Just a flower in the rain

 Seasons!!  Rain!!  Green things with flowers!!  What a lovely place the Czech Republic is.  

River High, River Low

Two things I love about a temperate, four-seasons climate:

-Change

-Rivers

And here you see both together.  Sorry that I didn't get the perspective consistent, but that white graffiti under the bridge is the same graffiti in each picture.

During snowmelt:

Two days later:

Now:

The river was amazing this winter.  First it froze. People scraped snow off perfect rectangles and played hockey on it.  Then it started melting in interesting and sometimes hard-to-explain patterns.  Then sudden warmth turned it into a raging brown torrent full of floating pieces of ice.  As it receded it turned an opaque blue-green, like some glacier-fed rivers I've seen in Alaska and the Alps.  Now it's back to its gentle, crystal-clear state.  So cool.

Another view of a different spot on the same three days.  The path leading down to the river is the same road leading down to the same river.

Misty Hike in the Czech Republic

Above the clouds:

Then, descending INTO those clouds:

It all felt so mystical and adventurous.  And so very, very beautiful.

I love Czech nature.  

Kayaking on the Morava River

I'd been scheming to go boating on the gentle Morava river in the Czech Republic, but I wasn't sure if it was going to come together.  It did!

First step:  camp in Moravičany so I can get a nice early start.  Some views from near my campsite:

Second step:  Rent a kayak and gear (I rented from Tydra, but there are various companies)

Third step:  Paddle, drift, repeat.  Portage around the weirs.  Paddle, drift, repeat. For 28 river kilometers.  Enjoy the greenery and the wildlife (lots of good birds, some fish, a snake, two fighting hares, and some not-shy nutrias)

Fourth step:  Learn better kayak techniques.  I have more experience with canoes than kayaks, and very little river experience (mostly lakes--and seas), and I didn't have the BEST control of the kayak.  So I exerted more energy than was necessary.  Before my next Morava boating, I'm going to figure out better strategies...or maybe I'll convince a friend to go with me and rent a canoe instead.  :)    

Vanishing Treasures; a Bestiary of Extraordinary Endangered Creatures, by Katherine Rundell

 

Very well written, very interesting.  I loved the weaving of biological facts with the myths we've developed around these creatures and the history of our interaction with them.

But…it's also profoundly sad.  I hope it helps change some people's minds about what we're doing to this planet and her inhabitants, and I hope that changing of minds leads to action.  Half the proceeds go toward charities working to push back on climate change and environmental destruction. 

Rating:  4.5 stars

Stranded, by Melinda Braun

 

I enjoyed this.  I'm a sucker for man vs nature and working-together-to-survive books, and this delivered.

I did find a lot of things hard to believe.  [MINOR SPOILER ALERT]  One of the major ones was the issue with directions.  It's like day 8 or something.  They're intelligent, with some outdoorsmanship between them, and they've had several days with at least partial sun, and they're all like "I wish we had a compass to figure out which direction is which."  And I'm thinking, um…look at the sun!  No, it won't give you an exact direction, and a lot depends on the season, latitude, etc., but if all you want is—for example—to head eastward to eventually run into a road or something, the sun will give you a pretty good clue.  But none of them even think about that?  And the solution they eventually come up isn't hugely more accurate, so why on Earth does one character keep asking the makeshift compass holder if they are still going east, when I get the distinct impression the compass holder is actually leading them south?  Can't the others tell, more or less, if they're going generally in the right direction or not?  This was a major plot point, so it really bothered me.  [END SPOILERS]

A lot of other things stretched believability (the cliff thing, the wolves, etc), and the characterization could have been a little deeper, but it was a fun read, a good adventure, with the situation getting worse and worse. The writing was smooth.

[SEMI SPOILER ALERT]  And I liked the way it didn't go all fantasy but stayed grounded.  [END SPOILERS]

Recommended for people who don't mind a bit of unbelievability in their survival stories. 

Oh...and I like the author's name.  :)  

Four Stars

Phoenix, Arizona vs Vsetin, Czech Republic

 I don't think I really need to say much more:

Left:  South Mountain Park, Phoenix (admittedly not in the lushest of seasons, but...it's this way a lot of the year).  Right:  a typical hike (in summer) from the hills around Vsetin.  

