The politics of wildlife

We left the shore of Lake Hebgen, Montana, and drove up a dirt road toward a compound of buildings at the edge of a forest. A large log cabin, several outlying cabins and teepees and numerous vehicles occupied the clearing with a view of the lake.

We were there to spend a day with the Buffalo Field Campaign, a grassroots group of activists working to protect America’s last wild buffalo. We’d discovered the group years ago in Yellowstone and have supported them ever since.  The scent of soup wafted from the kitchen and a dog snoozed on a broken-down couch as introductions were made and we were given a tour of the premises.

Sleeping lofts were built into the rafters of the rooms to accommodate the volunteers who live here year round. A gear room held rows of heavy winter boots and jackets and other equipment needed for winter forays on skis. In the media cabin with its computers and phones, an art instructor from Manhattan worked on the graphics for the newsletter and a piece of paper taped to the wall noted recent media contacts: a German film crew, Nat Geo, a local TV station. We met Mike Mease, BFC’s affable co-founder, who told us about recent operations.

Unknown to most tourists who visit Yellowstone and snap photos of buffalo jams on the roads is the fact that the Yellowstone herd consists of the last remaining wild buffalo in the United States, a genetic remnant of the great herds that once darkened the plains and were all but extinct by the beginning of the 20^th century. Also unknown to most is that in the winter, when the tourists are gone and buffalo migrate to their traditional grazing grounds outside park boundaries, they are slaughtered by the hundreds.

And in the spring, at the peak of calving season, the wandering herds are hazed back into the park by helicopter, ATV and riders on horseback, across busy road

s and through forests thick with fallen trees, in operations financed by citizens’ tax dollars. The reason, as with most issues in the U.S., is economic: the powerful cattle interests in Montana view bison as competition for grass, even though cattle and bison don’t even occupy land at the same time. Unable to survive the brutal winters, cattle are trucked out in the cold months and returned to the area in June, when buffalo have returned to graze within park boundaries.

The official excuse is brucellosis, a disease infecting much of the local wildlife, which causes cattle to abort their calves. The disease originated in cattle and there has never been a case of its transmission by buffalo. Elk frequently are infected, but they are free to wander, being a valuable hunting commodity.

Little more than a scare tactic, brucellosis was enough for ranchers to convince Montana to place the regulation of wild buffalo under the Department of Livestock, rather than wildlife. DOL continues the hazing, capture and killing, working by mutual agreement in concert with the National Park Service to contain these naturally migrating animals within the confines of the national park.

BFC volunteers – there have been over 5,000 since the group began in 1997 – monitor the buffalo year-round, videotaping hazing operations, informing the public and even coaxing errant animals back to the safety of the park, strapping on skis in the pre-dawn darkness of winter, when temperatures can plummet to -50. Their passion and dedication have drawn support from Patagonia and celebrities like Bob Barker, Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Browne, who have donated clothing, vehicles and computer equipment.

With dark clouds gathering overhead, five of us, including a newly-arrived volunteer from Santa Cruz, CA, went out on patrol, our driver adroitly steering the Subaru around deep ruts of Forest Service roads. We encountered a small herd of buffalo cows and calves who’d wandered back outside park boundaries and probably faced hazing the next day. The DOL had been free to round up buffalo on private land despite homeowners’ wishes, until the governor issued a directive this spring that prohibited such activity without permission.  (For more information, click here.)

We took a stack of BFC newsletters and spent the rest of our Yellowstone stay distributing them to fellow campers and visitors, doing our small part toward telling the tale of the buffalo.

Other iconic wildlife face an uncertain future. The grizzly population is up, and the Wyoming governor has prevailed on legislators to delist the bear from protected status.  Wolves were delisted by the federal government in 2011. Idaho, Montana and Wyoming all encourage the hunting of once-protected wolves who stray beyond park boundaries. Often they are the collared wolves that have been providing biologists insight into the ways of their clan. Hunt limits have increased.

 Indeed the glory days of the wolves, reintroduced to Yellowstone in 1995, are past, their population down 50% since the days when we first witnessed the famed Druid pack of Lamar Valley. Hunting, disease and decreasing prey are all at fault and ranchers play a highly vocal role.  Public lands that belong to us all provide cheap livestock feed for those who raise domestic animals. Economics takes priority over the creatures that call the wild lands home. We feel fortunate to be viewing these animals while we can.

Last of the Yellowstone photos:
https://plus.google.com/photos/115498465022511925235/albums/6024533520930525105

  

Moments in Yellowstone

-- A newborn pronghorn antelope struggles to its feet to stand briefly at its mother’s side before crumpling back into the grey sage, hidden from sight. Seeming to ignore her offspring, the mother moves away to distract potential predators, but returns at full gallop when a raven swoops by to investigate the calf.

-- Dark clouds over the mountains portend coming rain as we stand on a hill above the sweeping Lamar Valley, hundreds of buffalo and their calves dotting a valley turned golden with dandelions, an American version of the Serengeti. The dark adults rest with legs folded under them, their humps appearing as giant boulders, while the calves lie on their sides, sturdy red legs stretched out in the afternoon sun. I inhale their warm, sweet, animal scent.

--Middle-of-the-night tremors shake our campground in seismically active Norris, setting unseen wolves in nearby forests to howling.

-- Joining 40 other spectators, I stand in stinging hail in Swan Valley, futilely attempting to capture photos of a mother grizzly and two cubs in high sage through a fogged lens. I give up when the hail increases to olive size, shredding two photographers’ umbrellas and driving all but the most dedicated to the shelter of their vehicles.

--A mountain bluebird nest occupies a hole in the tree across from our campsite, the parents popping in and out to feed chirping nestlings and the cerulean blue male keeping watch. A little squirrel who blunders onto a neighboring tree trunk is swiftly chased off the tree and far down the road by a flash of brilliant blue.

--Black bears graze like cattle in lush spring grass, tearing up giant clumps with obvious relish. A young bear near Phantom Lake draws the usual squadron of onlookers, who chatter excitedly at his proximity to the road. A barrage of shutters clicks each time a bear’s head is raised, since much of the time, like resting bison, they’re indistinguishable from boulders, heads lowered and spending up to 20 hours a day eating.

We’ve seen a number of black bears at fairly close range -- a sow with three cubs, solitary blacks and a gorgeous cinnamon – and one large grizzly boar who moved much too close to the road, causing the rookie ranger’s voice to crack with anxiety as he ordered us all into our cars.

Black bears are forest dwellers, tiny cubs scampering up tree trunks with ease, while the long claws of grizzlies are made for digging, not gripping bark, and these bears tend to appear in open spaces, usually at a distance.

--We spot two just-born elk calves our last day, one born into the resident herd at Mammoth, where elk lounge on lawns outside the historic military residences. We saw the Mammoth mother moments before she went off into the sage to give birth. The new calf entered the world while we were watching a great horned owl mother feed her two remaining nestlings and coax them from their nest, the third sibling watching intently from a nearby tree.

--As we prepared to move on, the new elk mother appeared with her long-legged calf, sporting Bambi spots for camouflage and blinking huge brown eyes in the bright spring sun. Meanwhile in Swan Valley, a grizzly sow fed her cubs the remains of a stillborn elk calf. And In Lamar, a young wolf learned to hunt by capturing a newly-born pronghorn.

The snow melts, buffalo shed their winter wool and wildflowers emerge from the mud in this season of beginnings and endings. The young that survive grow stronger. 

Photos:

https://plus.google.com/photos/103909884233134954214/albums/6023354059463841969

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Teton Spring 2014

Snow! The Tetons were December-white in May as we approached Jackson Hole, while warm temperatures and residents in shorts said July – for once, the perfect weather for the Wild West parade and Beer Fest.  Under persistent high-altitude sunlight, we watch the snow retreating further up the mountains each day, feeding muddy, swollen rivers that ignore their banks, creating lakes where scrawny sage grows.

And in this extraordinary springscape, the first wildlife appeared as soon as we hit the county line: two scrawny young bighorn sheep, showing the deprivations of winter. Then, a moose on the Gros Ventre river near our campground, following by welcome news of newborn-calves and a rebounding population. Pronghorn antelope and elk mingle on the meadows with our beloved bison, who marked our first day in camp by meandering through as we drank our morning coffee. The behemoths are molting the heavy winter coats that allow them to survive the brutal cold of winter, rubbing on trees (and the edge of the neighboring picnic table) to lose the woolly tatters. A lone bull visited at cocktail time, but the bulk of the herd roams the open spaces of Antelope Flats, redheaded calves keeping up with the herd as they cross roads at will.

A massive array of vehicles near Jackson Lake marked our first bear sighting on day 3: the famous Grizzly 399 and her yearling cubs. A third cub had been lost over the winter, but this much-photographed sow is a highly experienced mother at age 18, and the remaining cubs looked healthy and strong. Unfortunately for us, they remained mostly in the brush, offering only the occasional tantalizing glimpse, but no photo opps for my amateur camera.

