Rippling cascades

Getting out for a walk in the woods is a sure cure from candidate overkill. Looking at the sun shining through golden leaves and listening to the fall of water as it splashes over moss covered rocks while cascading down the brook instead of hearing election ads on the TV is so much more refreshing.
Tom and I walked to the river this morning and the leaf covered trails were just beautiful. Poet's Point had a nice flow of water over the rocks, but the cascades were worth the long walk. We really love our woods.

Eagle watch

When I rented a cottage at Southwest Harbor in Acadia called Eagle Watch, I was not aware that we would have our own eagle right outside our deck, but that's how it was.

Our cottage overlooked Southwest Harbor and our eagle liked to perch in the pine tree which you see. It was such a delight to watch him watch for food. He came at high tide and low tide. I got some picture of him eating on the shore at low tide, but he was hard to capture in flight because he would sit on that pine limb for hours.

Charles and Luella from Dallas were also fascinated by our unexpected addition to the cottage.

We toured Acadia during one of the worst winds I have experienced on the island. It rained on and off for most of our stay, but we had a rewarding time watching the surf. I will be blogging about the waves later.

Pitcher plant

I have always been facinated by pitcher plants. On the farm in Mississippi, my friends and I would plow through the bogs looking to see what we could find inside these carnivous plants. I have seen tiny frogs, lizards and all sorts of insects.
Anyway, I had to drive to Manchester on Saturday to Longfellow's Nursery to pick up a red hybiscus for Beth's birthday. Daughters are worth the extra miles to get just what they want.
While at the Nursery, which is just the greatest place in the world to go, I spotted this wonderful pitcher plant. Husband Tom has likewise always been attracted to these plants because of his love of science and growing things. Soooo, I decided that he needed a present as well.

When I got it, and the giant hybiscus, home, we had to put water in the pitchers. Tom found a squirt bottle that would just fit into the small mouths of the pitchers, so together we put some water into each of them.

Maybe this one will survive. I have successfully killed a few before, but never one this vigorous looking.

What awaited our return from the West

After our three week plus camping trip out west, I knew the garden would be a field of weeds but I wasn't prepared for a garden full of four foot weeds, solid!

A friend told me they had to use the weed trimmer on theirs, so I went out to see if there was anything there to expose with a weedeater. Much to my delight, we found eleven of the twelve tomato plants as tall as the weeds and already bearing fruit. Seeing is believing, so will enclose the photo. Maybe we need to let the weeds grow so the plants can get a good start?????

Then I was afraid all my daylilies would be bloomed out. This was not the case either as you will see one of my favorite seedlings. The plant had six open on it today and I was very happy.

Our Take on Glacier

GLACIER NATIONAL PARK CELEBRATING 100 YEARS
MONTANA
July 4, 2010

Yes, the glaciers do appear to be melting in Glacier National Park in this its centennial year. SInce this was my first trip to Glacier, I had nothing to compare as I looked at Jackson glacier, the largest in the park. I had only previously seen the glaciers on the Canadian side in the Colombian Glacier Field.

In 1993, I had actually walked on the glacier in Canada but after looking back at my pictures from 1993, I decided that if I could have gotten up to Jackson glacier, it could have been as large as was the Canadian Athabasca Glacier.

As we traveled the “Going to the Sun” highway in Glacier, the scenery was breath taking. Around each bend in the road there was a new view of snow covered mountain ranges, sparkling waterfalls and rushing streams.

The mountain sides were dotted with numerous waterfalls bubbling with snow melt down the alpine cirques and cliffs. Some are called step falls because the rock layers have eroded at different rates giving a step effect. The ribbon falls, just do that, fall as ribbons down shear cliffs from hanging valleys. These hanging glaciers marked where small tributary glaciers had carved intersecting valleys high above the floor of the principal glacier.

Along the road we passed the weeping wall where water weeps and falls to wet the road and splash your car. Many hands reached out to catch some moisture as they passed by.

The passes were marked with snow pilled as high as 25 feet where road clearing equipment had cleared the road. The road was still closed by snow until the last week in June, just a few days before we arrived.

On the “Going to the Sun” highway, we traveled along Lake McDonald for ten miles. It is reputed to be 475 feet deep and offered beautiful reflections of the mountain ranges. The Lake McDonald Lodge on the banks of the lake brought to mind a Swiss Chalet.

At Logan’s Pass, which has an elevation of 6646 feet and where we passed the Continental divide, the snow is quite deep around the visitor center and offered fun for kids and dads to pelt each other with snow balls. The mountain goats also seemed to like the visitor center and readily posed for my camera.

Speaking of the Continental divide, we passed Triple Divide Peak which was marked as having runoff to the Pacific Ocean to the West, the Atlantic Ocean via the Mississippi River Valley to the East and Hudson Bay to the North.

Construction along the “Sun” highway gave us pause to enjoy the wildflowers which were in full bloom those first two weeks in July. My favorite was called bear grass. Each plant had one plume of hundreds of tiny white flowers. These plants covered the ground where they had open sun, especially in the areas recently cleared by wild fire. Bright pink and red Indian Paintbrush gave a colorful accent among yellow monkey flower, blanket flower, glacier lily, white yarrow, cow parsnip and blue forget-me-nots, wild geranium, lupine and many other flowers that carpeted the ground.

Another colorful sight along the “Sun” highway were the numerous antique red open air tour buses. These buses from the 1930’s are treasured by the drivers as well as the park. “It just don’t get any better than driving this fine antique bus through this kind of scenery,” said one contented bus driver.

There are thirty buses in the fleet and it takes six full time mechanics to keep them in working order. The busses gleamed as if they had just rolled off the show room floor.

