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The baby aspirin years

~ Ms. Boice falls in love, travels and eats her way through life in the post-40 years.

The baby aspirin years

Tag Archives: National Park

Keeping Big Bend a secret

17 Sunday Apr 2016

Posted by Ms. Boice in Trips

≈ 26 Comments

Tags

Big Bend, Mountains, National Park, nature, photography, Texas, travel, vacation, Wildlife

 

My out-of-office message on both voicemail and email said I was on vacation and “unplugged.” My boss knew how to get ahold of me in an emergency, but I warned him that I may not get his messages immediately.

Big Bend National Park is in the middle of nowhere. It’s a you-can’t-really-get-good-cell-service kind of nowhere. It’s 3G cell service in that southwest corner(ish) of Texas and even then, you’re lucky to get two, maybe three bars. And when you do, don’t be surprised when you get a text from your cell carrier saying “Welcome to Mexico where you’re going to enjoy roaming internationally!” because the only thing separating you from Mexico is the Rio Grande, which, by the way, you can easily cross on foot with the water not going past your ankles.

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Trust me, this is the Rio Grande.  (At Santa Elena Canyon, Big Bend National Park.)

So yeah, getting ahold of me on vacation was going to prove difficult because my phone was in “airplane mode” and yes, I really was unplugged.

When I say, “middle of nowhere,” I mean it.

You aren’t going to see Starbucks, McDonalds or a Subway sandwich chain anywhere around Big Bend. In fact, I hadn’t seen any of those for several days. This is Road Runner and Wyle E. Coyote country. Its palette of brown earth, cyan skies and the occasional red or yellow bloom is empty of the droves of people you find spattered over other Big Daddy national parks like Yosemite, Yellowstone, Zion, Bryce and Grand Canyon.

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Tunnel near Rio Grande Outlook (Big Bend National Park). Tell me, doesn’t this remind you of Road Runner?

We were at the park during peak season and still, there weren’t the crowds you’d find at other national parks. I remember my first trip to Yosemite back in 1995 and people were at every turn. Tent sites were staked within feet—not yards—of each other and trails were so crowded, you would bump shoulders with others on the trail. Imagine what it’s like walking around Times Square in Manhattan or along the Las Vegas strip—that’s what hiking the trails was like in Yosemite.

Even lesser-known parks, like Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming would have clusters of hikers on the popular trails, passing each other quickly whether coming or going like in an airport as people are scrambling to make their connecting flights. I remember hiking behind a man on one of the trails as he talked on his cell phone and I wondered how the hell he got any cell service in that area while also thinking, are you kidding? 

And same for those aforementioned parks, Zion, Arches, Bryce Canyon and Grand Canyon. All fantastic parks with geology that your mind has trouble taking in at first. Hoodoos, red rocks, big ass canyons in the earth, and an ominous hike called Angels Landing. These are some of my favorite places on earth, but the problem is everyone else seems to also want to see them.

What we need is a park that either people don’t know about or one that is not particularly easy to get to. That’s where Big Bend National Park comes in.

If you enter at Big Bend from the west—via the scenic FM170 highway—you’ve already been given a preview of the mountains. But that drive is only a snippet of what’s to come. That snippet, by the way is called Big Bend Ranch State Park and it has a whole bevy of activities to do for the adventurous—back packing, mountain biking, and horseback riding.

Back to Big Bend National Park, though.

Shhh. I’d rather no one else know about Big Bend.

Honestly, I’d love it, though, if you’d just keep this find between us, okay? Please don’t tell anyone about the acres of Ocotillo cactus, with its skinny tentacles reaching toward the sky. If you’re lucky like us, you will have arrived in the springtime and you’ll drive past fields of these with red flowers adorning each branch. Close up they look wonderfully delicate as they reach up to the sky in a “jazz hands” sort of way. At a distance, when you see acres and acres of them altogether it looks like a red haze laying on top of the horizon.

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Ocatillo cactus with its fiery red flowers.