Jackson is an affluent town with residents like Dick Cheney and Harrison Ford, but its public face is young, friendly and super-fit. It’s an incongruous island of tree-huggers who shop organic in a state whose residents disdain climate change and hunt the wolves visitors travel thousands of miles to see. We break up our own wildlife hunts with visits to the history museum and Pearl Street Market for grass-fed local rib-eyes and the Snake River Brew pub for happy hour ales and a two-foot loaf of Zonker Porter bread. What other store carries Perigord truffles and bear spray belts?

Europeans and, recently Asians, flock to this area to enjoy the incomparable scenery and wildlife. We’ve had some fun neighbors at the campground, arriving in psychedelically-painted campers from a New Zealand-based rental company catering to young travelers. The first couple were Aussies who worked at wildlife rescue centers and we stayed up past midnight learning about the secret life of wombats and Tasmanian devils. Last night it was two young Brits from Bristol, who brought us cookies in thanks for a pot of boiling water to make tea after their stove failed.

Our best bear sighting happened yesterday, when we parked at a grouping of cars – the best way to know a bear is near – to see Grizzly 399 and her cubs at Pilgrim Creek. Amid an excited babble of Italian and German, and the enormous lenses and tripods of the Americans, we watched the cubs play in a snow bank and all three bears take to the water, where they wrestled and grunted in obvious enjoyment. The show lasted over an hour, with rangers directing traffic and attempting – not always successfully – to keep visitors at a safe distance. (Visitor safety is a challenge: In another scenario today, two Frenchmen standing five feet from a bull moose at the Snake River said they were unafraid because the animal “had a kind face.”)

The day’s local newspaper brought news that the Wyoming governor wants to remove grizzlies from the endangered species list, a move that could threaten not only 399 and her daughter 160 – who has her own cub this year – but the booming local tourist industry based on viewing wildlife. 

This morning brought pups at play, when we viewed a coyote den under an historic cabin on Mormon Row. One by one, the 9 pups emerged blinking into the sunlight; then the mother burst from the den to go off and hunt, leaving me with a headless photo and the pups to tumble and explore in the warm morning sun.

On the way home we passed the pronghorn we call “Scar,” a mature male who’d obviously encountered predators or perhaps stronger rivals, and emerged not unscathed, but alive and still strong. A survivor grazing this morning in a meadow of wildflowers.
Pictures here:  https://plus.google.com/photos/103909884233134954214/albums/6018920186183846833

Washington: Lighthouses to Lichen

First stop was the coast: lighthouses and bobbing boats and foggy fishing harbors and ferries to nearby islands. The water world of Washington is magnificent and bountiful. We bought fresh albacore off a boat in Westport and Quilcene oysters for dinner that night. In the National Historic Register town of Port Townsend, we camped at the water's edge, watching ferries and yachts ply the calm waters just outside our door.
One foggy morning, we got an early low-tide start on a trek to the distant Dungeness lighthouse, perched at the tip of a curving spit of sand on the invisible horizon. It was my just-turning-70 right of passage and a 12-mile test of my often problematic knees.
Stopping along the way to photograph hot pink seaweed, darting shore birds and giant driftwood, we took our time, then spent an hour exploring the historic lighthouse and keeper's home, chatting with the friendly volunteers who manned the site.
The sea didn't wait for us. As the incoming tide covered ever more of the hard-packed sand we'd come out on, the hike back to camp became a real slog through soft sand, rocks and kelp. There's only one way in and out and we were grateful not to be those hikers who've been caught on extreme high tides, forced to cover the miles crawling atop stacked driftwood at the high tide mark.
The sun shone on the sea stacks in the picturesque town of La Push, where we bought smoked salmon from a young Makah fisherman who sold it at his backdoor in the tribal subdivision as a blond nameless cat wrapped herself around our ankles. Earlier, we'd visited the Makah natural history museum, an incredible display of native artifacts buried under a coastal mudslide and unearthed mostly intact, a Pacific northwest version of Pompeii.
The fog rolled in like meringue, nourishing the trees and undergrowth and thick emerald mosses. A visit to a big cedar felt like a visit to the Hobbit world, the giant's gnarled and twisted roots and sister trees making a cozy home for a forest elf. Heading to yet an even bigger tree -- the reputed largest cedar in the world -- we were stunned at the clear-cut hillsides, deforested of all life and a jarring contrast to the lush green stillness of the living forest.
A drive over bumpy logging roads took us to the "biggest cedar," spared by loggers who were impressed by its massive size. Saw marks at the base of this 178-foot specimen indicated it was saved at the last minute. But now, deprived of the communal shelter of neighboring trees, this monarch stood exposed to the elements, without bark and showing little green at the top -- a gray ghost nearing the end of its life.
A herd of Roosevelt elk raised ears in alarm before bolting into the forest as we headed toward the Hoh Rain Forest in Olympic National Park, one of planet's best examples of a temperate rainforest, receiving up to 14 feet of rain a year.  Moss grew thickly atop a phone booth at the entrance to this World Heritage site, an indication of things to come. Breathing in the cool, fragrant air, we hiked along the misty Hall of Mosses trail, enveloped in emerald stillness, feeling we should speak in whispers in the midst of such grandeur. If ever there was a place to become a tree-hugger, this was it.
iPhone photo gallery at:http://www.photoshow.com/watch/fr3Ka5zY

Keeping It Weird

We never realized just what an interesting place this is.
It’s illegal in Oregon to:
--Pump your own gas;
--Feed canned corn to fish;
--Strap a child seat occupied by a baby to the top of your car and drive down the highway.
Our "Secrets of Portlandia" walking tour guide vouches for these and other fascinating snippets of local trivia going back to the city’s earliest days.
Among the few explorers who arrived to this location in the 1800s, two in particular thought it a practical location for a town. One hailed from Portland, Maine; the other from Boston. Each wanted to name the new town after his East Coast home, but in the end, the Maine resident was more persuasive.
The site of the new city was heavily wooded, save for a clearing that is now Pioneer Square. Cutting down massive trees to build a city was one thing; but removing the stumps a far more difficult task, so city founders left them rooted in place, giving rise to the name "Stumptown," a nickname that endures today.
Early Portland was a rough-and-ready place where men outnumbered women six to one. When two brave women answered a call for teachers at the newly-built school, they were greeted by dozens of randy lumberjacks running eagerly toward their ship, a sight that drove the terrified women back onboard, never to re-emerge.
Portland today is a young city, heavily pierced and tattooed, welcoming hair of all hues and residents of all genders. Residents are unfailingly cheerful, even chipper, with servers and shop clerks greeting customers like friends.
Women own 50% of the businesses and there is a feminist bookstore where parents can purchase fairy tales rewritten so the princess is the heroine who comes to the rescue. Seniors can ride every form of public transit all day for $2 with a ticket stamped "honored citizen." Dogs are highly respected beings, with their own block parties, Halloween bash and Santa Paws party.
The city boasts both the nation’s largest city park – Forest Park at 5,000 acres – and the world’s smallest: tiny Leprechaun Park in the middle of a street, no larger than the lid of a garbage can. Unlike other cities which post "Keep Out" signs, Portland’s been known to design public fountains to accommodate both children and adults who might wish to take a dip on a hot summer day.
The massive statue of Portlandia holding her trident -- a copper repousse statue second in size only to the Statue of Liberty -- is not a city landmark, but instead is barely visible and scarcely known to most city residents. The sculptor who created it wants to keep it that way.
Portland was the first city in the U.S. to draft a climate change action plan, reducing its carbon footprint by 12% during the last two decades, a period when the nation’s rose by the same percentage. Solar-powered parking meters and compacting trash cans are found on city streets, and electric car charging stations are provided free of charge.
The city is green in all respects, with tree-lined streets, verdant parks and shady neighborhoods of shingled bungalows. Farmer’s markets are well-established, organic produce plentiful. Twenty-five percent of commuters ride bikes to work, a figure expected to climb to 33%. And yet, a Californian is struck by the number of people who smoke cigarettes.
Happy hour is revered, sometimes starting as early as 2 p.m. and offering foods such as truffle fries and water buffalo burgers for $4 and artisan cocktails with intriguing ingredients like cucumber-infused gin and smoked ice cubes for $5. Residents of Portland have long enjoyed imbibing and early pubs had floating bars to allow regulars to paddle by for a pint when the mighty Columbia river flooded the streets.
And beer? Portland is second only to Belgium and the Czech Republic in the number of micro-breweries relative to the population. My favorite brew was Mcmenamins Pomona’s Blush, a fruity ale flavored with 126 pounds of apricots. One carbon-neutral brewery has a bike bar with parking for 60 bicycles.
Quirky Portland is deemed such a cool city that its population has mushroomed like a northwest forest after the first autumn rain. Jobs, however, have not kept pace and the city’s unemployment rate is second only to Detroit’s. So strong is its siren song that college graduates move to Portland to retire at the age of 23.
Lack of employment opportunities and a lively entrepreneurial spirit have fostered the proliferation of the city’s latest draw for food enthusiasts: the food carts. Miniscule and mobile, the popular food shacks have grown in number from 100 to over 700 during the economic recession of recent years. Situated in pods on the perimeter of parking lots where they pay monthly rent and are subject to unannounced health inspections, the carts operate in a multinational harmony that would be the envy of the UN: Egyptian shawarma abuts Czech schnitzel; Vietnamese pho is a neighbor to Mexican burritos. The food is delicious, fast and inexpensive, offering both entrepreneur and customer an affordable alternative to a bricks and mortar restaurant.
For their part, Portland’s restaurants increasingly attract big-name chefs from across the nation, making Stumptown an exciting foodie destination. Winemakers are moving in from the Willamette Valley to set up wineries downtown.
It was this entrepreneurial spirit that created one of the city’s quirkier attractions. Weary of working until 2 a.m. closing time each night, two local bartenders were drifting down the river in fat inner tubes – a popular summer pastime – and pondering a new profession. Noting its resemblance to the pastry, one of them looked at his inner tube and said, "That’s it! Doughnuts!"
Thus was born Voodoo Doughnuts, a wacky city institution that draws Food Network celebrity chefs and long lines of customers for such creations as maple-bacon bars, voodoo dolls filled with raspberry jelly "blood" and doughnuts shaped liked the nether regions of the male anatomy. With its bawdy slogans and off-the-wall creations, Voodoo captures the spirit of Portland and brings in $8 million a year.
Waiting in line for Voodoo, a visitor can glance across the street at a sign on the wall that says it all: Keep Portland Weird.
Portland photos are here: https://picasaweb.google.com/happytwo.mcwilliams/Portlandia?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCLmL6MfwmeyVfQ&feat=directlink  
Click on first photo to initiate slide show.

