King's Gap Environmental Education and Training Center

The greatest passions of your life are often, but not always, developed at an early age.  For me, horses and nature have always been an integral part of life.  Living where I do, I'm lucky because I am surrounded by those passions just outside my doorstep.   Even though I have them in my daily life, you never forget where the greatest love affairs of your life started.

 So when the kids and I traveled back home this summer to visit family, I took some time for myself to visit King's Gap Environmental Education and Training Center in the south central part of Pennsylvania.  It is a smaller size state park laid out around a stone mansion that served as the summer home of James Cameron, a prominent politician in early  20th century Pennsylvania.  As state parks go, it is one of my favorite if only for the long history I share with it.  I can remember going as a Girl Scout to the mansion and learning about the natural world and making woodsy-inspired art projects.

 And I can remember a few trips by myself while home from college break to go on short little hiking excursions on South Mountain.

It was marvelous to walk though the hard wood forest interspersed with young pines that is so typical of the central Appalachians,

 to see some wildlife native to the region,

 and to end the hike on the veranda of the mansion looking north down the Cumberland Valley that was the land I grew up in.

I have lived in a variety of places throughout my life and love them all.  What a privilege, though, to have learned to love nature in this spot.

Recovered

Vacations don't come very often around here, much less vacations that last a week or more.  We tend to find our relaxation in the wildness and loneliness that surrounds our home.  So when my folks decided to take their family on vacation to Florida, we jumped at the opportunity.  Let's just say up front, though, that I'm not very good at planning. 

I'm more of a "fly by the seat of your pants" kind of traveler.  You know, the kind of traveler that drags her husband to southern Florida on a hastily planned honeymoon and winds up just north of South Beach in a community marked by those who speak only Hebrew with only one discernible restaurant filled with men in rhinestone sunglasses and their ladies that were probably well paid.  (Please note that the above is not that South Beach hotel, but rather a lovely lake house where we spent the first days of our vacation with good friends.)

Or that kind of traveler that picks a random adults only hotel in Key West, checks in with her hubby, gets a fruity drink and sits down in the middle of a pornography shoot without even realizing it.  Danish Cowboy was impressed that I didn't mind sitting in a crowd of a naked hot chicks.  He obviously married well.

Oblivion tends to be my strong suit when traveling.  Rarely do people rely on me to do the travel agent-ing on a trip we are taking.   

So thank goodness for a dear mother and sister who took care of all the details and for a good friend who made it so that we could avoid the rental car counter.  Danish Cowboy is a sucker and often falls for the rental insurance gimmick that they sell.

They did it all for us, quite literally.  On days one and two we fished for catfish, scouted for alligators, campfired, and took part in my kids' first visit ever to the ocean courtesy of good family friends.

For the remainder of the week we did Disney and we did it well.  It was a long time dream of my parents to have us there once more as a family.

Everything from the moment we landed in Orlando until we left Orlando went just fine.  The traveling there part (you know, the only part that I had to orchestrate), was a disaster (although I did learn about Donchian Trading very, very late at night from a co-traveler).  We arrived in Florida at 3:45 in the morning.  We spent 48 hours trying to fly to Billings from Florida.  My family was rescheduled on approximately 10 different flights on a particular Saturday in December.  We got home on Sunday.  We didn't get our bags until Thursday.  Note to self:  don't fly through Minneapolis in the middle of winter.

The airline disaster is a thing of distant memory now.  I look back at the pictures of my kids with their new friends and their cousin, and remember the joy and excitement that they had throughout the trip.

The promise of seeing an elusive Mickey,

the look of awe at seeing that princesses really do exist,

and the spending of quality moments with family and friends made the trip a memorable one for all time.

 

We saw fabricated ideas that inspire your imagination and soak up your money, and the realities of nature all in one week.

 

And through it all was the wonder that the world has to offer.

No one is immune to the feeling of wonder.

No one.

When people come to visit us, we typically run out of notable things (from our perspective) to do in about one day.  Most people enjoy the daily ranch activities as a sort of vacation experience because it is unlike anything else that they have ever experienced.  Danish Cowboy and I, however, feel bad when we don't go to any destination locations with our company.  The probem is that if you've ever looked at a map, there aren't that many destination locations in less than a six hour drive.

 It puts us in a great quandary.  We want to be hip and cool.  We want to entertain.  But beyond the Fort Peck Interpretive Center and Medora, North Dakota we have no options.  In fact, I don't think Danish Cowboy has ever even been to an amusement park.  He was fascinated with Gettysburg, for gosh sakes.  So when we're at the end of ideas for things to do, we head to Ash Creek to really wow people with some Indian history.  Go to Brockway, head east for a few miles and then south forever and ever.  Don't go when it rains.  It's just at the bottom of the hill way to the south.  No, not that hill.  The farthest one.  The one that seems to sit at the end of the world.