Also keep it on the down low about the massive Santa Elena Canyon that’s been carved out by the Rio Grande over the course of 2 million years. The sheer, vertical walls of the mountains on each side of the gorge reach 2000 feet. Right now you can easily cross it by foot, but most people—when there’s enough water—will raft it, following it on to the nearby town of Lajitas. There’s a 1.7 mile (round trip) hike, which is mostly on paved stairs that will take you to great vistas of the Santa Elena Canyon.

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Santa Elena Canyon (Big Bend National Park)

Don’t tell your geologist friends either. They’ll start coming in droves because the geology of Big Bend is complex. It’s a mix of sedimentary basin with significant faulting and volcanic activity, which means you’re going to find elevations in the park ranging from 2,000 feet above sea level to just over 7,800 feet. And all makes for a variety of unique bio zones contained just in one park, which leads me to the next thing that is awesome about Big Bend: birding.

Big Bend contains the most species of birds than any National Park in the U.S. That would be 425 birds, making it a mecca for birders. This was really the reason why we were at Big Bend National Park on this trip. We were a few weeks too early for the elusive Colima Warbler, but we weren’t disappointed in what we saw.  (Oh, and fun fact for your next dinner party: High in the Chisos Mountains in Big Bend National Park is the only place in the U.S. where you would find the Colima Warbler.)

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Birding Chisos Basin. (Big Bend National Park)

Also, be sure to not say anything about the fantastic wildlife here at Big Bend, especially the Carmen Mountain White-tail Deer, which don’t seem to mind if you’re standing or hiking two yards away. They’re not hunted and so they’re not wary of humans.

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Carmen Mountain White-tail Deer

Promise me that you’ll keep Big Bend National Park a secret—especially from those in the office. The last thing you need is a Starbucks or McDonalds with WiFi out here. To unplug is to get away from the madness. Right now Big Bend is far from madness.

It’s pure happiness. Purely unplugged.

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Viewing the “The Window” from Chisos Basin in Big Bend National Park.

 

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Confronting the enemy

01 Friday Apr 2016

Posted by Ms. Boice in Trips

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

aging, Carlsbad Caverns, Geology, hiking, National Park, nature, New Mexico, photography, reynauds, travel, vacation

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This is going to suck, I thought to myself. It was time to head up out of the cavern and I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to do it. Not in the way of I thought it was going to be hard, but that I really was convinced that Steve would have to leave me for dead in the cavern. I suck at hiking and we just descended down a steep pathway for 1.25 miles and there was no way out except to walk it back up the steep climb, which–as you guessed–is the same 1.25 miles. Yes, 1.25 miles is really nothing. People in somewhat okay shape do it all the time. But I didn’t think my nearly half-century-old body was going to allow me.

We had stopped for a sandwich at the little cafe at the bottom, drank a big bottle of some green drink with electrolytes in the hopes that it would give me not just the physical, but also the mental strength to do what I needed to do. After some time I couldn’t delay the inevitable. It was time to go back up.

When Steve and I had walked down, I couldn’t take my eyes off the spectacle of stalagmites and stalactites of the Carlsbad Caverns National Park. The mythical shapes that were sometimes called whale’s mouth, lion’s tale or drapery were illuminated by up-lights like sculptures in a gallery or museum, yet the walk down into the bowels of the cavern was a walk into the absence of color–as if my life became film noir.

There were handrails all along the way, but the cavern’s temperature of 56ºF made them cold to the touch and I realized quickly that my ultra-sensitive fingers would quickly turn blue.  It’s a life hazard I’ve learned to deal with the past 10 years–fingers and toes that turn white, then blue and then eventually red–and I usually carry around gloves (oh, I have so many pairs of gloves), but this time I forgot them on this trip. Usually it’s not a problem, but without gloves deep in a cavern I could lose one or two fingers if I’m not able to get circulation to them. My solution became to just keep them in the pockets of my polar fleece jacket and occasionally Steve would take a hand and hold it tight in order to pass on the heat from his hand to mine to help my fingers thaw.

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Lion’s Tail

The path was nicely paved, making it a smooth walk down, albeit a little steep, throwing off my balance from time to time, so I’d grab on to the ice-cold handrail for a moment to steady myself. A young man in his 30s briskly trekked by with a long stride up the steep incline. He was grasping the ankles of a toddler perched on his shoulders, and at this point it didn’t register to me that the walk back up was going to be hard. But then I saw a man in his 50s who paused at one of the switchbacks. He clearly was on his way up and was clutching the handrail and he had his other hand over his chest. His breathing was loud and deep and I thought, Good Lord, someone should call someone to help this man. He’s going to have a heart attack. 