Wild Kingdom

Our routine in Yellowstone is always the same: arise early, pack a lunch and hit the road. We’re off on the daily hunt, never knowing what we’ll see.
Terry compares it to fishing, and it’s the element of surprise, and serendipity, that keep it interesting. With over 2.2 million acres of heavily wooded territory ranging to nearly 9,000 feet in elevation, it’s a miracle that we humans, driving along the road that lassos the park in a figure 8, ever see anything at all.
The best clues to the views are the traffic jams with rangers that indicate trophy animals: wolves and bears. But a moose, uncommon in Yellowstone, created a jam, as do most any animals seen for the first time by newly-arrived visitors. On several occasions, we’ve been the first to spot a bear, quickly creating our own roadblock. The sightings we’re all here for are fleeting, and those who arrive even five minutes later may miss it all.
Two days ago, it was a bear jam prompted by a mating black bear pair, a big cinnamon male and a smaller black female. Earlier arrivals had seen a potential rival male amble into the scene of domestic bliss, where he was swiftly chased up a tree by the cinnamon, who swatted him with huge paws as he scrambled skyward.
Seemingly oblivious to the drama she inspired, the female wandered off to graze, while her conflicted mate tried to keep an eye on her and the treed rival as well. The rival shifted his position near the top of the tree, draping legs over limbs like a floppy stuffed animal, knowing he’d be there for a while.
In Lamar Valley, we watched a foolhardy young wolf attempt to take on a bison herd, repeatedly charging toward a little red calf, only to be repelled by a pair of large bulls. Alone and unschooled in the ways of hunting, the hungry black yearling showed remarkable persistence, giving us wolf-watchers a real show before ultimately abandoning the chase.
On a morning that began as sunny, we ascended the grade toward Dunraven Pass, watching the sky darkening from smoky gray to nearly black as we climbed. Rounding a curve, we came upon a lone bison, molting winter coat hanging in tatters from his sides, limping badly on an injured rear leg as he moved toward the summit.
To his left, the snow-covered hill was nearly vertical; on our side of the road was a sheer drop-off. The wind picked up and sleety rain pelted the windshield, while the bison lowered his head and continued his slow journey toward the top, facing traffic and following the white line at the edge of the road. There was no exit from the asphalt and it would be five miles before the terrain afforded any level spots at all.
Knowing this area to be thick with both grizzlies and wolves, I burst into tears. We stayed on the other side of the pass most of the day, and never saw the bison again.
Sometimes the sightings are of smaller animals: a nesting peregrine falcon tucked into a crevice of a cliff, a yellow-bellied marmot sunning on a rock, a raven in a tree with a ground squirrel.
We looked down on the stick nest of an osprey atop a rock above the river, while the bird oddly sat at the edge of the nest, gazing at two tan eggs. A bystander told us she’d seen the eggs dusted with snow days earlier. On our second visit, the osprey was attempting to incubate the eggs, fidgeting and chirping and leaving the nest for short periods of time. On the third day, the nest was unoccupied, eggs baking in the sun.
Among Yellowstone wolves, internecine warfare is diminishing their numbers. The famed Druid pack was lost three years ago, when the pups died of mange and adults were killed or dispersed. A new group began forming in Lamar last year and now is an official pack, with a mating alpha pair and a litter of pups. But the Mollies are changing the landscape, killing most of the neighboring Agate pack and threatening the newly-formed Lamars.
A loose grouping of a dozen or more mostly yearling wolves, the Mollies have no alpha pair and, lacking leadership, roam the area like a rogue teenage gang, killing at will. Last week their victim was a handsome five-year-old Agate male loved by wolf watchers, who’d named him Big Blaze for his striking markings.
None of which concerns the locals. From a Montana great-grandmother to the mild-mannered manager of a park cafeteria, it seems everyone we talk to who lives in the vicinity of Yellowstone wants the wolves gone, blaming them for the decrease in elk, which now number 4,500 in the region.
While biologists acknowledge wolf predation, they also cite recent droughts, which severely decreased forage, and increased hunting as factors in reduced elk numbers. But hunting is big in this neck of the woods and locals want elk bountiful so they can kill them themselves.
As always, humans tip the balance of nature. Wolves were exterminated in the early 20th century and the elk population exploded beyond the region’s ability to feed it. Wolves were reintroduced in 1995, and a natural balance returned, benefiting even local trout. As streamside vegetation returned, so did the insects which feed the trout.
Everything’s got to eat. Grizzlies take many elk calves. Everything eats ground squirrels, from grizzlies to coyotes, foxes, weasels, badgers and birds of prey, which keeps their staggering numbers under control. Otters eat the protected cutthroat trout, but so do the big introduced lake trout, which the Park Service is trying to control. And so it goes.
And we humans come from all parts of the planet to watch this diorama unfold, to know that here, at least in Yellowstone, mostly removed from cell service and wifi, a place exists that is truly wild.
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https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=happytwo.mcwilliams&target=ALBUM&id=5750392329709065425&authkey=Gv1sRgCKjT6fm66e2UkAE&feat=email
and, for part 2:
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Never the same

Each visit to the Grand Tetons is unique. On this one we were introducing two sets of California friends to the area we love so much. They’d read my blogs and seen pictures of the scenery and wildlife and said they’d like to join us. We were delighted.
There are practically no animals this year.
It’s snowed nearly every day, except for a few hours of sunshine at Wild West days that must mean the Jackson Chamber of Commerce has a direct line to the weather gods. Most days the mountains aren’t visible, so you wouldn’t even know you’re in one of the most visually spectacular places in the country.
We’re having a great time.
Our camp hosts tell us 80-degree weather in April drove most of the wildlife to the upper meadows near Yellowstone. Our beloved bison were missing from Antelope Flats. Still, we managed an exciting spotting of a moose in the willows on the Gros Ventre river, white-rumped elk in a frosty meadow, a few skittish pronghorn antelope and mostly faraway bison, dots in the distance.
At the peak of spring, we’ve seen no young of any kind, except for six goslings waddling behind behind their parent across the highway near the visitor center and squealing kids in cowboy hats grabbing candy tossed from floats in Saturday’s Wild West parade.
But a chorus of robins greets first light, the beers were stellar at the brewfest, and who can complain about the truffle fries with a view at the Jackson Lake Lodge? Each evening has brought cozy shared meals with bountiful wine and camping camaraderie, and we all seem well-adapted to adapting.
When we awoke to four inches of snow on the morning of our planned breakfast cookout on the Snake River, we all sat down to homemade hash, eggs, bacon and a steaming pot of grits in Happy, watching fat snowflakes swirl past the window.
Thus fortified and ready for adventure, we packed up bubbly and orange juice after breakfast, for frosty mimosas on the banks of the snowmelt-swollen river.
Terry built a campfire in driving snow on our last evening before we left for Yellowstone, determined to make Dutch oven potatoes with onions and bacon. The snow morphed from flakes to pellets to sleet and back again, while the pork loin sizzled on a grill protected by our awning.
Campground manager Shannon, who’s become a friend over the years, joined us for dinner and we happily learned Happy can accommodate at least 7 for dining.
As conversation and wine flowed, darkness began to close in and Terry yelled “Look!” Out of the shadows and within yards of our big view window, two bison bulls appeared, strolling by in a fitting farewell to Gros Ventre campground.
We’re happy campers.
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The Bear Went Over the Mountain