On October 23, 2010 I fought with my family to get some good pictures at Ash Creek near the site of where an almost famous battle was held.  I won with bribes of root beer, Bud Light, and jelly beans (your guess as to who got what).  In December of 1876 a much more important skirmish occurred between Sitting Bull and his Lakota Sioux people at this very site.  No one emerged a true victor in the battle.  It just escalated in to the Little Big Horn battle a few months later where Custer had his famous last stand.

The settling of the west is a romantic notion in the eyes of many, including myself on most days.  For those that actually experienced it, for those that were forced on to agencies and reservations, for those that were forced to give up a nomadic and for the most part peaceful lifestyle, I doubt there is romance involved.  "The Trail of Tears," they call it.  You can trace it for Sitting Bull and the Sioux from the Black Hills of South Dakota north through the prairies of eastern Montana, at Ash Creek near Brockway and down the Yellowstone River Valley to the Little Bighorn.  You can trace it in the western part of Montana as Chief Joseph led his Nez Perce on a valiant attempt to escape to Canada.

It saddens me to think of the atrocities that happened in this region in such a recent past.  Civility usually comes with modernity; or does it? 

These oftentimes modest monuments that dot the prairies and hills are always incredible places of reflection in my eyes.  They have a beauty to them that is indescribable.  A lot of it is natural beauty, but the spirits left behind must play some small part in what you experience when you go there.  In the case of the Ash Creek battlefield, the monument sits on top of a hill like a sheepherder's cairn, marking the way forward for all who make the journey here. My kids are too young to understand, too young to talk about what happened when the west was settled, to explore what it means for our future.  But they'll get there.  All too soon, they'll get there.

Dirt in the Woods

I caught myself doing it the other day as I was finishing up yet another outdoor project.  There I was, sweeping dirt off of a landscape timber on to the yard which is always about two precipitation events from reverting back to native prairie and dust.  Yes, I was sweeping dirt in nature which was ironic considering my history.

I've had a lot of jobs in my time but certainly none sticks so nightmarishly fondly in my memory as the time I went to summer camp to play camp counselor.  It was only a nine week commitment between my sophomore and junior year in college.  Such a short commitment, in fact, that I worked on either end of it so that I could make money to spend when I returned to college. 

True, it started out well.  Before the campers arrived. 

It also happened to be the year when they were celebrating some significant anniversary and we were planning a "Women in the Woods" weekend retreat for adult alumni/alumnus/alumnae.  The camp director was beside herself with worry that the campground look just right.  My thought was that it was in the woods, on a lake and we were sleeping in the great outdoors:  life couldn't get more just right.  Then on day four or five of this nine week debacle, the camp director gave me a broom and told me to, are you ready --- sweep dirt off of the flat rocks on the hiking trail leading from the tents to the mess hall.  Now my parents instilled in me a work ethic and a bit of respect.  If you take on a job, do what you're told and complain not.  I have to admit, I grumbled a bit about this one.  Heck, that was 13 years ago and I'm still grumbling.  And still sweeping dirt back in to nature.

We got through Women in the Woods weekend just fine.  Then the campers arrived.  They were a unique bunch.  The camp was located near New York City, on the upstate side of the Hudson, and most of the campers came from the innards of that town.  Eye-opening.  That's all I'm going to say.  Eye-opening.

I was hired as the "Director of Religious Activities" which was...interesting.  And also, as a warning to future Religious Directors, it is ALWAYS the last position to be filled.

After I got through the whole Christmas-in-July-story-of-baby-Jesus-nativity-scene re-enactment debacle, I turned to other types of activities such as team building (the human knot, anyone?) and looking at wildflowers and exploring local wetlands.  Hey, religion can have a lot of different connotations, you know?

The summer wore on.  We had 16 year olds with nicotine patches, a few shoplifting arrests of 15 year old Counselors in Training at the local outlet mall, the partying stories of 13 year old campers who were sent to camp for all 8 weeks by their rich Long Island parents and told FABULOUS stories of their weekends at home between encampments involving illegal substances.  It was an uplifting experience.  Truly.  I was just thankful it was a girls only camp.  I think co-ed encampments would have made my naive little head explode.

All this is why I really appreciate working part-time for myself as my own personal landscaper.  Rewarding, hard work, the kids thank me for it, and I can dust the dirt off of the landscape timbers.  Or not. 

Because It Is There

On a recent day just before the Blizzard of 2010 and the ensuing Great Freeze threatened to trap us in our home, I embarked on a snowshoeing journey.

