Tag Archives: hiking

The Heat

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, impediments, Personal goals, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

June 5, 2024- I read, a few days ago, about the “green glacier”-a euphemism for the growth and spread of junipers, also called red cedars, across a wide swath of tall-and-short-grass prairie, from north Texas to North Dakota. Trees are also spreading in the Canadian prairies, but more by design, and with less adverse effect.

Adverse effect? On the environment? From tree planting? Well, it seems that too many trees, in an area that is historically steppe, can serve to do things like darken the ground and make it hard for CO2 to escape back into the atmosphere. Too many trees can, in the view of some environmentalists, actually exacerbate global warming in the Plains states. My own view is that we hardly need to replace tall and short grasslands with forests, but that some forests are a good addition to the Prairie. I have hiked in small forests, in the Dallas area, when visiting my little family. On a torrid July day, being in the woods is never half bad-with proper bug repellent keeping insects and arachnids at bay and sunscreen/headgear on, for good measure, just as I would do anywhere else. I have, likewise, enjoyed outings all up and down the Great Plains, in forested areas.

Heat is here, at Home Base I-with June usually being the hottest, driest month of the year-closely followed by the post-monsoon portion of September. June Gloom doesn’t exist, this far inland, but we do share September Swelter with southern California. The high summer months are actually tempered, somewhat, by monsoon rains-at least here in the Central Highlands and in the mountains north and east of here.

I am fine, though, with ceiling fans, a window box A/C, plenty of water and an Amish drying rack for my clean clothes, freshly washed in cold water. Stay cool, calm and collected, wherever you are-and may humanity keep getting a handle on global warming.

Gratitude Week, Day 3: Health

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Posted by on in Family, Personal goals, Personal Values, Slow Food Prescott, Social, Striving

November 20, 2018, Prescott-

The last day of work before Thanksgiving came and went, with barely a hitch.  The students are surrounded by people who want to be working with them.  That has not always been the case, and the kids know when it isn’t.

Health, both physical and mental, depends not only on one’s genes and personal habits, but on how connected one is to those around us. I have been in good health for over ten years now, even counting the infections contracted whilst I was Penny’s caretaker and the recent knee strain.  It has been being surrounded by a largely independent, but genuinely loving, network of friends, to whom I paid homage two days ago, and to extended family, to whom I will pay similar tribute on Thanksgiving Day, which has brought me home, in terms of radiance and stamina.

A good daily balance of work and play, rest and activity, socialization and solitude has kept me in recovery from whatever ailments are brought on by aging and occasional stress.  I am grateful to do Terra essential oils, Planet Fitness and our systems of forests and parks, at all levels of government and of private landowners (Nature Conservancy, various local trusts) who allow access to their treasured sites.  I am indebted to those who provide healthful food and beverages, often but not always, free of Genetically-Modified Organisms and sometimes meatless.

I have much towards which to work, both gainfully and as a volunteer, over the next several years.  My health community is a key component of the process.

Tomorrow, I will offer a shout-out to those who have kept our communities, states and country safe and to those who work towards a safer world.

An Eastward Homage, Day 6: To Paris, With An Absent Crowd

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Posted by on in Travel

Sunday, June 1 was one of those days that starts out with everything going like clockwork, hits about five rough patches, and then ends with everything silky smooth.  I had no trouble checking out of Q Greenhotel, rode the tram into downtown Frankfurt with a Sri Lankan-German taxi driver, who had the day off (Please, no “Busman’s Holiday” jokes) and enjoyed a leisurely continental breakfast at the Hauptbanhof (Central Train Station), before boarding the train to Paris.  It left a few minutes late, but I was just fine with that, as there were only three of us in the second class train, clear to Saarbrucken.  Here a few of the things we saw, between Frankfurt and the French border.  First, auf wiedershehn to Frankfurt, my first European host since 1982.  You have set the tone, and Europe is less daunting, even for someone like me.

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Forty minutes out, we came to Mannheim.  I was expecting a fairly large contingent of American servicemen boarding here for Paris, but few people came on board.  Here is the Maritim Hotel, one of Mannheim’s grandest.

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West of the large city, the mountains of Baden-Wurttemburg began to show themselves.  There were some mountains in the area, as is pretty much true of all of lower Wurttemburg.  Hikers were out in force, as were filmmakers and barbecue grillers.

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Here is a small parish, east of Kaiserlautern.

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The row houses of Saarbrucken were the the last notable site in Germany, before we crossed the border into France.  It was here that we were joined by about 30 people, most of them academics, who were coming from a conference in Koln.

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I arrived in the Gare du Nord District, in good enough time to get  on my way to my hotel, or so I thought.

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With good directions as to the AREA, I made it easily to Montmartre, which I THOUGHT was the location of Monte Carlo Hotel. I was reassured by a local resident at the base of  the hill leading to Eglise Sacre Coeur that that was so.  All the locals I asked, atop the hill, thought differently.  Turns out the Rue Faubourg Montmartre is a LONG way from the district of Montmartre.  A kind Tourist Office clerk set me straight, though sans street number.  I eventually got that, in a hotel in the 9th Arrondisement (District), that was about four blocks down from the Monte Carlo.  At 5:30 PM, I checked into my cozy room, which is about the size of my old bedroom when I was a kid.

Well, since I was up top on Montmartre, here are three scenes from there.

First, these are the steps.  There is a transom, which I at least used going down.

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Next, here is the goal of the steadfast among us:  L’Eglise Sacre Coeur.

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Lastly, here is the view from the top, which spared me from climbing Le Tour Eiffel.

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I finally made it to Monte Carlo at 5:15 PM.  The first thing I did, once checking in, was find all the remaining hotel telephone numbers on my list.  The Monte Carlo is the last photo on this set.  I know I said two posts would be up tonight, but downward and sleepward.  See you manana.

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