We entered Yellow-
stone on roads banked with snow, some drifts nearly as high as the roof of the motorhome. Norris was our base for several nights -- a favorite campground with a meandering stream and resident bison, Bob, a solitary bull who’s inhabited the meadow for years, wandering through campsites at will.
Just open for two days, the campground still had piles of snow along the roads and some campsites. A grizzly had passed through the day before, leaving his scratch marks on a tree. Ravens favor this campground, croaking from the pines. This is the most active of Yellowstone’s hydrothermal areas, and a low cloud of sulfurous steam lies over the nearby geysers on cool mornings.
We visited Mammoth Hot Springs on a surprisingly warm day, eating Wilcoxson’s ice cream at a picnic table outside the general store and watching elk graze while visitors stretched on the lawns, exposing winter-white limbs to the high altitude sun. But mountain weather is nothing if not changeable, and by late afternoon back at camp a blustery wind drove us inside to a glass of Syrah and a warm dinner, grateful we can be so comfortable without electricity or water hookups.
The temperature outside was bitter and we marveled at the tent campers who occupied half of the campground, wearing wool caps and cheerfully cooking dinners on their Coleman camp stoves. Darkness fell, the wind howled and snow began falling, fat flakes driven by a north wind. We sat in our cozy Happy, hot tea in hand, listening to Anderson Cooper on Sirius radio. Across the road, a young couple sat near their little tent toasting marshmallows, the sparks from their campfire blending with the swirling snowflakes. What happy campers they were!
Yellowstone is all about animals and this visit did not disappoint. We added a sandhill crane, beaver and bighorn sheep to our checklist, along with wolves and bears.
The extreme winter has kept grizzlies outside the park at lower altitudes this spring, unable to reach the higher ground they prefer. A number have been shot in Montana, where they’ve been forced to raid chicken coops and poach calves to feed their cubs. Although grizzlies are legally protected, their killing is ruled justifiable in these cases, because animals owned by humans are deemed more valuable than the animals who inhabited the land long before humans arrived. (Editorial comment.)
Grizzlies roam high open spaces, while black bears are forest creatures and more difficult to see, even though they’re far more numerous. Most bear sightings happen through the eyepiece of a spotting scope and often they’re over a mile away. Our first bears were a grizzly sow and yearling cubs, near the crest of a hill in Hayden Valley. Then we saw a black bear, meandering through a draw along the road.
We drove to Lamar Valley, a haven for wildlife, famed for its wolves. A new pack has formed to replace the decimated Druids, occupying the Druids' former den and led by alpha female 06, a former member of another pack, returning to her grandmother’s territory.
Spotting fellow wildlife spotters one morning, we arrived in time to see 06 and males 755 and 754 trotting through the sage on the far side of the river, pursued by five coyotes, scrappy competitors for food and territory.
Since wolves frequently kill the smaller canines, we were puzzled at the brave but seemingly foolhardy behavior, watching the coyotes close in and literally nip at the heels of the much larger wolves.
Then we learned that the wolves had just destroyed the coyotes’ den, killing the four pups inside and, in atypical behavior, eating them. Wolf expert Rick McIntyre told us that while wolves commonly kill adult coyotes, they rarely consume them. “It’s a form of respect,” he said.
Mesmerized, we watched the wolves climb a small bank and head toward a herd of bison, where several calves slept in the sun a short distance from the adults. Unhurried and deliberate, the bison turned and formed a circle around the calves, horns pointing outward and a large bull taking the lead.
Although one wolf lingered, the other two knew better than to tangle with such a formidable foe, and soon all three headed toward the distant trees, then circled back.
Back at the den site, the five coyotes yipped and howled, searching the sage in vain for survivors. Off to the right, a lone doe elk grazed near the traveling wolf pack, then sprang to rapt attention. She took off at a trot toward the wolves, but failed to reach her destination in time, as the gray female wolf pounced on a tan object – the doe’s hidden calf -- and the pack dispatched their prize in short order. It wasn’t fun to watch, even at a distance, and we left soon after.
The mood was lightened when we returned that afternoon and watched a pair of courting grizzlies on a distant ridge, the bears interrupting their amorous activities with playful slides down a snowbank.
Yellowstone is a domestic safari, where we can observe predators and prey surrounded by visitors from around the world. A British woman we spoke with gave herself a week in Yellowstone for her 40th birthday. We gave directions to a trio of Belgians, shared a spotting scope with Dutch tourists, and binoculars with an Argentine and his Japanese girlfriend. At one bear sighting I heard nothing but French.
Animal observations await at every turn: a pronghorn antelope unsuccessfully attempting to coax her day-old twins to cross a shallow draw; snowy-white mountain goats on the precipitous cliffs of the Barronette, framed by snow-melt waterfalls (we counted 15).
Hearing about a large grizzly at Mary Bay, we arose at first light and headed south, stopping enroute to watch a grizzly sow and two yearlings dig for tubers, roots and rodents in Hayden Valley. One cub stayed at the mother’s shoulder, imitating each move, while the other kept wandering off, distracted.
The Mary Bay griz didn’t materialize, but a jam of cars lead us to another grizzly sow and cubs in Swan Lake Flat. Unlike the previous forager, this bear seemed to wander in circles, sniffing the ground like a bloodhound, while the cubs followed behind.
Sharing wildlife tales with a couple from Arizona, I heard a German yell “she’s got a calf!” and raised my binoculars to see the trio of bears pounce on an elk calf, the second we’d seen killed in as many days and obviously the scent she was tracking. This was getting to be grisly.
We’ve since learned that as many as two-thirds of the elk calves fall victim to predators, ranging from bears to golden eagles. While pronghorn calves practically emerge running, and bison have strong protectors, elk calves are left hidden by their mothers in the brush for up to a week until they’re strong enough to follow. Often, this strategy is a failure.
Returning home, we saw a black bear with tiny cubs whose comical behavior entertained the crowd they drew. And in Mammoth, where the resident (but still wild) elk sleep on lawns, we saw a doe and calf whose survival seemed more probable, given their sheltered environment in the human world.
And just as I opened my laptop, an elk doe appeared outside our window, her spotted Bambi calf still unsteady on wobbly legs. The flattened grass in the morning showed they’d bedded down outside our door.
There were more wolf and bear sightings, and a reunion with our pal Ranger John, whom we’d met three years ago. The temperature rose 50 degrees in two days and wildlife retreated, bears soaking in streams and snow to cool off, heat waves obscuring long-distance sightings and elk lying in the shade, panting.
We were grateful when the clouds moved in. I was making a shaker of martinis our last night at Mammoth campground – there’s something about gin and mountain air -- when Terry came to the door and said, “The guy next door said there’s a grizzly on the hill!”
Campers were running down the road with cameras and binoculars, and soon we saw a large brown-colored black bear – not a griz – moving through the woods. After days of viewing bears through spotting scopes, we had our own bear in the campground, closer than any we’d seen. Soon the ranger arrived, lights flashing atop her truck. The bear moved across the hillside, trolling for elk calves, while a herd of does kept close watch. “He already got a calf this morning across from the school,” the ranger said.
As the bear came close to campsites, the ranger chased it up the hill, waving her arms and yelling. “I wouldn’t try that if it was a grizzly,” she admitted. Still, we were impressed. Undeterred and smelling dinner, the bear kept returning, much to the delight of a group of German campers snapping pictures. We watched for over an hour, thrilled at the dramatic finale to our stay in Yellowstone, but grateful that we didn’t witness another kill.
And then the bear went over the mountain.
Pictures on following link. Click on first one to initiate slide show..
https://picasaweb.google.com/happytwo.mcwilliams/1Yellowstone2011?authkey=Gv1sRgCO_WkqDZidPHNw&feat=directlink

Window on the Wildlife World

We sat in the hot tub at the rec center in Jackson, watching early morning snow swirl outside the window and thought, this is definitely the way to camp. A short distance outside Jackson, Gros Ventre campground may be among the country’s best, with spectacular mountain views and so much wildlife that expedition vans visit regularly, bringing visitors who hope for a glimpse of the animals we view each day from our front window.
We’re surrounded by the bounties of nature, yet close to town, with its wonderful rec center cum indoor Olympic pool, Thai restaurants and brew pub.
This spring has provided us with the best wildlife sightings in four years, and often we don’t even have to get dressed or open our door to see it. Our campsite is on the wildlife thoroughfare and the scene changes hourly. Uinta ground squirrels chirp and scamper through the sage, hoofed herds meander through each morning and evening, and birds sing with gusto at first light.
We watched a ground squirrel strip bark from a piece of our firewood and haul it off to line an underground den, while a robin struggled mightily to break a twig from the sage for her own nest. The campground is peppered with badger holes, the strong diggers flinging melon-sized rocks as they burrow for prey.
Long-legged elk crossed the road just in front of our car last night, freezing in the classic deer-in-the-headlights stance. Seeing a herd of mountain goats on Miller Butte was a rare treat, since the only other time we’ve seen them is on the alpine peaks of Glacier Park.
Bison appear in the distance and within minutes are just yards outside the front window. It seems to be a regular commute: eastward in evening, west in the morning. An enormous coffee-colored bull spent 10 minutes scratching his head on a fence post, leaving hunks of spring-molting winter fleece in his wake.
Trees along bison routes are rubbed clean of bark at shoulder height, as bison passing through rub their cheeks like cats with a scratching post.
At night the bison returned, one meandering past the still-smoking grill where Terry barbecued our Wagyu burgers just a half-hour earlier. In the morning they wandered through from the opposite direction, keeping Terry company as he cooked bacon outdoors. Obviously, they don’t fear the scent of meat. In reality, they fear little and we love them for their fearlessness and attitude. I’M A BUFFALO I DO WHAT I WANT reads a favorite bumper sticker. The first of the calves have appeared, kicking up their heels out near Mormon Row.
One night it was a herd of nine white tail deer, the bucks spotting us through the glass and urging the herd along. Watching darkness steal over the mountains another night, Terry was startled to see a moose outside the window, close enough to touch. Although it was too dark for a photo, I took a grainy one anyway, just to show how close she was. I’ve taken to including the windshield wipers or dash in these front window pictures, just for perspective. It’s a cushy way to watch wildlife, especially when glacial winds are coming off those snowy peaks.
In the morning the deer – common most places, but seldom seen here – meandered through again, one doe investigating our campfire ring and picnic table, and the bison appeared later. There’s a moose on the loose at every turn; hiding in the sage, strolling along the road, moseying through the campground. These are welcome sightings, since their scarcity last year caused concern among biologists that newly-arrived wolf packs were taking a toll.
The silence at night is profound, broken only twice in two weeks by coyote howls. This is truly America’s Serengeti.
Despite occasional snow flurries and colder temperatures, the sun has coaxed new wildflowers into bloom each day and added vigor to the basil and arugula seedlings I’m growing on Happy’s dash as my science experiment.
Yesterday Terry cooked breakfast outside and this morning I’m baking biscuits as the snow flies past the windows in big wet flakes, covering the picnic table and wildflowers I took pictures of yesterday. Word has it, the bears are out in Yellowstone and if snow hasn't closed the road, we head there tomorrow.
Here's the link for pictures: https://picasaweb.google.com/happytwo.mcwilliams/2TetonSpring2011?authkey=Gv1sRgCKKgz8DsjOv2JQ&feat=directlink
Click on first one to initiate slide show.

