National Parks | Idle Minutes

Category Archives: National Parks

Great Falls of the Yellowstone

01-Feb-08

Second to Old Faithful, The Great Falls of The Yellowstone is the most visited place in the park. There are a couple of vantage points and I believe you can get up close via a trail. Unfortunately we didn’t have the time for the hike.

When one takes a look at these falls from a distance, you can still hear them and see the mist rising from the roiling pool below. There is an enormous amount of energy in all that moving water. The resulting canyon is beautiful and textured with randomly undulating cliffs and washes dotted with Ponderosa pines. As with the Grand Prismatic Spring, you enter that unhindered place in the mind where you just observe and wonder…and pause. No cares, no worries, just beauty.

This piece is up for auction on eBay if you are interested.

Also filed in Landscapes, Nature, Postcard Art, Travel Sketches | | Comments (4) »

Yellowstone - Grand Prismatic Spring

31-Jan-08

This is another quick post from the Yellowstone trip we took in 2000. As I mentioned in the last post, Yellowstone presents other-worldly landscapes.

Grand Prismatic Spring is in the Midway Geyser Basin alongside the Firehole River. It’s the largest hot spring in the U.S. and third largest in the world.

You just want to stand there like a zombie and stare at it. The tourists around you suddenly seem to be very distant as your mind lets go of your troubles and concerns and you enter a zone of non-thought. Many places in nature provide that sort of solace. We’re blessed here in North America with an abundance of them.

This little painting is up for auction at eBay if you are interested.

Also filed in ACEO Art Cards, Landscapes, Nature, Travel Sketches | | Comments (6) »

Lamar Hills - Yellowstone NP

28-Jan-08

Back in 2000 we took a trip to Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons. This little scene is a simple landscape from an area of the park called Lamar Hills. It’s a pastoral part of the park, peaceful and serene.

The rest of Yellowstone is peaceful and serene too in an other-worldly sort of way.
Steam. Steam is all around. Every geyser and spring brings it forth. It lends an air of ethereal mystery to the place.
Bubbling mud pools.
Acres of travertine terraces.
A beautiful lake with hot springs beside it.
Mountains, rivers, streams.
Waterfalls, big waterfalls.
Boiling hot springs and pools the color of Scope mouthwash, trimmed in a array of colors from white to mustard to rust, where bacteria actually thrive.
Bison strolling down the highway — big as your car.
Moose, bear, elk, deer, raccoons, yellow-bellied marmots, park workers, and a bunch of other critters all around.
And to top it all off, just about the whole thing is a volcanic caldera due to go off big time between now and the next 100,000 years.

So, here is a pastoral scene from Yellowstone. More to come.

This one is up for auction at eBay if you are interested. An inexpensive way to collect some original watercolor art. Small and collectible.

Also filed in ACEO Art Cards, Landscapes | | Comments (2) »

Rose Hips

21-Sep-07

Sorry for the delay in posting. I got tied up in regular life for a bit. Now to resume the travel sketches from Maine…

Everywhere we went in Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park there seemed to be these shrubs with little red thingys on them. I would say they look like itty-bitty tomatoes.

My dear wife enlightened me. They were Rose Hips.

“Why do they call them hips dear?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they look like hips.”
“Good answer dear. I have no idea what you mean by that.”
“Me neither.”

That was the limited discussion we had on the matter. Even so, I was somehow captivated by the little stinkers and decided to sketch them. These were at Thunder Hole, which is a place on the rocky coast where the waves crash into a large pocket in the rocks and create, well, a thunderous noise…I suppose. The tide was out and no thunder was being produced.

Even so, it seemed a place where shrubs of any type might not have an easy life.

With no thunder in the making, I began to observe the effort undertaken by the Park Service to produce the long concrete stairway, worked right into the rocky landscape, right down to the hole itself, complete with a nice viewing deck.

One would no doubt get drenched standing on that deck when thunder production is taking place.

The stairway had a very nice stainless steel railing all the way around it. Very expensive and not the first one, as sawn off rusty nubs of steel posts sat grouted in the rocks beside the existing railing. Evidence of previously failed design and installation.

I admired the effort because with the harsh environment of the salt water and air, even the stainless steel railing suffers from rust and broken welds. In other words, the whole thing was a real design challenge in the first place and remains a maintenance challenge even with the use of stainless steel. But the Park Service thought we citizens would enjoy the ability to get right down on top of such a natural experience and took up the challenge. A fine job they did and still do. You and I would not otherwise be able to safely view and experience first hand “the thunder”. It’s a good thing…and educational thing…and enlightening thing, to get that close to harsh, secret places in nature.

I suppose I should have sketched the stairway, considering all the effort that went into its creation.

