Mary Beth Writes

5/16/2022

Yes, Len and I are back (a week ago) from a wonderful vacation in South Dakota. We stayed four nights in an Airbnb in Wasta, SD, which we picked it because it’s close to the west entrance of Badlands National Park. After we chose it, we discovered it was hugely inexpensive, so if you want to know more about the place, I assure you there is only one Airbnb in Wasta, SD (population 65). The house was tiny, clean, had adequate hot water, and a completely functional kitchen. When the TV wouldn’t work the evening after cable guys had been burying cables that morning, we called the owner who lives 18 miles north and she drove over immediately. Of course, by the time she arrived the cable had kicked back in because that’s how things work in the real world, right? Pam was super pleasant and helpful.

When Len and I dated we talked about how much we loved wide open plains. Here at this end of our long marriage, this trip felt a bit like time travelling backwards. We kidded about who we thought we were going to become and how that worked out. We recalled funny things from bringing our kids here when they were little.

Beng able to remember good times together is a luxury.

Castle Trail crosses the center of the northern unit of the park. We walked most of it; one day from the east end while wearing our parkas, two days later day from the west end wearing shorts while dripping sweat. The second hike we brought peanut butter and banana sandwiches and sat on the side of a formation and ate while gazing at the amazing lunar scenery all around us. Later we ate Fig Newtons at Saddle Pass, elevation 300’ - there were Dall sheep grazing while we did that.

Being in the Badlands is chilly mornings and then the hot sun. It's the wind blowing past one’s ears. It's hearing the mumbling of fellow hikers a half mile away. It's quartz rocks just lying there where nature dropped them a hundred floods ago. It fills your spirit. The wind drowns the chatter in your head. You get to walk around and be there and that is practice for how to live anywhere.

We saw those curved horn Dall sheep, bazillions of perky prairie dogs, bison with their babies, and one coyote trotting through a prairie too fast for Len to get a photo. Which is how you know it was a Wiley coyote.

We’ve been home a week and on-going life is packed. Trying to write some other projects. One kid just moved. A grand-boy is having a birthday party next week. A new grandchild had surgery and is fine. I can’t keep up but I am trying hard to hear the wind whooshing past my ears as I live my lucky life.

I have 200 pretty good photos and here we go with hardly any of them.

 

 

 

Comments

Leonard's picture

They were always so far away. Oh, and this just in, we just got a post card from the coyote that Mary Beth talked about, "Hey, saw you guys. Sorry I couldn't stay for pics. Had some business to attend to. By the way, if someone tells you that one of the prairie dogs is missing, I don't know anything about it. Also, you should get a better password on your phone because a lot of guys out here know how to hijack your Chewy account, but not me, for sure."

Loved hearing about your vacation. Len’s comment/postcard made me laugh!

Enjoyed reading about the trip, we texted as we all drove back from our trips (Lincoln Nebraska was not quiet the same)... The photos of the amazing landscape, and Len's comments made my day... Thanks

Glad you had a wonderful vacation! "Being able to remember good times together is a luxury," it is indeed, my friend. Thank you for sharing them with us. Be well! Patricia

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Be a (bit of a) Scientist This Summer!

3/23/2023

This is an updated rerun of a story I posted last spring.

This is about Stream Monitoring and How to Do It. You don’t have to be a man to do this, but many are and that’s as close to the obvious joke as I’m going to go.

Len and his volunteer pal Tom enjoy this volunteer gig a lot. Once each month in the summer they go to the same stretch of the same stream to check water quality and to discover what creatures are lurking in the water and muck.  

A-Z Ice Cream & Marco Polo

DQ will never look the same. This photo is of a patio where one eats their gelato, somewhere in Italy. 

...

3/22/2023

What is the thing most people spend a great deal of time, energy, and money keeping off our necks and out of our homes?

Chilly air

What is ice cream?

Chilly air with sugar.

Igloos

3/16/2022

We are working our way through an Alphabet of Topics and we are currently considering the letter I. Two days ago, I wrote about Idiosyncrasies. Today is Igloo. Next up is Ice Cream.

So here we are again with nervous banks and a jumpy stock market and we “commoners” quietly peruse how many bags of beans we have in the pantry. I hope by the time I finish and post this the news is more stable, but I doubt it. “May you live in interesting times.” Right?

You know what I learned while researching igloos?

I is for Idiosyncrasy - "I'm not goofy. You are..."

3/14/2023  (Happy Pi Day)

Idiosyncrasies are like cave drawings; enigmatic clues that say once upon a time something happened here. A story unfolded. Someone tried to solve a problem. The solution worked, or at least it kept the person comfortable or comforted long enough for the idiosyncratic habit to form.

A-Z Humor Me

Humor 3/8/2023

I heard this joke in a sermon in 1974. I heard that highly revered minister preach at least a hundred sermons and this is the ONLY thing I remember him saying.  

A guy loses his job and is desperate for a new one with which to support his precious family. Nothing turns up until one day the newspaper Help Wanted Ads (so now you know how old this jokes really is) says the zoo has an opening. Guy applies. The HR person looks worried and then says the zoo changed its mind, the job is too demeaning. Guy says he’s desperate, will take anything.

A-Z Heaven ...

3/3/2023

First of all, you should realize that tomorrow is March 4th which is the only date of the year which tells you what to do. Hah.

This week I was amazed by this map/representation of the process of the creation of a new star. A year ago, there were no visuals of this process. What you are looking at is cutting-edge stuff observed and collaborated by 90 astronomers worldwide.

That + in the middle is the new star that right now is bigger than our sun. We know it’s young and new because it’s growing.

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