As soon as bears are spotted along the highway, rangers quickly make their way to the site to control crowds and keep everyone safe, including the bears. We spotted two Grizzly bears in a meadow, far enough away to be captured by a telephoto lens. They appeared to be mating. The ranger said it was a few weeks late in the year, but it was possible.

At one spot a braver mom and her two cubs excited crowds along the road, but she went behind a crop of trees before we got to the site. When I mentioned to a ranger that I had bought a walking stick with a bell, his comment was, “That’s not enough to scare them away. Make a lot of noise when walking the trails.” So much for my new bell stick.

Shining glaciers, high mountain waterfalls fed by melting snow, rivers with numerous rapids and falls, animals from as small as a marmot scurrying into holes to the mammoth grizzly bears and graceful elk moving about the meadows and sightseeing crowds such as ourselves filled the space of what the natives rightly call the “big sky country.”

Our Take on Glacier

GLACIER NATIONAL PARK CELEBRATING 100 YEARS
MONTANA
July 4, 2010

Yes, the glaciers do appear to be melting in Glacier National Park in this its centennial year. SInce this was my first trip to Glacier, I had nothing to compare as I looked at Jackson glacier, the largest in the park. I had only previously seen the glaciers on the Canadian side in the Colombian Glacier Field.

In 1993, I had actually walked on the glacier in Canada but after looking back at my pictures from 1993, I decided that if I could have gotten up to Jackson glacier, it could have been as large as was the Canadian Athabasca Glacier.

As we traveled the “Going to the Sun” highway in Glacier, the scenery was breath taking. Around each bend in the road there was a new view of snow covered mountain ranges, sparkling waterfalls and rushing streams.

The mountain sides were dotted with numerous waterfalls bubbling with snow melt down the alpine cirques and cliffs. Some are called step falls because the rock layers have eroded at different rates giving a step effect. The ribbon falls, just do that, fall as ribbons down shear cliffs from hanging valleys. These hanging glaciers marked where small tributary glaciers had carved intersecting valleys high above the floor of the principal glacier.

Along the road we passed the weeping wall where water weeps and falls to wet the road and splash your car. Many hands reached out to catch some moisture as they passed by.

The passes were marked with snow pilled as high as 25 feet where road clearing equipment had cleared the road. The road was still closed by snow until the last week in June, just a few days before we arrived.

On the “Going to the Sun” highway, we traveled along Lake McDonald for ten miles. It is reputed to be 475 feet deep and offered beautiful reflections of the mountain ranges. The Lake McDonald Lodge on the banks of the lake brought to mind a Swiss Chalet.

At Logan’s Pass, which has an elevation of 6646 feet and where we passed the Continental divide, the snow is quite deep around the visitor center and offered fun for kids and dads to pelt each other with snow balls. The mountain goats also seemed to like the visitor center and readily posed for my camera.

Speaking of the Continental divide, we passed Triple Divide Peak which was marked as having runoff to the Pacific Ocean to the West, the Atlantic Ocean via the Mississippi River Valley to the East and Hudson Bay to the North.

Construction along the “Sun” highway gave us pause to enjoy the wildflowers which were in full bloom those first two weeks in July. My favorite was called bear grass. Each plant had one plume of hundreds of tiny white flowers. These plants covered the ground where they had open sun, especially in the areas recently cleared by wild fire. Bright pink and red Indian Paintbrush gave a colorful accent among yellow monkey flower, blanket flower, glacier lily, white yarrow, cow parsnip and blue forget-me-nots, wild geranium, lupine and many other flowers that carpeted the ground.

Another colorful sight along the “Sun” highway were the numerous antique red open air tour buses. These buses from the 1930’s are treasured by the drivers as well as the park. “It just don’t get any better than driving this fine antique bus through this kind of scenery,” said one contented bus driver.

There are thirty buses in the fleet and it takes six full time mechanics to keep them in working order. The busses gleamed as if they had just rolled off the show room floor.

As soon as bears are spotted along the highway, rangers quickly make their way to the site to control crowds and keep everyone safe, including the bears. We spotted two Grizzly bears in a meadow, far enough away to be captured by a telephoto lens. They appeared to be mating. The ranger said it was a few weeks late in the year, but it was possible.

At one spot a braver mom and her two cubs excited crowds along the road, but she went behind a crop of trees before we got to the site. When I mentioned to a ranger that I had bought a walking stick with a bell, his comment was, “That’s not enough to scare them away. Make a lot of noise when walking the trails.” So much for my new bell stick.

Shining glaciers, high mountain waterfalls fed by melting snow, rivers with numerous rapids and falls, animals from as small as a marmot scurrying into holes to the mammoth grizzly bears and graceful elk moving about the meadows and sightseeing crowds such as ourselves filled the space of what the natives rightly call the “big sky country.”

Grand Tetons Park Day 2

Today was a restful day in preparation for our journey back to Maine. We walked down to Snake River below our campsite after breakfast.
Then we took off for the Park. We drove along Jenny Lake in the Park and had coffee on the terrace of the Jackson Hole Lodge. What a lovely place. The lobby is large enough to have four nice shops and we splurged on coffee to drink out on the terrace.
Then we drove to a Wildlife preserve to visit a cabin and ranch which was owned by the Millers until it was purchased by the government to be on the Historical Register. Mr. Miller was the third homesteader in Jackson Hole. It is now an elk preserve, but the elk are all in Yellowstone for the summer. The house was an elegant cabin with 12 rooms and some original furnishings were still there. Mrs. Miller was one of the first Mayors of Jackson and on the wall was a picture of her and her six lady members of the town council.
We shopped for groceries which should see us through the week long trip home.
We came home and Tom took a nap while I read. It was our first day to really take it easy.