My Fellow Americans

The long road, somewhere between Vernal and Vail

My husband and I like to travel and often we will choose to drive. We don't really like the fact that flying has such a huge carbon footprint, and it takes so long to deal with the airport. Besides, flying is uncomfortable and it's not always more convenient. Driving may or may not take more time, but it gives you flexibility and room for all your stuff, and and it's nice to have a vehicle at your end destination. I don't love interstate highway driving, but I do enjoy seeing how the view changes as we move from state to state and zone to zone, going from lush green forest to desert, hilly to flat to mountains and back. 

Wind Farming in Oklahoma 

Southwest Colorado

Nearing Telluride, CO

Cotton Fields in the Mississippi Delta

This summer we took a pretty epic road trip. We drove more than 4000 miles, from Athens, GA to Telluride, CO and on to Salt Lake City, and then back home again, with overnight stops in Tupelo, MS, Little Rock, AR, Shamrock, TX, Santa Fe, NM, Denver, CO, Wichita, KS, Bentonville, AR, and Birmingham, AL. We have an electric vehicle and so we charge 1-2 times a day on a long drive, and plan for a hotel where we can charge overnight. We usually eat lunch while the car charges which takes about 45 minutes. Whenever possible we try to find local eateries. Sometimes the chargers are located in parking lots with no food service nearby, so we hang around the car and snack or pick up munchies from a Walmart, one of the most common businesses that offer charging stations. Occasionally we luck out and find wonderful, fast chargers in beautiful settings and that makes a huge difference. Often while we charge, we have conversations with fellow EV drivers or people who are curious about how it works. Everyone is eager to compare notes about the various EV's and share good and bad charging experiences. 

Just a couple of EV drivers having a chat at the chargers

Typical hotel charger

This charging stop in Moab, UT is probably the nicest one we've been to. The chargers were fast and plentiful, and while you wait you can picnic or hike along trails that lead to Arches N.P.

We set out on the road one morning in late July, heading to Little Rock. We spent the first night in Tupelo, MS, and we came back to our hotel from dinner just as a massive flock of Purple Martins was flying overhead. I stood and watched for a good 15 minutes as tens of thousands of birds flew over in waves. Other people in the hotel parking lot were watching this amazing sight, too. It was marvelous. We shared a moment of awe and appreciation.

Tupelo, MS

A few nights later, we stopped for the night in Shamrock, TX, a small town just over the OK/TX border on old Route 66. We picked a hotel that said it had a charger, but when we tried to plug in, the charger just wasn't working. This could have been a problem for us, but the busy and kind hotel manager helped us by calling the charger company and resetting the system. She didn't know anything about the charger, and said hardly anyone used it, but she gamely came outside in very hot weather and worked on the phone with customer service to help us out. She said they get a lot of storms and the chargers probably got knocked off line. We thanked her profusely and let her know how helpful it was to have stops like this available on the road. Later that evening, we walked around town to find something to eat and ended up at a local bar and hamburger restaurant that happened to be hosting live music outside. The place was busy and everyone seemed to know each other and the musicians, but they made room for us and welcomed us in. We got a table by the yard and ate dinner while we listened to great music as the sun went down. 

Summer Music in Shamrock, TX

When we arrived in Santa Fe and then Telluride (our main destination, for a conference) we joined the ranks of fellow tourists in vacation destinations, where none of us were locals and we were all just passing through, enjoying the food, culture and scenery. People were from everywhere and from all walks of life and political persuasions and we all managed to get along just fine. And each leg of our journey gave us another taste (sometimes literally!) of the incredible diversity and beauty our country has to offer. 

Dead Horse Point in southern Utah

Silver Lake at Brighton, Utah

Traveling through Española, NM and Durango, CO, Green River and Vernal, UT, and Oxford, MS, we ate delicious regional food (blue corn pancakes with piñon nuts, or green chili cheeseburgers, or catfish and greens, anyone?) charged our car, rested up, and enjoyed our short visits. Everywhere we go people are friendly. Servers in cafes ask us where we're from and tell us what not to miss in their town. People in hotels or museums or parks are quick to say hi and chit chat about weather, cute dogs, etc. We get a lot of "Go Dawgs" when my husband has on his UGA hat. Mostly we don't know who they are voting for, and they don't know about us, though sometimes we can all guess, but it doesn't seem to matter. Everyone is nice. I know the friendly reaction might be different if we were not a middle aged, middle class, white, heterosexual couple, but even in small rural towns where we stood out with our EV, my jeans and nature t-shirts, and my husband's beard and long hair, everyone treated us well.