Sometime Spring

We’ve never seen so much snow in mid-May, little surprise when last winter’s snowpack in Jackson Hole was 200% of normal. There are still deep drifts in the shadows at ground level and nearby hills bear ribbons of white.
The 1050-mile drive from St. Helena was a messy one, with 18-wheelers throwing sheets of muddy slush against the windshield and roads that get worse each year, the potholes, ruts and bumps rattling the teeth in your head. Added this year are avalanches and rockslides, one large enough to close the Snake River Canyon highway.
But once we reached the scenic home stretch, when the Tetons burst into view, we spotted herds of pronghorn in the sage, more than we’d ever seen in one spot.
There were no welcoming bison as we pulled into Gros Ventre campground before dark the second day, filling the tank with water and settling into our favorite campsite, one of only a half-dozen occupied. A scattering of moose droppings seemed a good omen.
The motorhome literally expands our horizons, with views all around and a huge picture window looking out on the mountains. It’s well named the Vista. I made martinis while Terry scanned the sage meadows, spotting two moose in no time. We sipped our drinks and watched the moose from our comfy seats until dark – the perfect first night at one of our favorite places on earth.
The moose had moved toward the trees during the night, but were still easily visible from our window on the wildlife world as we sipped our morning coffee. Binoculars revealed a large herd of elk on the opposite hill, moving steadily through a steep snowfield toward a canyon. There would be more moose, one relaxing in a campsite down the road, another browsing near the aptly-named town of Moose. Last spring they were scarce.
The first day would reveal a wealth of elk, as we spotted herds numbering in the hundreds in their annual spring migration from Jackson’s National Elk Refuge north to Yellowstone. Finally, thanks no doubt to the late spring, Terry got his wish to be here when the elk were on the move.
This morning's coffee was sipped viewing bison, moving from the trees to within spitting distance of our front window. The behemoths browsed for over an hour, then moved out of sight, just as the expedition van arrived with visitors out for a morning of wildlife viewing.
Each year is different; each season brings its own wonders. We’ve seen no young yet this year, although the meadows were well-populated with blond bison calves last May. The great horned owl we’ve watched nest in a nearby tree for three years has not returned. But the liquid warble of meadowlarks remains a constant, and the cerulean flash of the bluebird.
Wolves have moved into the valley in recent years and on a drive to Miller Butte to observe mountain goats, we came across two winter wolf kills of elk, the bones cracked for the nutritious marrow inside.
Today brought the annual Elk Fest, where it's possible to buy a single antler from a vendor on the street or 500 pounds of them from an auctioneer. Each spring, Boy Scouts gather the shed antlers from the Elk Refuge to auction off on Jackson’s town square. Buyers from around the world purchase lots by the pound, with 80% of the proceeds going to maintain the refuge, and the remainder to the Scouts. It’s a nice bit of recycling where the antlers the elks shed each winter help finance the purchase of their supplemental feed for the following year.
Last year’s take was a disappointing $47,000 on 6,000 pounds of antlers, but this winter was severe and with 10,000 elk remaining on the refuge, Scouts gathered 15,000 pounds.
I know it sounds goofy,” said one Scout leader. “But the world price for antlers is set right here.”
Such is the competition for antlers that two local brothers left their ranch at midnight last Monday, leading pack horses through deep snow for seven miles to be first at the gathering grounds at dawn.
Snow still covers the bike path and rain arrives late each afternoon. But welcome bursts of sunshine punctuate the days, illuminating the neon yellow of spring willow shoots and revealing the first of the wildflowers in the meadows. And by next week, the bison may drop their calves.
Pictures at: (Click on first photo to view one at a time.)
https://plus.google.com/photos/103909884233134954214/albums/5609360317397893825/5609397435502298050?authkey=CLKL3brp2LK8bw&pid=5609397435502298050&oid=103909884233134954214

Into the Sunset

Leaving the South, we stopped for one last Southern meal of pulled pork, collard greens, sweet potatoes and fried okra at the Loveless Café outside Nashville, a soul food destination that attracts all the expected country music stars, along with less likely diners like Beverly Sills, Sharon Stone and Martha Stewart.
Arkansas and Oklahoma seemed to go on forever, but we finally crossed into New Mexico and pulled into the campground outside Santa Fe in early evening, celebrating by making a couple of big, icy martinis. The cobalt sky turned to star-studded indigo and we heard the distant yip of a coyote.
Santa Fe has always been a special place for us, possessing an aura both simple and sophisticated. It's a land of religion and ritual, barren landscape and wildly colorful décor. We love its searing chiles, art-filled lifestyle and crisp evenings scented with pinon smoke. It feels like another country, with its artists and curanderas, penitentes and poseurs. We always seem to meet the most interesting people and have fascinating conversations.
The region’s spirituality runs deep in the tiny village of Chimayo, where pilgrims have trekked for nearly two centuries to visit the santuario, reported site of Lourdes-like miracles. I made my way into the tiny church under the watchful gaze of the elderly caretaker, careful to keep my camera zipped inside my bag. Ducking through the low opening to the sanctuary, I slowly walked the perimeter, once again finding the experience extraordinarily moving. A wall of crutches bore testimony to owners now presumably walking. Hundreds of color photos formed a mosaic of faces young and old, but without text, it was impossible to know whether they still lived. The opposite wall was dedicated to police officers and military personnel who’d lost their lives in the line of duty. Over time, the large number of visitors and confined space had apparently limited miracle-seekers to one small photo.
But when we first visited 20 years ago, scraps of paper bearing heartbreaking stories in several languages covered the adobe walls. Handwritten notes seeking divine intervention kept me mesmerized for over an hour until, faint from the heat of so many candles in the small space, I ducked under an even lower opening into a tiny room. There, a circular hole in the floor exposed the sacred dirt of reputed curative powers. We’ve had some in our house for years. I figure, it can’t hurt.
* * *
It was yet another country when we pulled into Chinle, Arizona, a Navajo reservation bordering the spectacular Canyon de Chelly. The gritty treeless town with deeply rutted roads had the usual array of fast-food joints, small businesses and gas stations, with the addition of free-range animals. Dozens of look-alike dogs, none of them recognizable breeds, prowled the streets. Two cows ambled down the road past the Best Western motel and a pack of horses browsed in the weeds near the Shell station.
We camped under golden cottonwood trees in a free campground maintained by the Park Service, among the only other palefaces we encountered. We hired a Navajo guide and, along with a visitor from Georgia, spent half a day in the canyon, bouncing through deep sand, splashing through washes and driving under red sandstone overhangs that rose hundreds of feet above us.
Cottonwoods glowed in the November sun that turned the face of the rock turquoise from one angle, jet- black from another. Horses wandered freely, replaced as farm workers by machinery and left to wander, browsing the leaves of willow and Russian olive at the edge of the wash. A coyote bounded across the trail as we approached.
Much like the Anasazi before them, Navajo still return to the canyon in the summer to grow corn, beans, squash and fruit trees on ancestral lands. A few remain year-round, tending crops and sheep through spring floods and biting winter freezes.
We saw the ruins of Anasazi cliff dwellings and petroglyphs dating back nearly 2,000 years, along with more recent rock drawings created by the Navajo of the mid-nineteenth century.
One such set of drawings depicted the arrival of the Spanish on horseback in the 1700s, drawn to the canyon in search of gold. Two circles representing suns indicate the amount of time it took to kill all of the canyon dwellers the explorers encountered. Centuries of bloodshed and slavery ensued, and the remaining Navajo were driven from the valley by Kit Carson in the mid-1800s. The population of the sacred place would never be the same.
That afternoon we explored Canyon de Chelly from its south rim, marveling at formations like Spider Rock, legendary home to Spider Woman, who taught the Navajo to weave. Later we met a code-talker, still proud of the role his fellow Navajo played in “saving Americans from the Japs” in WWII.
Mist obscured the road and frost had turned the high grass to silver when we left that world early the next morning to return to ours. Next, a stop in Sedona, and in a few days we’ll be home, the journey over.
For the final photo album: Click on first photo to view one at a time.
http://picasaweb.google.com/happytwo.mcwilliams/TripEast10SW?authkey=Gv1sRgCJy1692Nl56J2wE&feat=directlink

