilderness.

We drove around the Rim, and hiked a few short hikes.

We enjoyed the scenery.

And the mountains.

And again, it was especially nice to meet our neighbors while we camped in the park. Chris, you are awesome! Pia thanks you dearly for the super bouncy ball you gave her! Michael & Jean – good luck on your travels. Hope our paths cross again. We are still on our way to Bend, looking forward to checking out your ideas. And to the two women in the cutest of cute tiny but efficient travel trailer from Rhode Island…Bless you both, I hope you have a wonderful time in Seattle and your trip back across the country. And Barbara, the English woman who has been living alone in her small RV for the past 6 years. Up at the crack of dawn to hike, riding her bike to the top of the grade for exercise, and being an inspiration to the rest of us. You all make our travels so special!

We really enjoyed our short stay at Crater Lake, and even splurged on a wonderful lunch at the Crater Lake Lodge on our way out!

❧

Keevan Soul

Category Archives: Nature

Jake And Maggie

Lakes, Rain, And Gentle Souls

Waterton Glacier Peace Park – Part 2

Leaving Waterton

Back Into Glacier

Glacier-Waterton Peace Park – Part 1

North Through The Bison

Wandering Along The St. Joe

Coffee With Osprey

All The Comforts Of Home

Giant U-Turn; Redmond to the Sierras

Blue, Blue of Crater Lake

Traveling and Living Simply in a VW Van