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Whale’s mouth

So at the bottom of the cavern in the little cafe all I could think about was that man who struggled for breath. I’m going to be 50 this year and I had been recently feeling my age, and while I was grateful to have survived menopause, what with it’s night sweats and sudden onset of low energy, I was not at all happy with the toll it has taken on my body. Muscles that were once there seemed to have abandoned me, while a new squishyness encircled my waistline. Something as simple as bending over to pick up something off the floor has become my own personal CrossFit challenge. My arm isn’t nearly long enough to hold a piece a paper to read. Words look like faded, blurry shapes on paper now and everything seems to hurt as I get old and I can’t turn the switch back. I am beginning to accept that aging is a cruel companion to which I’m now forever shackled.

But pouting wasn’t going to get me back up out of that cavern. “Let’s do this,” I said to Steve, and we began our climb up.

It wasn’t too bad at first. The way back was relatively flat and then the first steep path presented itself. Not a problem I thought to myself as I tried to mentally cheer my body. Up the path and then a switchback and then up again and switchback. Two more times and then I had to stop at the switchback and cling to the rail and I realized, I’m that man. Geez, I hope there’s a paramedic around.  “Let’s take a break,” I said to Steve after going a quarter of the way.

“We can take our time. We’re not in a hurry,” Steve kindly encouraged.

My breathing was heavy. My heart beat was a rapid staccato. “You know those people who do all that walking?” I asked Steve.

“Like the Pacific Coast Trail?” he  responded.

Still catching my breath. “Yeah. Or that pilgrimage in Spain or that walk in Scotland,” I added. “I honestly don’t understand how people do it or why people do it. I mean, I get so bored walking for so long.”

“Are you bored now?” he asked.

“No. I’m just focused on finishing.”

Drapery

Drapery

I’ve never been an athlete. Since the age of 10 I ended up in emergency rooms multiple times thanks to knee problems that led to three different knee surgeries between the age of 11 and 16. And when you have chronic knee problems you also get a special note from the doctor freeing you from all physical ed classes at junior and senior high school. I thought I had hit the jackpot–no climbing the rope, no running around a track and no horribly uncomfortable locker room showers. I was free of physical ed classes, but I also was no athlete.

I later learned no amount of Step Aerobics, Spinning or Zumba classes as an adult would make up for lost time. I’ve just never been able to catch up cardiovascularly. And now my body is turning on me and there’s not an apology in the world that it will accept. It’s my enemy now.

Back on the path my heart rate got back to normal very quickly, which was a relief, and I said, “Let’s go.”

Calf muscles were stretching like pulled taffy with each step I took. My quads. My butt. They were all working together and I kept mentally scolding myself for not taking the stairs at the office more often. You wouldn’t be having this problem if you would just take the stairs, I kept thinking.This was not uplifting me at all as I continued the climb. Walk a little. Rest a little. Get my heart rate down. This was repeated over and over as we walked the steep pathway out of the darkness. Then back to walking some more. My injured ankle from my accident in Zion National Park over five years ago was beginning to swell. I kept checking my fingers for loss of color and when I did, I reached for Steve’s hand. He knew what to do as this has been our drill since we met.

After an hour and 45 minutes of enduring the steep pathway out of the cavern I then heard voices raised in excitement. “Ah, light!” I heard someone exclaim. I could feel the muscles in my legs power up as if recharged and my pace quickened. My heart was still racing, the dampness of my t-shirt from my sweat chilled my back shoulders. I felt like a mess, but I somehow got the energy I needed to climb out of this darkness.

It was too bright. I had to squint as the light that poured in from the outside burned my eyes. A collective sense of euphoria came over those of us ascending out of the cavern. Color was back. Oh, how I had missed it these past four hours. The light was relief as it touched my skin and warmed me. My fingers thankfully turned their natural color, and my 50-ish body–this enemy of mine–managed to get me out of the darkness.