We, the People

Locals could not recall the D.C. Metro ever being so crowded on a Saturday. Riders overwhelmed the ticket gates and employees finally opened them to anyone waving a ticket. The crowd surged forward, carrying us in its wake. Spirits were high and nobody pushed as we shoehorned our way onto the train. There was a woman with turquoise hair and another sporting red devil’s horns. A guy in a gorilla suit shared a car with another in boxing gloves, mask and cape, all of them ready for Halloween.
But most were like us, dressed normally and chatting with strangers, most decades younger, but many with gray hair. The escalator at the L’Enfant Plaza station was turned off due to the crush of passengers, so we climbed to the top and a sea of humanity on the sunny Capitol Mall.
It was the Rally to Restore Sanity, a tongue-in-cheek gathering of citizens weary of political fear-mongering and hyperbole, media sensationalism and political invective -- the creation of satirists Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. And we were lucky enough to be there!
Of all the wonderful moments on our trip – and there have been many – this was the most unexpected and exciting. We made our way to the center of the street and found a spot behind media trucks where Terry and I could get occasional glimpses of the Jumbotron screen not much bigger than a postage stamp in the distance. Sometimes it’s nice to be tall; our friend Karen never caught a glimpse of the celebrities. Truth be known, it was all about being there among so many people from across the U.S., signs in hand, kids in strollers, dogs on leash, oldsters sitting in chairs where they only saw knees and derrieres. Surely no one really believed the gathering would change things; perhaps some held out hope.
We heard Stewart’s arrival, heard and saw Colbert stepping from his capsule onto the stage. We heard someone with a wonderful voice sing the national anthem. We heard Yusuf Islam, the former Cat Stevens, sing. But the speaker cut in and out and was woefully inadequate for the size of the crowd. For us, the best part was the camaraderie and the crazy signs and, hoping to avoid the crush of departure, we left before Sheryl Crowe and Ozzy Osbourne. We’d been part of what some estimated to be a quarter-million kindred spirits.
* * *
We toured the Capitol several days later, a visit arranged by our local Congressmen Mike Thompson. Joining a half-dozen other Californians, we walked the long underground tunnels linking the House building and the Capitol, climbing up marble stairs worn uneven by the tread of two centuries of public servants. There were throngs touring the buildings and other than a visiting delegation from China, we seemed to be the only tourists in business dress. When we went into an amphitheater to watch a film, a young blonde from Davis in frayed jeans who’d complained earlier at having to leave her backpack in the Congressman’s office, put her sneaker-clad feet on the back of the seat in front of her.
The rotunda was awe-inspiring, the dome inducing the same crick in the neck as the Sistine Chapel. We’d heard much about the rivalry between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson while touring Monticello, so chuckled when our guide pointed out a detail of an enormous painting of the Declaration of Independence signers, which depicted Jefferson’s right boot planted firmly on the foot of a scowling Adams.
We saw the life-size statues depicting people chosen by each state to represent its history; California’s were Junipero Serra and … Ronald Reagan. We sat in the somewhat cramped seats in the gallery of the House chambers, empty as congressmen were off on a pre-election visit to constituents.
Then we replenished our energy before going to gawk at the White House with Obama burgers (bacon, onion marmalade, Roquefort and horseradish mayo) at Good Stuff Eatery, a nearby burger joint both the president and first lady have visited.
We’d been staying with Karen in her Alexandria condo with its tangerine and saffron-colored walls, mementos of travel from Paris to Marrakech and Shih Tzu tag-team Gromit and Wallace. Our few days there were, of course, not enough.
* * *
Now we’re returning to Victoria, where our Virginia stay began, on the farm of our California friends Brenda and Ed. Happy’s been put out to pasture for nearly a week between the big hickory tree and the charming 1800s-era farmhouse. We’ve had a lovely stay here as well, touring Jefferson’s beautiful home at Monticello, which reflected both his intellectual curiosity (a 16,000 volume library he later sold to the government) and exquisite taste (first-growth Bordeaux purchased only in bottle so the wine couldn’t be adulterated). We explored Monticello’s expansive garden that included such oddities as yard-long Guinea beans, and even tasted some local wine at nearby wineries.
But we’re into November and it’s time to head west.
Pictures, some of them funny signs, at: http://picasaweb.google.com/happytwo.mcwilliams/TripEastVADC?authkey=Gv1sRgCOfl_YisxqrpiwE&feat=directlink

Another Time, Another Place

Leaving Maine, we hit the turnpike and quickly passed through a patchwork quilt of states – New Hampshire, Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania – steeped in history. Each little town in Pennsylvania seemed to have at least one historical marker commemorating a visit by George Washington, a battle or other momentous event. We couldn’t help but be struck by just how young the West is, when towns in this part of the country date back to the early 1700s.
In Massachusetts, we spent a morning at Old Sturbridge Village, a living re-enactment of life in the 1830s, when the industrialized age had begun and New Englanders no longer had to fabricate necessities, instead purchasing factory-made items like cookware and tools.
Wood smoke wafted through the village, and the morning stillness was broken only by the clip-clopping of horses’ hooves and the clucking of chickens as we entered old houses and outbuildings to watch demonstrations of spinning, baking and forging. A young man used a pole to reach apples at the top of the 100-year-old trees in a sun-dappled orchard, where they were collected by an ox-drawn cart and hauled to the cider press.
We even received some impromptu lessons in livestock. Chatting with the affable driver of a horse-drawn coach, I noticed the team looked nearly identical to the horses pulling visitors in wagons through Acadia Park. "Are they Belgians?” I asked. “Yes,” he beamed, “the best horses for this kind of work.” Everyone knows Clydesdales from the commercials, he went on to say, adding that they’re not the brightest steeds in the barn.“They’re only good for plowing and pulling beer wagons. They don’t have the intelligence, heart and stamina of Belgians.”
It was he, it turned out, who had sold the horses to the Maine operator. As he launched into a story of pulling a circus wagon in Milwaukee, putting Vicks Vapor Rub in the horses’ nostrils so they wouldn’t bolt at the scent of lions and tigers, it was clear he could talk horses all day, so we wished him well and moved on.
Later, watching an ox walk round and round the cider press grinding apples, we learned that it was bovines who’d been the real “workhorses” of the time. Horses were a luxury, costing the farmer more in feed and care. Cows were kept for breeding and milk, but male calves usually ended up on the dinner table, the volunteer told us. But if the farmer needed a new team, the steers were neutered and trained virtually from birth until they could work and respond to voice commands.
“This guy knows about 20 words,” bragged his young handler, pulling back on the beast’s fearsome-looking horns to capture his best camera angle.
Lancaster, PA is the heart of Pennsylvania Dutch country, and it was there we headed next. Arriving on a late Sunday afternoon, we saw families dressed in Sunday best, walking or riding in buggies from church service. We learned that the gray wagons belonged to Amish and the black to Mennonites, although we couldn’t tell the adherents of each sect by their dress. Many children and several women used adult-size scooters for transport, pushing along with one foot. The Amish don’t ride bicycles, apparently considering them among the modern conveniences they eschew.
The next day we toured the countryside, passing through towns like Bird-in-Hand and Intercourse, both settled in the early 1700s. Residents spoke German among themselves, and English with an incongruous Irish-sounding lilt to visitors, all of whom are considered “English.” With sunny smiles and sweet dispositions, the Amish strike visitors as supremely content with their lives, despite the hoards of curious tourists who constantly sneak photos.
It was wash day, and laundry fluttered from lines like Tibetan prayer flags, the Amish ingeniously using utility poles for laundry lines, although not for electricity. We bought shoo-fly pie and homemade root beer and stopped at another farm for beautiful organic brown eggs, $1.25 a dozen on the honor system. We felt slightly uncomfortable following the sign’s directions and opening the door to the house, where we found the eggs in a cooler, but a calico cat seemed to be the only one home. We put our money in the box and headed out, finding the simple exchange oddly gratifying.
Writing this tonight without electricity atop Loft Mountain in Shenandoah National Park, where swirling fog obscures all but the nearest trees, the sense of being in a different time as well as place persists.
Next, a meet-up with friends and visit to the nation’s Capitol.
For photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/happytwo.mcwilliams/TripEast8NewEngland?authkey=Gv1sRgCIquvvG9sriv1AE&feat=directlink

