N = Nervous Newbie Naturalist

Shortly after returning to Chicago earlier this month, I received two emails from the area coordinator of the Illinois Master Naturalist program.  The first was an invitation for our Master Naturalist class from last year to reconvene later this month to celebrate our hours of service and catch up on what each of us are doing—this should be a really fun evening!

 

The second email was asking if I would like to do my first public speaking engagement as an Illinois Master Naturalist at one of the local public libraries – now, that should be a slightly terrifying evening!  :-0

The date and presentation topic have been tentatively approved, so things are now moving on to the library publicizing the event to the general public, and me getting the actual presentation pulled together and rehearsed!

Back in my corporate working days, I was quite used to doing client presentations a dozen or so times per year, so public speaking is not entirely a foreign concept to me.

But it’s a totally new realm of knowledge wearing my brand spanking new naturalist cap!  Visions race through my mind of some retired botanist in the back row peppering me with questions about obscure plants!  And, the “umm, great question!” kind of lame, stupid responses I’ll likely be giving to every single question the audience asks me!

Yes, the palms are sweaty and this newbie is nervous!  Any suggestions or tips from the pros out there? 

My talk will be about “Exploring the Great Chicago Wilderness” – sort of a “staycationer’s” guide to finding great nature spots in the Chicagoland area. 

It should be fun to research and photograph some of the nature preserves I’ve not yet been to, as well as revisit the old favorites too as Spring begins to bloom here in the coming weeks.  If I end up making a total mess out of this presentation, at least I’ll enjoy the “boots on the ground” work of preparing it!   

 

 

M = Mesmerized by the Moon… and Snow!

We’re interrupting our previously scheduled travel stories program with some late-breaking news of the past 24 hours here in Chicago!  Our warming Spring temperatures took a plunge into the Arctic abyss yesterday when daytime highs barely got above 40-degrees F.  

By afternoon, the freezing drizzle turned into lots of white wet blobs falling from the sky.  Millie and I were mesmerized….what exactly was this stuff?  We’d not seen it at all this past Winter in Mexico!

By late afternoon, the blobby stuff had nearly covered the backyard in white, leaving only the tippy top of each blade of grass visible.

The skies had been gray all day, so I doubted the night’s lunar eclipse would be worth staying up for.  We just weren’t going to see it with all these clouds in the sky!

I’m a “night owl” and lost all track of time last night as I worked away on a computer project.  By the time my yawns made me shut down my laptop, it was 1:30am.  I went to let Millie out and happened to look up into the sky.  Instead of clouds, I saw the Moon beginning its Total Lunar Eclipse!

I’m not sure if that sight did it (or the “brisky” nighttime air only in the mid-20’s), but I was almost instantly re-energized and now madly scrambling to find my binoculars, camera, tripod, shoes, socks, and winter coat!

For the next hour and a half, I alternated between the frigid backyard and my warm living room, uttering all kinds of “ooos” and “ahhs” as I watched this amazing “Blood Moon” show.  My surrounding subdivision neighbors appeared to all be obliviously sleeping right through it (or else they saw it was “just that crazy lady again” out in her backyard in the middle of the night “howling at the moon” and went back to bed)!

The reddish color is a result of the Moon traveling perfectly behind the middle of the Earth while the Earth itself is eclipsing the Sun.  When the Earth blocks the Sun, the Earth’s atmosphere begins glowing bright orange from the Sun’s “backlighting.”.  It’s this deep orange “Blood” color that we see during a Total Lunar Eclipse.  (I found this excellent web page with great pictures and explanations that helped it all make better sense to me.  Give it a look!)  

The other bright object next to the Moon last night was the blue star, Spica, the largest star of the Virgo constellation.

If you missed last night’s show in your area, fear not!  It’s set for a repeat performance on October 8th, 2014, and again a couple times in 2015.  After that, we won’t see any more Blood Moons until 2032!