Yes, thank you body. But I’m going to start taking the stairs more back at the office, so be warned.

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Thank you, Utah.

22 Sunday Mar 2015

Posted by Ms. Boice in Trips, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Arches National Park, Austin Texas, Culture, Life changes, memoir, Mountains, National Park, personal essay, religion, Salt Lake City, Utah

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I drove across the border from Utah into Colorado unceremoniously. I half expected a big sign pleading, “Hey Lisa, we’ve had 19 wonderful years in Utah. Please turn around and come back” as if, like a desperate lover, trying to make one last attempt to change my mind about leaving.

It’s not you, Utah. It’s me. Things change, but I still love you.

You throw your hat in the ring and BOOM! You actually land that promotion you applied for at work. High fives with the husband and then you realize–

We’re moving. The kind of moving where you have to move your house, leave your friends, leave your hair stylist/frizz tamer/color wizard/therapist. Leave your favorite restaurants, your class at the gym (even though you’ve been on the back row for years), and leave the brilliant it-just-makes-sense street system, laid out like missile coordinates.

I thought I would be crying as I drove with the majestic snow-covered Wasatch Mountains in my rear-view mirror. I wouldn’t have them any longer to keep me humble and remind me that I’m small and the rest of the world is bigger than me. They’ve been my companion of 19 years in the arid high desert and even though I don’t ski I will miss them something awful.

Utah is plagued with a misunderstood reputation. Of the nearly two decades I spent there, I rarely saw a polygamist and had probably the most diverse set of friends I’d ever had–representing different lifestyles, races and religion. It’s not to say that Utah didn’t have room to grow and mature. When I arrived fresh from California I was accustomed to eating alone in a restaurant. The first time I asked for a Table for One in Utah the hostess froze, not knowing what to do with me. I thought she was going to offer me a consoling hug and whisper in my ear, “It’s okay, honey. I’m here if you need someone to talk to.”

Now I can easily go into a restaurant alone or even see a movie alone and everyone else seems to be okay with that. Time changes perspectives, and while Utah isn’t a big coastal metropolis like New York City, LA, Seattle or San Francisco, it’s been growing up.

Utah has been a growing experience for me. It’s an interesting clash of cultures when people who feel more sophisticated than a city come to town. I was one of those. I probably spent my first year with a lot of eye rolls. “Geez,” I would say to myself. “They call this sourdough bread?” I thought I was too sophisticated and polished for Utah. Little did I know it would polish me.

I eventually found that I could spend years trying to prove (to no one, really) how much more awesome I was than Utah or I could fall madly, deeply in love with the state. And that’s what happened.Log Haven

I got married here and we celebrated our new life together with friends and family in a tucked-away historical restaurant in the nearby mountains. I didn’t find my husband here (I had to go to Scotland for that), but we dated long distance for two years and when he’d come to town he took my hand and dragged me to the obvious wonders I was ignoring–Zion National Park, Bryce National Park, Arches National Park, Canyonlands National Park and Antelope Island. All in my own backyard, but I was blind to them all because I had been so concerned about what was different from where I had been before.

Bryce Canyon

Utah is different. But so is every place else when you really think about it. And I’m not just talking about the geology or terrain. People will be different, customs will be different, and the DMV will be different. But that’s okay. We all can’t be the same, otherwise, there’s no reason to travel to different places. What made Utah different made me different than I was before I landed there. It made me lose the chip on my shoulder and helped me understand that while my viewpoint is different than some in Utah I had value and perspective to offer. I didn’t argue, I discussed. I quit rolling my eyes and started seeing. I found other voices like mine and we shared. And I also found a sameness I didn’t think I’d find.

Actor Ty Burrell (of TV sitcom Modern Family) and his wife call Salt Lake home and expressed exactly what I’m trying to say here, when he wrote in Huffington Post, “We didn’t realize the incredible impact that having the differing viewpoints of both the religious and secular populations of Utah would have on us. So many cities are actually mono-cultures and Salt Lake has an inherent diversity that’s not always apparent.”

You see, this mix and diversity is so delicious. And most people don’t even see it.