The Maine Course

I suppose I could grow tired of lobster. It’s possible I could grow blasé over the brilliant display of fall color, the picture postcard towns with charming clapboard houses and downtowns both vibrant and historic, the gorgeous organic produce that outshines anything I’ve managed to grow in California. Maybe after a while I’d take for granted the sense of community in the small towns, the outdoor activities like free sailing and rowing for locals and the cultural opportunities that seem so plentiful. But I don’t think so.
Maine is wonderful. The people we’ve encountered are extraordinarily friendly. The air is clean, the scenery is beautiful and every town qualifies for “Tree City USA.” The coast goes on forever and real estate is affordable.
At this point the invariable response is: “but, the WINTERS!” Well, if you’re lucky enough to be retired you can always leave. Or you can stock up on winter apparel at the L.L. Bean outlet, make sure the house is well winterized and watch the ponds turn into ice rinks. Just muddle through it. Our friend Lisa, who lived in Hawaii and California much of her life, does.
We spent a weekend at her late-1800s house in Belfast, actually two houses joined together with a hip-roofed shed incorporating rough-hewn beams. It’s a buttercup yellow work in progress, a do-it-yourself project that’s turning out beautifully. She played local tour guide, driving us on scenic backroads, taking us to a rocky beach where we watched dogs Fritz and Moose frolic while we hunted sea glass and picked wild apples. And of course we went to the local lobster pound, where her friend Biff joined us for an alfresco feast on Penobscot Bay. It was a great weekend and renewal of a friendship going back nearly 35 years.
We began our Maine sojourn in a campground near Bar Harbor, where two visiting cruise ships brought over 5,000 passengers to town. Grand water-view homes give a sense of the beauty that drew the original vacationers to the area a century ago, while large inns dominate much of the waterfront view today.
But the rest of Mount Desert Island is lovely. We walked the carriage roads and the path rimming Jordan Pond in Acadia Park, enjoying a lunch of seafood chowder, popovers and a glass of local pear wine. We bought and cooked lobsters from a pound we’d visited five years ago, using our camp stove outdoors and a pot loaned by the proprietor, no deposit required.
One night we bought the $29.95 cooked dinner for two from the lobster man across the road from our campground: two lobsters, two peekytoe crabs, two ears of corn and a stick of butter – and free delivery – for the price of two St. Helena burgers. Another night it was sweet dayboat scallops right from the bay. It’s easy to be locavores in Maine.
We took the mail boat from Northeast Harbor to Cranberry Island, sharing the ride with locals like Carl Brooks, whose family has owned land on the island for 250 years. A chatty Ted Kennedy lookalike, Carl told us what it was like to live on the 39-resident island, showing us the little shed on the dock where UPS deliveries are made, along with the post office, a former fish cooler. “We never had a zip code and it drove Homeland Security crazy after 9/11,” he said. “We had to put names on the roads.”
We walked the island’s main road and followed a path through a boggy forest to a beach, where we added stray lobster floats and other flotsam to a driftwood totem. The land was donated for public use and the path built by volunteers, said Phil, a volunteer who opened the island’s history museum for us.
Heading back to the dock, we passed Carl’s Victorian house and he waved. “I should have offered you a ride to the far end of the island,’ he said, pointing to his golf cart. We hopped on, and he gave us the royal tour, including a bumpy ride up a dirt road to an exclusive club frequented by Vanderbilts and Rockefellers, where a gun-toting local once chased away a snooping journalist from the Wall Street Journal.
A little café/general store, subsidized by a wealthy summer resident, supplies basic needs for residents at remarkably fair prices, even in the summer when the population swells by tenfold. But everything else, from furniture to firewood, arrives by boat. We shared the ride back with a group of construction workers who drank beer on the stern deck, while the boat’s captain passed out dog biscuits to traveling canines up front. When we stopped at the next island, the boat picked up a young woman with two couches on the dock, the construction workers cheerfully helping to load the furniture onboard.
The rest of our stay was a visual feast of foggy lighthouses and salty harbors, crimson-flecked forests and pumpkin-head scarecrows celebrating fall’s bounty. We ate more lobster and haddock than I could ever imagine and discovered whoopie pies. We went through our first Nor’easter and saw a rare blue lobster. We kept extending our stay by “just one more day.” Finally, it was time to move on.
For photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/happytwo.mcwilliams/TripEast7Maine?authkey=Gv1sRgCN-ymcer9o-BkQE&feat=directlink.

Northern Exposure

Then, we were in France. The autumn foliage and abundance of water didn’t change, but the stop signs all said ARRET and the shopkeepers “bonjour.” We spent a drizzly day in Quebec, stretching out a three-course lunch of confit du canard and a bottle of Beaujolais to enjoy the mirrored Parisian ambiance of the tony restaurant and avoid going back out into the chill rain. The next day we took the ferry from Levis to the city, sharing the ride with some of the 60,000 Quebecois – couples, kids and dogs – all outfitted in blue “Nordiques” T-shirts off to a Sunday afternoon rally. The hockey-crazed Quebecois lost their team to Colorado in 1995 and think it’s time they had a team of their own again.
We walked the cobbled streets of la Ville Basse, ogled enormous cruise ships in town for fall foliage tours, had lunch in an outdoor café and bought local foie gras, cheese and maple syrup at the public market on the water. And we discovered the guilty Quebec pleasure of poutine: crisp French fries topped with cheese curds and brown gravy, better than it sounds.
We even checked out RVs at a dealership near the campground. “Ah, you speak French,” smiled the salesman, who was also an innkeeper. “Most of the Americans visiting here speak French – or try to. They’re travelers. Not the Canadians from Toronto and Ontario. Not a word, not even ‘bonjour.’”
New Brunswick was all about the Bay of Fundy, whose remarkable tides left fishing boats and beaches high and dry in the afternoon and awash the next morning. We hiked bluffside trails with tumbling streams and frequent waterfalls and walked beaches where the tides had receded 300 feet, exposing rock-anchored strands of kelp six feet long which would be underwater the next day.
Rocky spits reached like bony fingers into inlets strewn with islands, some large enough for a house and dock. The bay was never far from sight, serving as a backdrop to white clapboard houses with mountains of firewood in the front yard and lines of drying laundry in the back. Apple trees heavy with fruit grew along the roads, some planted by wildlife, others by humans. We picked fruit from 150-year-old trees at abandoned homesteads, making cinnamon-scented applesauce for the road. Travel in the north during October is truly an apple fest.
Five time zones and worlds away from California, Nova Scotia evokes the Scotland for which it’s named, all craggy bluffs and weather-worn villages and winds off the sea that knock the feet out from under you. Fishing boats bob at anchor in rocky harbors both picturesque and treacherous.
On a windswept bluff outside Peggy’s Cove, we stopped at the memorial to Swissair flight 111, which plunged into the frigid waters offshore in 1998, killing 229 onboard. The simple granite boulder remembering all those lives lost somewhere out there in that indigo sea was incredibly moving.
The weather grew colder and blustery on Cape Breton island, with moments of bright sunshine punctuating pelting rain to form rainbows that disappeared into deep offshore waters. Here was the full power of the north Atlantic, with biting winds and roiling whitecaps, especially at the end of the dirt road on the northern tip of the island, where chowder houses were already shuttered for the winter and we truly felt at the end of the earth. Thickly wooded inland valleys untouched by humans are home to bears and moose, and we walked a trail in Cape Breton Highlands park through an enchanted forest of towering sugar maples, some of them 350 years old.
The island has a distinctly split personality between Scots and French. Some settlements celebrate their heritage with Celtic song and dance and consonant-heavy names like Whycocomagh, while other French-speaking towns mark the homeland of the Acadians, the French settlers originally deported during British rule in the 1700s. Some of the outcasts made their way back to settle these inhospitable shores and make a living from sea and land, while others left for Louisiana, to become the forebears of today’s Cajuns.
Back at iconic Peggy’s Cove, we talked with Roger, a gentle soul with snow-white hair who’d been born in the tiny village and lived his life among its 50 inhabitants. “I fished for herring and mackerel for 40 years,” he said, “but the catch is down to a fraction of what it used to be.” He glanced out the window of his nautical artifacts shop as a huge tour bus roared by. “I used to go up on that hill as a boy and it was covered in wildflowers. A photographer from New York once took pictures of my sister and I picking wildflowers.” He indicated a granite hill topped with a large inn and parking lot filled with cars and busses, even on a rainy October day. The architecture was tasteful enough, but it had forever changed the view toward the lighthouse.
We talked like three old codgers of a changing world, changing climate and changing populations – down for fish and way up for humans -- while waves lapped against the pilings of the old fishing shack. Finally, we made our way to leave before the next downpour. “Give me a hug,” said Roger. And we did.
. . . . .
For pictures, follow this link:
http://picasaweb.google.com/happytwo.mcwilliams/TripEast6Canada?authkey=Gv1sRgCLH2uqfc5dP9-gE&feat=directlink