Finally, I am happy to report that as of noontime today,  the snow still visible on the Winnie and on my patio table this morning has now melted.  We now resume our regularly-scheduled Springtime programming!

 

 

L = Lovely Llano

After a week without hook-ups, I was ready for a nice RV park to rest for the night.  Llano, Texas delivered my absolutely favorite kind of RV campground—those small, quiet city/county camps with all the conveniences of a commercial park, the spaciousness of a state park, at a price that neither of them can beat!

The description of Badu City Park on my Allstays Camp & RV app sounded very promising and it turned out to be true—nice campsites overlooking the Llano river and city park for only $15 a night!

Even though the sites were nothing more than elongated parking spaces with full hook-ups, all had excellent views-- our hilltop even had 2 Views (when an H/K-model View pulled in right next to us on our second night).

Millie was ecstatic to see water again and enjoyed walking along the river bank, but it had turned a bit too cold to take a dip.

 

We awoke the next morning to billows of fog rising from the river.  What a beautiful way to watch the sunrise and start the day!

Downtown Llano features a pretty, old stone courthouse surrounded by a square of antique shops, restaurants, bars, and an old movie theatre. Small-town Texas Hill Country at its very best.

I spent most of my day driving the rolling countryside looking for good patches of Texas bluebonnets and did see quite a few strips of it along the roadsides, but it was still just a few weeks too early in the season (late March when I was there) for any widespread color up in the Hill country.

The best bluebonnet patch turned out to be right at the campground’s city park!  I promised Millie a big chicken stew dinner if she’d pose for some pictures, and she grudgingly obliged.

I would have loved to stay here longer if not for the fickle Spring weather patterns along my route back to Chicago.  There were only a couple days within the next 10 where skies and winds would be calm enough to drive a motorhome up through “tornado alley” so I had to “git while the gittin’ was good” and continue northward after 2 nights.

But I will definitely be back to central Texas another Spring to enjoy finding and photographing more of this lovely area!

 

 

K = Krisis at the Karnivore Kafe’

Hello Everyone!  Millie here, the kanine half of the WinnieViews team.  I don’t have much time, so my message will be brief (snuck the human’s komputer away from her tonight when she wasn’t looking!).

If any of you happen to see me at a kampground someday soon, please, PLEASE could you share some of your spare Chikin with me?  I’ve not had any in awhile, and I’m getting rather desperate!

You see, my human is one of those darn plant eaters!  Even though she gives me a couple of big bowls of dog food every day (including some fancy canned dog food with real meaty stew), I’ve now tasted the real deal, and well, this canned stuff is just NOT the same!

When we were in Texas not too long ago (gosh, are dogs lucky to live there surrounded by all that BBQ meat!!!), we were traveling with this very nice lady who saw me sitting outside my rolling doghouse looking sad one day.

 

She asked if I’d like to come over to her place some time for some special treats (as long as I kept quiet and didn’t let my human know).  Heck yeah, I would!!!

Well, it turns out, this nice lady was a dog’s absolute dream!  She didn’t seem to eat anything except real, honest-to-goodness meat!!!  The night she invited me over, she was cooking up a whole grill full of nothing but chikin!  Row after row of the stuff!!! Even with bar-b-que sauce on top!

She asked me if I’d like to try some, and I then had to admit that, in all my 9 years, I’d never tasted any of the real stuff before.   She gave me an astonished look and said “well, just step right inside the karnivore kafe’ you poor, deprived, little yellow dog! I’ll fix you right up!”

From that night on….I was hooked!!!

Whenever I’d see her out walking around her kampsite, I would trot over to say “hi” and see what kafe’ kreations were on the menu that day.  She almost always had something delicious to offer! 

One day, we shared some blue corn chips…

Another day, I followed my new best friend up to the Internet Kafe’ and almost got a bite of her ice cream sandwich (before my mean human nixed the plan).

