Have you Hugged YOUR Tree Today?

Chaplin Nature Center, Arkansas City, Kansas



Chorro and I visited the Chaplin Nature Reserve on the Arkansas River today. My dog gets so happy when I turn him off the leash to run that it sometimes makes me laugh out loud. At times it's difficult to find a place where it's safe for him to run, so he waits patiently, and when his time comes, he takes full advantage of it.



Today I learned that an acre of trees produces enough oxygen to support twelve adults. Additionally, trees hold carbon dioxide and thus help prevent global warming. Did you know that trees also help clean the air by retaining particulates of pollutants? I gained new respect and gratitude for these beautiful trees growing here in the Nature Reserve and elsewhere.


We had a glorious blue sky fall day. It was a good day for walking and listening to leaves crunch and kicking them up to see how high they'd fly. I even saw a few floating off the trees all by their own choice.

Kansas is known for its tall prairie grass, which was used by native people in this area to construct their homes. Here's a pretty cool earlier days house constructed from prairie grass that we saw at a museum!

Prairie grass reaches 6 to 10 feet tall, although the grass here at the Nature Center is only about 4 or 5 feet tall. It's a very nutritious grass for grazers so of course it isn't surprising to know the deer hang out nearby. Kansas has a Tallgrass Prairie Preserve just east of here in the Flint Hills, but we didn't go to see it. I am told it is stunning in the spring when the grass is green.

We were startled by a small family of white-tailed deer in this meadow. They left with apologies, too quickly for me to get my camera positioned. I hope one day that I might become observant enough to photograph wildlife, but I think it means that I need to see them before they see me. I know, I know, some of you are thinking, "Ditch the dog," but THAT ain't gonna happen!

The Arkansas River runs through the preserve and then cuts the town of Arkansas City. Here in Kansas it is the R-Kansas River, not the Arkinsaw. The sandy beaches gave it a playground look.

This may have been the inspiration for John Denver's line, "Blue is just a summer Kansas sky!"

Today's entry is short, but we're working on filling in the blanks of the last week or two. I say "we" because I am typing while Chorro is supervising at my side. Watch this space.

Winter Comes to Wyoming

Kaycee, Wyoming. October 12, 2008

Within about 48 hours, our quiet haven in Wyoming went from balmy to blizzard! It began as rain, then changed to sleet and finally big fat white snowflakes. One of those storms that close highways in Wyoming.


Now to be honest, I really wanted to be farther south somewhere when this happened in Wyoming. Because it not only snowed, it got very cold. And I will admit that my concept of 'very cold' has changed over the last year of traveling through the South in the winter. Montana winters, like Wyoming's can easily see 20 or 30 degrees below zero. It wasn't that cold. Nevertheless, my poor RV had huge icicles hanging off her nose!


Thank goodness my brother-in-law knows about "winterizing" RV's and helped me drain her plumbing and pour some pink stuff in her tanks to keep them from freezing up.

But she shivered nonetheless, as you can imagine. She did spend two winters in Montana, so this was not totally foreign to her, but she was in hibernation those two winters, all drained and made snug and secure in her own little piece of the driveway. The car is my "toad", newly purchased this year to be "towed" behind my RV. She was a Spokane Washington car in her former life and blizzards were not unknown to her, either, but I did make some promises about being in Mississippi this winter . . .


I think we had half a foot of snow piled up before it stopped.




Here's the view from my sister's living room. Well, it is pretty, in that Christmas nostalgia sort of way.


Before long, the sun returned and I had an opportunity for some lovely contrast photos of the white fields and blue skies. Days like these are very energizing, as any ski enthusiast will agree. This is east-central Wyoming from Kaycee to Casper.


In spite of Wyoming's winter beauty, I NEED to go South!