Huevos Rancheros in Santa Fe

Catfish for lunch in Oxford, MS

For the trip home from Salt Lake, we chose a slightly more northern route than we have taken before and it led us through the Uintah and Ouray Reservation in Utah, then to Denver via Glenwood Springs, across Kansas, up to Bentonville, AR, and down to Little Rock. From there we drove the back way through Oxford, MS and down to Birmingham, AL and on to Georgia. The highways on this route, until about Birmingham, were smaller and we slowed down and enjoyed the scenery as we moved from the Rocky Mountains to the plains. We saw farms and forests, wind farms and oil fields, deer and antelope, prairie dogs and golden eagles, and watched storms blowing in. Arriving back home in Georgia, I felt happy that we had experienced so much of our huge and beautiful country. 

Denver after a big rain

Storm clouds building on the Kansas prairie

We spent a night in Wichita, across the Arkansas River from the stadium for the local minor league baseball team, the Wichita Wind Surge. There was a game that night and it looked pretty fun but we'd arrived in town too late to consider attending. 

We stopped in Bentonville, AR to see the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. It was totally worth the visit. This is a work by James Turrell. The blue is the sky, seen in this "Skyspace", a structure with a hole in the ceiling. The colors and reflections and shadows change constantly through the day.

Sleeping Cows in Arkansas

Crossing the Mighty Mississippi River

Busy Birmingham

Home, Sweet Home

Now, here we are on Election Day, and there is a great deal of uncertainty and anxiety all across the U.S. We are fearful about what the future brings. No matter who wins, the other side will be scared and angry. We mistrust the intentions of the politicians and the people who surround them.  I am very concerned and this election has been keeping me up at night. There is so much at stake. But I don't buy that the people of our country are as divided as we are led to believe. I think we are not all that different from each other. We all want a good life for our families and friends and we care about the places we live in. I have observed this through our travels and at home in my own neighborhood. At core, regardless of what we might be told by people trying to scare us into voting a certain way, we get along with our neighbors and are kind to strangers. We may disagree about our politics, but we put that aside and pitch in when we see someone in need, as evidenced in the recent hurricanes. We volunteer to feed the hungry, clean the roadside, coach our kids' sports teams, lead scout troops, and staff polling places. We say hi when we pass on the sidewalk. We smile at kids, and pet dogs. We hold doors open. We look out for each other. Most people are kind. We live in a beautiful country of good people. And our differences make us interesting! We are all in this together. No matter who wins or loses the election I will be keeping this in mind.

Fall-ing in Love Again

American Lady with Blue Mistflowers and Rudbeckia

I am so happy that Fall is here. I'm not talking about pumpkin spice or sweater weather. I love fall because this is when the wildflowers are at their peak and the butterflies arrive in force. The bees and wasps will have been busy all summer, but the butterflies like to wait until the flowers are at their tastiest and most beautiful. It's my favorite time to lead kids on hikes at the Nature Center. We see so much! Spiders, caterpillars, butterflies, stick bugs, mantises. Fall is full of life. I learned to love fall wildflowers when we lived in Florida and I worked at Morningside Nature Center. I got to know the flowers of the Longleaf Pine Sandhill there, which is one of the most beautiful things ever. Click here to read my blog about it: https://earthteachme.blogspot.com/2013/09/morningside.html I started my flower garden at home to attract butterflies when I saw how they loved the wildflowers in the sandhill. The flower show in our garden starts small in the spring with welcome but small sprouts of green and flashes of yellow and pink. But by fall it is a mad burst of purple and gold, tall stems tumbling over each other. I could barely walk the path through the middle of the garden today because it had grown so thick. But the result is a moving carpet of rainbow colors, buzzing, fluttering, and chirping. The birds, rabbits, squirrels and deer love it too. 

Katydid

Fall is the time that I get to step back and just admire and enjoy the fruits of my labors. It's my reward for the sweaty work planting, watering and weeding that I do in the spring and summer, though admittedly, nature does most of the work. It's a joy to just step out the front door and be surrounded by such beauty. I take far too many pictures. It makes me happy to see other people pass by the yard and stop for a picture of their own. A runner yesterday waved and said "¡Que Rico!" and blew kisses to the flowers. It makes me feel good to provide a nature sanctuary on a busy corner where campus buses drive by every few minutes and commuters line up at the beginning and end of their day. I love this garden.