More than Manhattan

The property had been in the family for 96 years, the farmer told us as he opened the door to the chicken coop. Lured up the driveway by a sign promising fresh eggs, we inhaled the fresh country air and quietude. Across the road, dairy cattle grazed in a rolling meadow bracketed by a forest in autumn-dappled hues of gold and orange. Awakened from their midday slumber, the hens muttered softly and skittered to the far side of the coop as he filled a carton with eggs in shades of toffee and the blue-green of Aracaunas.
“I lived in Wyoming for a while, ” he said. “Everyone knew I was from New York and when I told them Cheyenne was too much of a city for me, they looked at me like I was nuts.”
Say “New York” to most of us, and we think Big Apple. But sitting here in a maple forest in the Adirondacks, with rain pattering on the roof and fat-cheeked chipmunks scampering on the ground, we’ve learned there’s much more to the Empire State than Manhattan.
We spent two days in Allegany State Park, getting lost on the backroads of the rolling Amish country. Spotting road apples in both lanes, we knew we were in the right place, but it took a while before the first horse-drawn buggy came down the road at a lively clip. Visitors are told repeatedly not to photograph the Amish, which made for a day of furtive shutter-clicking from behind the bug-splattered windshield of the moving truck.
We passed picturesque farms with chickens in the yard, pigs and cows in the field and laundry snapping in the breeze on a clothesline – always white bedding and blue or black clothing. Men, particularly young bachelors, drove open wagons, while long-skirted women and children rode in covered buggies. We’d stop at vegetable stands or farms selling products and young women would flee indoors at our approach. I later deduced it was probably because we’d caught them outdoors with uncovered heads, as they always returned to greet us with smiles and bonnets on their heads.
We bought fresh-baked bread, cucumbers for a dime and more eggs, so large we couldn’t shut the carton, for 75 cents a dozen. The Amish we met were smiling and friendly and had the most gorgeous rosy-cheek complexions I’d ever seen – even the men, whose beards covered only the perimeter of their faces. Their lives appeared to be what much of the contemporary world seeks – healthy and peaceful and centered on family and community. I thought I wouldn’t mind trying the Amish life for a while. I could give up technology and tend the garden instead, but I’m not sure about the bonnet and long skirts.
The Finger Lakes were equally beautiful. We stayed in Watkins Glen State Park near a tumbling stream and hiked the dramatic gorge carved by eons of water. We visited charming towns, tasted local wine and bought cherry tomatoes for 25 cents a pint from the roadside stands nearly every home gardener sets up on the road.
We picked Concord grapes for snacks, and visited a U-Pick orchard on opening day of harvest, walking the rows with families pulling wagons heaped with kids and apples. We left with modest-sized bags of crisp-tart Northern Spies and juicy Jonagolds for 55 cents a pound, ignoring the old-timers' adage of “Spies for pies,” and eating them fresh off the tree instead.
Here was a place one could eat organic for little money indeed. Gardens were lush, trees bent heavy with fruit and fields colorful with purple autumn asters and goldenrod. Streams cut through hardwood forests at every turn, making us think ruefully of our water restrictions back home.
As we reached the higher elevations of the Adirondacks, conifers replaced some of the colorful deciduous trees and lakes dotted the landscape – there are 2,500 lakes in the protected Adirondacks forest and each little town has at least one. Here are the state’s highest peaks, rounded by glaciers and covered with balsam-scented forests in a wilderness area three times the size of Yellowstone.
Next time I meet someone from New York, I'll ask "which part?"
Photos at: http://picasaweb.google.com/happytwo.mcwilliams/TripEast5NY?authkey=Gv1sRgCMT_-f3a6f7yEg&feat=directlink

Beer, Brats and the Street Where I Lived

Big-shouldered Chicago was a charmer, with drop-dead architecture, great food and people who walked up to you every time you stopped to look at a street sign to ask if you needed help. We fantasized living in one of the stunning condos on the Chicago River – maybe a converted warehouse loft – as we drifted along on an architectural history cruise.
We stayed with friend and former St. Helenan Gabby, enjoying catching up, some birthday bubbly and a dinner that showed she learned a thing or two during the years she spent with Julia Child Lincoln (fluffy, white) and Lily (short-hair, black) provided feline yin and yang. We walked the Loop, delighting in blue skies and balmy temperatures, rode the El and took pictures in Millennium Park to the lively mariachi strains of a free Latin music festival underway. The El into the city was itself a delight, not underground and claustrophobic like the Paris Metro, but running on elevated tracks, offering glimpses of weathered brick buildings, tree-lined streets and the occasional voyeuristic view into someone’s window.
And we ate: standing in line at 10:30 a.m. for Hot Doug’s, the “Sausage Superstore and Encased Meat Emporium.” After 45 minutes in line we were well-versed in the menu of specialty brats and eagerly ordered duck fat fries and the Sauternes duck and foie gras dog topped with chunks of foie gras, truffle aioli, foie gras mousse and fleur de sel. Be still my heart! Was ever a breakfast better? No wonder Doug’s a cult favorite, with Tony Bourdain among its fans. We ate outside where the throngs of eager customers couldn’t hear our moans of delight.
Hot tropical colors and shaken-at-the-table margaritas set the stage for brunch at the Rick Bayless paean to Mexico, Frontera Grill, where I had a tasty torta de elote, combining sweet yellow corn and the exotic black corn fungus. We hadn’t begun to see the Windy City, but it was time to move on and we left to retrace our path back to Milwaukee under gray skies and light rain.
With Happy ensconced at the Wisconsin state fairground not far from downtown, we headed into the city. Steep church spires pierced the moisture-heavy skies between modern high-rises and buildings seemingly plucked from the banks of the Rhine. So this was my hometown? The half-timbered architecture evoked der Vaterland, but I missed the hoppy smell of brewing beer, gone along with many of Milwaukee’s breweries.
But the residents still drink beer the way Napa Valley drinks wine. “Cheers”style neighborhood taverns offer two-for-one specials during Packers’ games, free beer on ladies’ night and Friday fish fries. We even spotted a rolling pedal-powered tavern in the historic Third Ward, its occupants hoisting steins of suds as they negotiated the streets, The darkened, beery interior of Klinger’s East triggered childhood memories of family visits to similar spots like the Elbow Room, where my Uncle Ralph served up cocktails to my parents and Cokes with cherries to my sister and me.
Living in the suburbs as a child, I remembered little of the city, so a drive along the lakefront and its solid European style mansions was a revelation. Nowhere else had we seen such a concentration of breathtaking houses mile after mile after mile, their backs to the vast Great Lake, their fronts often buffered from view by a forest of maples and beech.
Away from the lakefront we visited the Pabst mansion, the last of Milwaukee’s grand 19th-century mansions, the rest leveled over the years to build student housing for nearby Marquette University.
We hit the foodie high spots of town, wriggling into the tight wooden ‘50s era booths at Jake’s for the best corned beef since Katz’s in New York. Kopp’s Kustard (two flavors daily, served from the machine’s it’s made in) was silky and rich beyond Italy’s best gelato. Karl Ratzch’s sauerbraten, Black Forest veal and spaetzle did not disappoint, especially when accompanied by the Teutonic décor and a bottle of crisp Mosel. And we made a pilgrimage to Usinger’s, the mecca for encased meat-eaters, to stock up on their smoked pork chops, brats and other legendary products.
But the thrill of our stay was a drive to Wauwatosa, to visit 2471 N. 91st Street, the house where I lived from kindergarten through junior year in high school. I braced myself for the inevitable changes – a run-down neighborhood of barren sidewalks, the big street trees we knew having been planted long before Dutch elm disease came to town.
The streets were still tree-lined, although now mostly with maples, and the houses well-kept. I recognized our old house without seeing the address and we parked across the street. It looked better than ever! A huge addition in back was hidden from the street, making the house and the entire neighborhood, appear little changed. There, at the top left, was the window to the bedroom where, captive in my bunk bed with a miserable case of chicken pox, I read my horse books and sketched rearing stallions. There was the driveway where, one balmy summer evening, my friend Bobbie waited on her bike while I struggled to finish the awful stuffed bell pepper my mother had made for dinner.
It was here I collected marbles and trading cards, learned to ride a bike and roller skate, dodged snowballs from that mean kid from down the street as I walked home from school and smoked cigarettes with girlfriends in the upstairs bathroom.
I rang the bell and a pretty young blond woman appeared at the door. “I grew up in this house,” I began. “We lived here from 1951 to 1960 ands this is the first time I’ve been back.” Knowing it was very nervy, I asked if there was any chance we could look inside. She hesitated, muttering something about people who do this to “come inside and rob you.”
“I know it’s a huge imposition…” I continued. “We were the first family to live here.” She opened the door. The front hallway, staircase and living room with fireplace were the same, the carpeting we’d had replaced with hardwood floors. The dining room led not to a screened porch, but to an expansive new addition which included a large modern kitchen. But the milk chute was still there by the back door, now nailed shut. And the knotty pine paneled basement rec room was little changed, now as then a place for kids to play, with a grownup bar for adults.
Her young sons would be going to the same school down the street my sister and I attended, said Katie. The street had block parties and was full of young families. In fact, she continued, 91st was considered the best street in town. They loved the house and wanted to stay there forever.
Sometimes you can go home again.
Here are photos:
http://picasaweb.google.com/happytwo.mcwilliams/TripEast4ChicagoMilwaukee?authkey=Gv1sRgCLXM-uDdup2oZA&feat=directlink