It wasn't so much a journey, not really an epic expedition, but more like a 0.5 mile walk up to the rockhills overlooking the ranch headquarters. On a clear day, it stands out boldly.

On a day just before a blizzard, when the winds are high and the snow which has just begun falling is blowing, it was easy to imagine what Everest might be like. And like Sir Edmund Hillary noted on his trip to the top of the world, I went "because it is there." And also because I am tired of being a prisoner from the cold.
It is a remarkable little jaunt. On a clear day, you can see forever up here. The coyotes love to frequent this hilltop to yip and howl at one another. And it's off limits during the warmer months due to the threat of rattlesnakes hiding near their dens, although I have been known to explore it from horseback.The rock features are amazing. They change every year as wind and cold and heat erode the rocks and soil. Small rocks tumble off of their mothers and down the hill. New rocks seem to emerge from the depths of the earth. It's an absolutely captivating place,
and it has been for generations. Even Danish Cowboy's ancestors couldn't resist the call of the rock hills.
The rock hills are far enough away from our home that Tucker Dog rarely, if ever, ventures there. It was a whole new world for him, too. Rabbits to chase, rock chasms to sniff and explore.
And not only is the view amazing, so are the rocks as snow drifts and swirls around them, the moss on them more brilliant now than during the brown months of autumn when I typically explore the hillside.
I'm not an official geologist, though I do own a rock hammer and keep a rock collection squirreled away so that no one will make fun of me. These rocks have historically been called lava rock by locals, but the more accurate term is porcellanite. It is a type of sedimentary rock similar to chert with a smooth, conchoidal, almost lava flow appearance at times. The rocks are then theorized to have been "fired" by the underlying coal seams which caused them to develop an appearance not unlike porcelain. The underlying coal seams which burned are now called scoria with angular fractures and a much lighter density.
The colors range from light and dark shades of gray to orange to red to black. While the rocks are incredibly dense, they are not immune to the powers of wind. The hillside was covered with a fine red dust as winter winds had beat the outermost layer of the exposed rocks to a fine powder.
We weren't gone for long as the blizzard was quickly approaching and I discovered that I, like most other human beings, couldn't walk a straight line to save myself. And the house was quickly disappearing in the blowing snow.
And when we got back, Tucker took a picture of me, too, so that we could prove to the world that I do go on some adventures, albeit small.

The 5-8 Step Scientific Method

I've gotten myself into quite a pickle over my last little blog post. And I'm not talking about my covert trip to a central Pennsylvania restaurant or my analysis of our hospital stay.
No, I'm talking about the use of the scientific method to analyze my Autumn 2009 college homecoming tour. I just can't bring myself to do it. There were good intentions, you can be sure of that. I can recall (distantly) recitations of the seven steps of the scientific method. The many times I had to replicate them in projects, to pour them out on a piece of paper during an examination. Seven. There were seven steps. You can imagine my dismay when I discovered that there are now anywhere from five to eight steps that comprise the scientific method. Has our country really slipped in to such an educational stupor that we are so liberal with this most sacred of basic science principles?
However, all is not lost! We can still take a look at the cultural dichotomy that exists between the two schools I attended and faithfully returned to this fall. If you will recall, my first homecoming was for the sole purpose of a football game. At the second homecoming, there may have been a football game. I'm really not sure. They may have also played the University of Scranton. I have no idea. I also had no idea that Scranton had a university.
TAILGATING: Missoula: Snow, 18 degrees, wind, beer, outhouses for a tailgate, just outside the football stadium. Selinsgrove: Sunny, 60 degrees, tents, hor d'oevres, wine, kind of-sort of-not really close to the football stadium.
The golf carts! I remember the golf carts. And the dorm where I spent my freshman year. No real dichotomies here. Just good memories. I love this school.
Same for the stinky gingkos.
Beyond the tailgating episode, the most stark difference between these two schools is the liberalism. We thought we were so cool and progressive at Susquehanna! We recycled! And then I went to Missoula and they not only recycled, they also held peace rallies and sat in trees for days on end to protest logging and camped outside Yellowstone in the cold early spring to haze the bison back in to the park to save them from slaughter. Not that Selinsgrove has any bison nearby for hazing, but at least they still recycle.
Fond memories. I licked rocks in this room. Multiple times. And still failed the mineral exam.

I also visited my Zeta house while I was at homecoming and would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you 1999ers (and my sorority big sis) for coming back.
And to you 1999ers who didn't come back, I only have this to say: I'm glad you weren't at the reception because it meant more Yuengling and boxed wine for me. Maybe you'll come back in 2019. I hear they break out the bottles of real wine when we pass that big 4-0 mark and start donating some real money.

Understated liberal humor at a conservative school. Republican, liberal or neither: you have to laugh. You just have to.