On the Bus Route--Goldenrod and Asters Abound

American Lady, Blue Mistflower, and the Commuters

Fall is also hurricane season. It's been a wild week. On Thursday we watched the destruction in Florida as hurricane Helene grew to a category 4 storm.We anxiously waited for it to roar over the top of Athens during the night. I took pictures of the garden on Thursday, fully expecting that it would all be smashed flat by the storm the next day. But Friday morning we woke to light rain and some wind gusts and found that we had come through mercifully unscathed. The storm had taken a more easterly path. But then we saw the terrible damage as it tore through up the eastern half of the state and up to the Carolinas, Tennessee and Kentucky. There was some damage in our town, but nothing like what happened all around us. We feel very lucky--the devastation and loss is shocking. Some of those communities will never be the same again. Our garden was untouched.

The Day Before the Storm 

Then on Sunday we started getting reports of a toxic chemical fire in Conyers, about 40 miles to the west, and to be prepared to stay inside with windows closed if the chemical cloud started to drift our way. Luckily the fire seems to be under control and the cloud has not made it here yet, though it looks like the toxicity would be diluted by the wind by the time it got here if it did. But 17,000 people were told to evacuate, many to Athens. Crazy. What's next? An asteroid? Volcano?

Not smelling any chlorine because the toxic cloud was far away, I took a walk around Lake Herrick, where I used to walk all the time and in January had started writing about for an exercise in exploring place. I've been avoiding going there--it just makes me sad since the nursing student was murdered there in February (see previous blogs). I hadn't been there since June. I decided to go see if I could find any of the birds that had been reported after the hurricane (I didn't). It was nice to walk the trails again, but it still felt sad. This summer the university installed numerous emergency call boxes throughout the woods as a safety measure. I understand why they put them in, but for me, seeing the bright red light in the woods just reminds me that it is a sad place. I'm just not sure I can write about my connection to the place any more. I get distracted by the misery. So I am letting that "Journey in Place" project go. I'll certainly go back to Lake Herrick over and over again. But reflecting on my feelings there is too sad, and I feel like having the project hanging over me has been a burden that kept me from being able to write at all. I've been stuck. But walking home from Lake Herrick, I saw my garden up ahead in the distance, all full of movement and life, and I felt relief, and the urge to write about it. Just the nudge I needed. Thank you, garden, for giving me joy, beauty, and peace.

Pearl Crescent on Rudbeckia

Cabbage White on Blue Mistflower

Yellow Collared Scape Moth on Blue Mistflower

Fiery Skipper on Blue Mistflower

Buckeye on Blue Mistflower

American Snout on Blue Mistflower

Ocola Skipper on Blue Mistflower

Swamp Sunflower

Leafcutter Bee on Blue Mistflower

Ailanthus Webworm Moth on Blue Mistflower

Georgia Aster

First Monarch of Fall

Staring into the Sun

Eclipse Art in the Park

I have seen a few partial solar eclipses over the years. The first I recall was when I was in high school. I stood out on the front steps of the building with my classmates and we took turns looking through sheets exposed film, which in hindsight, wasn't so smart. In later years I showed my kids how to observe the sun safely on a piece of paper through pinhole cameras, and watching the myriad tiny eclipse images that shone through the leaves on the trees and onto the sidewalk. We got about 80% of the Annular Eclipse last fall and were able to watch it with our granddaughter. Eclipses are really special events.

Mini Eclipses through the leaves in 2017. We never saw these this time. 

In 2017, my husband and I had the exciting chance to see a total solar eclipse just about an hour's drive from our home here in Athens, GA. We weren't sure what to expect, but we had our safe eclipse viewing glasses this time (no exposed film), and I brought my camera to try to photograph the event. I did take photos once we were in total darkness, but I had not thought about needing a filter for the camera as the eclipse was progressing, so I did not get any images of the sun slowly disappearing. It was an amazing experience. Nothing really prepared us for the full deal. The difference between the filtered light of a partial eclipse and the total eclipse is hard to even express. I wrote about the 2017 eclipse in my blog here. At the end of the day we knew that if we had a chance to see another total eclipse we would jump on it. Immediately after the eclipse, the news reported on upcoming solar events and it turned out that the next one would be on April 8, 2024, and Little Rock, Arkansas, where our daughter lives, would be right in the zone of totality! 