On another afternoon, I saw her out at the picnic table and raced over as fast as I could to see what \what was cookin.  Just as she reached into her goody bag, we heard our names being yelled..

We turned around and froze in place, but it was too late.  We’d been…BUSTED!!!

The day I saw the nice lady pull her karnivore kafe’ up behind my doghouse, I feared this might be my very last chance for one final fleshy hit of the good stuff.  I made a fast dash to her door…

 

and she quickly escorted me inside to the prized contraband.  She carefully opened the tin foil to reveal…half of the very last chikin breast on board! And she let me eat it all!!!

Ever since that day, whenever I see a big white RV pull up next to us, I try to ask politely if they might have any spare chikin to share, but so far, nobody has given me a darn thing.

So, I’m now at the point of desperation!  Please, everyone!  Anyone!!! 

I……NEED…...MOR…...CHIKIN!!!

 

 

 

J = Journey to the Hill Country

It’s another one of those “West Texas Winds to Blow Your House Over” days as Suzanne and I pack up our rigs to leave Rio Grande Village campground at Big Bend National Park.  I finish packing first and decide to drive up to the camp store parking lot to soak up some fast, free Wi-Fi and check my travel routing and weather reports.  As I return to the rig from walking Millie, I notice the wispy clouds and colors make a halfway decent backdrop and snap a photo to become our new WinnieViews blog header!

A short time later, Suzanne and her Bratty Tracker roll in and park behind us to get some free Wi-Fi of their own.  Winds are gusting at over 30 mph, and expected to continue for most of the day.  No fun to drive RVs on days like this, but Suzanne’s is running low on propane and the nearest refill available today is over 70 miles away in Terlingua, so no other choice but to battle it out and drive.

We take final photos of our little “Skinnie Winnie” caravan, and my dear traveling buddy retreats from the winds to rev up her Winnie and head west into the (eventual) sunset. What a fun and amazing time we’ve had these past 3 weeks!  Happy Trails, my friend!

I stay on a little longer to catch up with email and blogs from the past week, and decide to only go as far as Fort Stockton today. 

As Millie and I leave the bright green trees of the Rio Grande river banks, it marks the beginning of our 2,000-mile week-long journey back to chilly Chicago.  I pause to take one last photo of the cute little stone tunnel with the Sierra del Carmen mountains of Mexico towering behind it.  What an incredible Winter of travel this has been to both Mexico and Texas!

It takes a little over an hour to traverse this huge park and reach the northern entrance at Persimmon Gap.  We stop for Millie to stretch her legs and me to get a few last shots of the welcome sign and the Big Bend bluebonnets still in full bloom!

Our remaining drive north to Fort Stockton is pleasant and uneventful.  The winds have now diminished, and we roll into a decidedly less crowded “Camp Wally” than it had been here during Spring Break a couple weeks before.

The next morning, I check the weather forecasts carefully (always wise to do when rolling your home through the Midwest’s “tornado alley” in the Springtime!).  Rather than take the long, dull Interstate northeast across Texas, I decide to take a 2-lane highway over to the Texas Hill Country.  It’s still a bit early in the season for the best bluebonnet viewing there, but I should definitely see something!

Our selected Highway 190 begins with vast vistas of dry Texas scrub.  Not an overly pretty drive, but a different and interesting one.

Iraan, Texas sounds like a curious place, but there’s not much there other than oil field workers and (apparently) a very accomplished High School marching band!  I now start seeing dozens of oil and gas drilling rigs, and only now share the highway with large industrial equipment and tanker trucks.

The speed limit on these roads is 75 mph, and these big rigs drive that or faster.  Thankfully, the roads are pretty empty so they can pass my slower-moving Winnie without too much trouble!

As we drive through a 60-mile cellphone “dead zone”, I notice the flat oil fields have now given way to mesquite trees and the beginnings of rolling hills.  As we near our destination of Llano, Texas, I begin seeing small patches of bluebonnets along the side of the road.  This should make a very nice place to stop indeed!