Utah was the third state I spent significant time. I grew up in Oregon, then spent almost 10 years in the San Francisco Bay Area in my 20s, then settled in Utah. Now I’m moving to the south to Austin, Texas, which seems to be a conglomerate of all those places I lived previously.

Already I’ve found Austin to be very different. For the life of me I can’t tell how to get around on the street system here and I miss the mountains of Utah that always helped me know how to navigate direction. Some here call themselves hippies and others call themselves very conservative. But everyone calls me ma’am and says “howdy.” I like all of that.

Though it hurts to break up, Utah, please know that you will always be in my heart. Thank you for 19 wonderful years.

Wasatch Mountains

 

 

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The disappearance and reappearance of Bryce Canyon

11 Sunday Nov 2012

Posted by Ms. Boice in Rendezvous Journal, Trips

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

Bryce Canyon, bryce canyon national park, hoodoos, National Park, nature, photography, travel, Utah, vacation, weather

Bryce Canyon National Park Rendezvous

“It’s here, I’m sure it is,” I said. “I mean, it’s a big ass canyon. Where could it have gone?” It was an October morning and we had just walked on the paved trail from our cabin, following the signs to view Bryce Canyon. The fog was so dense I couldn’t see more than five feet in front of me and the colors that would have been there—the red rocks, the green sage—had been washed away as if we were catapulted into a black and white movie from the forties. And the canyon. It was gone.

It’s as if it were Brigadoon.

That’s me in front of Bryce Canyon. Yes, really.

And this is Steve in front of Bryce Canyon

This was our third rendezvous. We were now on the same continent, which was progress, I thought. It had been two and a half months since our rendezvous in England and six months since we first met in Scotland where Steve had been living. I was so excited to take Steve to see Bryce Canyon. I actually hadn’t been since I was a kid on a family vacation but I remembered the orangey red clayish rock and the hoodoos that pointed up to the sky like a million little fingers. This time was different. I had a geologist with me (Steve) and he narrated our five hour drive from Salt Lake City to Bryce Canyon with explanations about the different color of rock, the strata and iron.

Alas, my excitement and anticipation of experiencing Bryce Canyon with Steve unravelled like an old sweater. I was bummed. I really wanted Steve to see this beautiful part of Utah and the weather ruined it. It’s like traveling a long distance and finding that the museum you wanted to visit is closed. Or that all the tickets to a tour are sold out. Just as we were beginning to turn around on the path back to our cabin a couple emerged out of the fog. Really. Like right out of the fog. They could tell that we were a bit disappointed as we were snapping pictures of each other in front of a backdrop of white and as they approached us one of them said, “You have to take the trail down. It’s beautiful down there and the fog is beginning to lift. You see more at the bottom.”

No convincing needed. Off we went down the trail.

We walked down, down, down and we began to see the red rock. Fog curled around the hoodoos and the more we walked down the less fog we saw. It was quiet—there weren’t very many people around, but what I thought at first to be a disappointment ended up being an extraordinarily unique experience in one of the most popular National Parks in the U.S.

Bryce Canyon, alone, is a spectacle to behold, but without all the summer tourists and with curling, swirling fog, it’s a whole different experience. Not many people get to experience Bryce Canyon this way:

I imagined that maybe I was on another planet. Is this what people mean when they say,”Out of this world?” If so, I totally get it now.

Four years later we visited Bryce Canyon National Park and as we walked down the same path on a warm September day we saw the hoodoos standing upright without the curtain of fog, and in unison we said, “So this is what it looks like!”

A picture perfect Bryce Canyon (sans fog)

For more pictures of Bryce Canyon National Park check out the photos in the slide show.

Uh, yes. That’s me in front of Bryce Canyon

Bryce Canyon
You have to admit, it’s kind of cool looking.

Hey look! We the fog is lifting!

Waiting for the fog to lift.
On our hike down to the bottom

And this is Steve in front of Bryce Canyon

A picture perfect Bryce Canyon (sans fog)

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The Accidental Birder

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My most recent stuff

  • When in Isla Contadora
  • I turned 50 and this is how it went
  • Keeping Big Bend a secret
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  • Confronting the enemy
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  • The technicolor world of Bisbee, Arizona
  • Thank you, Utah.

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