But the Rose Hips…they set footing there at Thunder Hole without the aide of the Park Service. They were alive and stable in the same tough environment that the stainless steel was having trouble with. I wished to myself, as I studied them up close along the stair walk, that I was as tough as them. And yet still somehow able to be…rosy.

So I sketched them.

Also filed in Everyday Objects, Nature, Stories, Travel Sketches | | Comments (12) »

Acadia National Park, Sand Beach

13-Sep-07

Acadia National Park, like all our National Parks, is a truly beautiful place. Perhaps the rocky coast is the most enjoyable for me. There is just so much character in the cliffs where the land meets the sea.

This particular little spot was called Sand Beach. It is exactly that. It sits in a cove between where the sea comes to meet the rocky cliffs on either side. It’s a crescent shaped semi-circle of coarse sand, cozy but roomy enough to wander.

And wander we did. We were the only beings there on a September Thursday evening just before dusk, except for some seagulls. In the sand was an endless tapestry of seagull foot prints in all directions as far as I walked. Seagulls I take it, like to walk on the beach.

My wife explored and I explored, each sort of wandering on our own and taking in the serenity of it all. It’s one of those places you don’t want to leave.

The waves make the kind of noise that sets your mind at rest when they crash to the shore. Loud but gentle. Predictable. Dependable. Watching a wave come to shore, from its first noticeable whitecap, building to its abrupt crash with the land, to its then thin coating of water slipping up the sand beach, sliding forward fast, then slowing, creeping further, a little, a little more…then retreating back to the sea, energy depleted, momentum lost, is a mesmerizing thing.

There is something eternal about it. Peaceful.

I wonder sometimes if the original inhabitants of this land ever came to places like this and just sat, all alone, thinking and contemplating…you know, a couple thousand years ago. On this side of the world there wasn’t much to think about back then perhaps. But I bet if they knew it was here, they came…and they sat and they felt the peace.

Also filed in Landscapes, Nature, Travel Sketches | | Comments (6) »

Portrait Attempt

07-May-07

Yesterday I went on a hike. That should be non-eventful except I haven’t done any (read zero, none) exercise in fourteen months.

I took the camera thinking I might see something worth sketching but not really wanting to interfere with the exercise.

I chose Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park because I simply like the place. There is a one mile hike to the top. As hikes go, the guidebooks would rate it strenuous I think.

When I was forty-one, I had gotten to a point where I could hike it non-stop in fifteen minutes.

Now, I’m forty-nine and I didn’t make it to the top. I got nauseated, rested, trudged on, got nauseated again, rested, trudged on, got nauseated one last time just for fun, rested…and took my picture.

I took my picture with the intent of sketching it for this post and giving it the title “Portrait of a Fat Man in Total Misery”.

As it turned out, the pose doesn’t look like I felt all that bad. Trust me. I did. The nausea is from over exertion when the body has been decommissioned from active service. Trying to de-mothball it with such a strenuous challenge was the problem.

What I Learned…

I learned the extra forty pounds I’m carrying has got to go.
I learned the lack of regular, disciplined exercise has got to go.
I learned that cold pressed watercolor paper makes for rather leathery looking skin when scanned.
I learned I need to work on portraiture a lot if I’m ever going to try and paint anyone but me.

As for the portrait, it’s not too far off the mark but I’m not very satisfied with my portrait skills. I usually give myself a fair amount of critical leeway because I’m doing this for fun. But portraits need to capture a “likeness” and I haven’t really done enough people drawings to get my mind ’round that yet.

It’s a matter of practice. So, you may have to tolerate a few attempts at people drawings in the coming posts if I decide to concentrate on honing those skills.

As for the forty pounds and lack of exercise…the decision’s been made. Permanent changes are a comin’.

Also filed in Real People, Sketching and Drawing, Stories | | Comments (8) »

Christmas Postcard No. 1

02-Dec-06

In an effort to spread some Christmas cheer, I’ve got a little thingy going on here for my new email subscribers. You may need to check it out to fully understand this post.

It so happens that the first new email subscriber is Jim Burnett, the author of a book called “Hey Ranger”. It’s full of funny stories about the, well let’s say unwise, things people do in our National Parks. I found the book in the midst of creating the Illusive Hoary Marmot post. In doing so, I also found Jim’s website and sent him the link. I figured it would give him a chuckle since it was yet another National Park story.

Well, Jim got a chuckle and he decided to subscribe to the blog via email. Honk! Honk! we’ve got a winner! Jim gets a Christmas postcard and here it is…yep, that’s him…sort of.

If you’re a real life funny story addict like me then you’ll like Jim’s book. It got very good reviews at Amazon and he even has a second book coming out in 2007. After 30 years of being a Ranger, he’s probably got enough stories to write more than a few books. You can find the book in your local bookstores or at Amazon. Here’s a link to it at Amazon.