Gotta Be Safe!

I'm happy to report that we made good on our promise and were able to take the trip to Little Rock for the total eclipse last week. We were nervous about the weather right up to the day before. Rain and clouds were on and off in the forecast for weeks. And the state of Arkansas warned about traffic problems with the huge crowds that were expected. The governor declared a state of emergency. 

Party in a Box

So Fun!

Eclipse Ice Cream is the Best Kind!

Arkansas Travelers Getting in on the Fun!

We woke up Monday morning to a clear, nice day and set up our chairs and snacks and gear on the driveway in our daughter's front yard! It's so convenient to live in the path of an eclipse! The City of Little Rock gave away some cute Eclipse Watch Party boxes. They had fun themed items like Moon Pies, Capri Sun, Sun Chips, Sunflower Seeds and Orbit Gum. Pretty cute. The state transportation department had some amusing electronic signs on the highway. The whole town was getting into the spirit. A local creamery created special "Dark Side of the Moon" Ice Cream. The Arkansas Travelers baseball team wore jerseys with a total eclipse on the back and sold them after their weekend series as a fundraiser for the team. Downtown there was an Eclipse Fest with a Pink Floyd cover band. Free eclipse glasses all around! 

Awkward and Wobbly Tripod

Heavy, but much better. Totality is only 3 minutes!

I was better prepared for photography this time. I bought a filter for my camera and got a lot of images of the partial sun. I practiced using the filter to take shots of the full sun before we left for our trip. I still wasn't quite prepared for the whole event, though. There are so few opportunities to photograph a total eclipse that I couldn't really practice in the dark, so each time was a learning experience.  When the sun was suddenly covered by the moon, I forgot that I had to take the filter off to see anything and fumbled for a few seconds trying to find the eclipse in the viewer before pulling off the filter and snapping away. If I do this again I might bring a sturdier tripod. But I did ok holding the camera in my hands.

Eclipse Family!

Sun through the strainer

Eclipse Sparkles

We were also prepared to entertain and protect a 4 year old. We helped her decorate a paper plate to hold her glasses against her face. This was an ingenious idea found online. We also brought out a colander to use as a pinhole viewer on the ground, and a sequined stuffed animal to shine little eclipses. The images through the colander proved pretty unsatisfying, and we also didn't see the changes in the light shining through the leaves of the trees on the ground. I don't know why. The sparkly sequins gave a fun effect. A few neighbors came out on their lawns to watch, and we could see people at nearby businesses outside, too. It was very merry.

Full Sun (taken in Athens as a test--sun spot is in different location in later photos)

As the visible sun appeared smaller and smaller, the light changed and it started to feel like dusk at 1pm. Confused birds called. Sensors up and down the street turned porch lights on. The sky was darkening and the temperature dropped. Because we were in the city with traffic sounds, we didn't hear insects like crickets, but still everything seemed quieter. Just as it got totally dark a large flock of crows flew overhead, cawing loudly. Suddenly it was dark and we all tore off our glasses to look at the marvel of a completely blocked sun. We could see stars. The sun's corona glowed from behind the moon and we could see colored flashes that were solar prominences. The totality lasted almost 3 minutes, which was much longer than we had in 2017, at 1 minute, 20 seconds. It was one of the prettiest things I've ever seen. All of us just stood and marveled. Even the four year old. 

Totality

Corona and Prominences

Corona and Prominences

Baily's Beads--Light rays from the Sun streaming through the valleys along the Moon's horizon. 

"Diamond Ring" Effect

And then the first flash of light, called the "diamond ring effect" and the totality was over. The sun is so incredibly bright that a tiny sliver of light from the edge lights the sky and burns the eyes. Glasses and filters back on, and we watched the cheshire cat smile of the sun growing from the bottom of the sun up as the moon continued in its path. 

I'm not sure, but I think that after doing this two times, I may want to be an umbriphile, or person who chases eclipses. The next one will be visible from Iceland and Spain in 2026. Sounds pretty good! Or better yet, Australia has 4 coming up between 2028 and 2038! But this was the last viewable in the US until 2044, so I'm awfully glad we got to see this one! Shine on!