Grand Canyon Teaser

 Soon I'll post all about my rim-to-rim Grand Canyon backpacking trip, but for now, here's a simple picture:

Small Joys

 Found while transcribing a journal of mine from the Czech Republic:

Things I love:

-Strangers lighting their sparklers from yours

-Duck prints on the frozen river

-A billion diamonds scattered in the snow

Total Lunar Eclipse March 13-14, 2025

 Not sure I really need words:

Just a Backyard Flower

 Sorry, I took this picture to test my phone's camera, and I thought it was so pretty I had to share:

October full moon in the Grand Canyon

Delayed posting:  this was from October 16, 2024 at Mohave Point on the south rim of the Grand Canyon.  The (almost) full moon rose in the east just before the sun set in the west, so whichever direction you looked, it was gorgeous.

Full moon:

Sunset:

Chipmunk Thief

At the Flagstaff, Arizona Arboretum:  

Me:  Hey chipmunk, are you stealing from the poor little hummingbirds?

 

Hummingbird:  We're just sharing. It's all good.  

Colossal Cave, near Tucson, Arizona

Me enjoying the Colossal Cave Ladder Tour.  We got to climb around in the cave, sometimes on cool ladders and catwalks and natural cave surfaces, sometimes on the regular route, once in the dark.  We got to touch certain features (carefully, and with gloves on).  So much fun!  

Here I'm playing music on the stalactites with a rubber spatula.

And in this blurry one, you can see a little of the ledges we got to edge around.  :)  Sorry the pictures weren't better.

Some pretty cave formations:

Cool Bug

I found this cool bug in the garden (well, cool except that it was eating a bee--poor bee).

Look at those beautiful colors!  

Aspen in Flagstaff

 Photo taken October 15, 2023 on the Aspen Loop at Snowbowl, just out of Flagstaff, Arizona:

I don't really think I need to say anything else.  😊

Except...keep track of the colors on Flagstaff's LEAFometer, try to go on a weekday, be prepared for crowds, and try to take another more isolated hike while you're here.  

Willow Springs Lake, Arizona

This is beautiful Willow Springs Lake, on the Mogollon Rim near Payson, Arizona.  

And here's our little friend:

We went on August 13, straight from Phoenix where we'd had record heat for a record length of time (30 straight days of 110 or more, record number of days above 115, nights with lows of 97)  

 So when we got to the lake, we got caught in a monsoon.  The wind was blowing something fierce, and we got wet and...COLD!!!  It was amazing, being cold. 

Colorado River at Phantom Ranch 2022 vs 2023

These are two pictures I took of Boat Beach, near Phantom Ranch in the bottom of the Grand Canyon, one late April 2022 and one a year later, early May 2023.  

They're not from exactly the same place (even if I'd tried harder to do that, I would have had to stand IN the water the second picture).  Look at that rock out in the water with the tree growing out of it.  Then compare to the bottom picture.  There's an interesting difference in color, clarity, and level of water.  

A couple of weeks before the second pictures, they'd purposely released a lot of water from Glen Canyon Dam.  I think this was one of the results.  We'd also had a record year for winter rain and snow.  All I know for sure is that the difference was amazing.

April 27, 2022:

May 8, 2023:

The Grand Canyon from Yaki Point

So beautiful!  And even more thrilling when you can see the trail you're going to be following the next morning at dawn.  

Photo taken May 7th:

What Happened to the Sonoran Desert?

The Sonoran Desert may be the lushest desert in the world, but "lush" is relative.  Until yesterday.  I'd never seen it so green.  We've had more rain and cooler temperatures than usual lately, and the rain has been at better intervals than normal.  And this...this is the beautiful result.  One guy I met on the trail said, "It's like a golf course!"  So all the people who are in town for the Super Bowl and are out hiking are going to be like, "Why do these people think they live in a desert?"  

Pictures are from the Phoenix Sonoran Preserve (Desert Vista Trailhead).  The greenest sections were on the back end of the Desert Tortoise trail and the Valley Vista trail (which also appears on some maps as the highly accurate--as of today--Valle Verde trail).

The poppies were also out:

Hike Stats:

Distance: A little over 11 miles

Elevation Gain:  A little over 2700 feet

You can take much shorter hikes here.  I was training for the Grand Canyon.

My route:  From the Desert Vista Trailhead up the Hawk's Nest Trail, clockwise on the Dixie Mountain Loop to the Western Vista Trail (which I did twice), then to the Dixie Summit Trail (which I did twice), then to the Valley Vista trail, then clockwise on the Great Horned Owl trail just to the Union Peak Trail (which I did twice) and then backtracked on the Great Horned Owl trail and the Valley Vista trail to the Desert Tortoise Trail and back to the parking lot.  BEAUTIFUL hike in this weather and this green.