September at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center and Yellowstone

I spent two weeks in September, 2008, at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming, mostly doing library research for my book on Indians and horses. The McCracken Library there has a treasure trove of memoirs, photos, and books old and new about the west, including many resources for my book. I rented a little house and spent most of my time pouring over books and photos in the library.
Cody is close to Yellowstone National Park, one of my favorite places, and I managed spend my weekends there. Usually, I focus on the Lamar Valley, where I'm most likely to see wolves, but this time I also hiked in the southeastern area of the park, where I was lucky enough to encounter these curious pikas along the trail.
The area around Cody is also great for hiking and biking, as the town has many nearby trails and is surrounded by mountains. I developed a fondness for the town's many waterfront trails, where I found these lovely fall wildflowers blooming. As you can see, Cody is quite a dry, desertlike place.
The Wild Bill Historical Center surprised me--I had imagined it as a fluffy touristy sort of place, but I was wrong. The Center has wonderful museums full of interesting information and artifacts, from the largest collection of firearms in the United States to a beautiful Plains Indian Museum and another museum filled with the art of important western painters, as well as one celebrating the life of Buffalo Bill Cody, an important figure in the history of the "Wild West," perhaps the most influential of all in forming the American vision of life in the Old West.

Catching up and Crow Fair

I let time get away from me and neglected my blog, but after a very busy year, I'm back to it again. I will spend the next days getting caught up on what I've been doing, as I think much is of interest to others.
This summer, I'm finishing the manuscript for a book about Indians and horses, and my research for that book has taken me to special places in Montana, in books, and in my mind and spirit. For thousands of years, Plains Indians had no horses. When the Spanish came in the late 1500s, they brought horses with them, and by about 1750, all the Plains Indians had them, revolutionizing their cultures.
My first journey for this book was to Crow Agency, in southeastern Montana, for the annual August Crow Fair, nicknamed "The Teepee Capital of the World" because of the more than 1,000 teepees pitched there for the celebration. Indians from all over the U.S. and Canada come to participate in the rodeo and races and to socialize, and Crow families gather to catch up with their loved ones. Every morning the Crow people parade proudly through the camp, dressed in their finest outfits, riding their beautiful horses. It's a delightful occasion, and an opportunity to experience how this tribe has maintained its close relationship to horses despite all the horrors its people suffered as European Americans took over the prairies. My favorite part of the experience was watching the young people riding through camp bareback and hanging out on their horses around the rodeo grounds.

Visiting Schools

I recently visited three schools in Granite Bay, near Sacramento, CA. Speaking to children about being an author and about the adventures my work takes me on is always a great pleasure. The enthusiasm I see in the students about nature and animals gives me hope that they will help keep our planet healthy enough that we can continue to share it with the wild world.

I stayed at a B&B in the countryside. There, on the outskirts of a major city, I saw springtime nature thriving, with tadpoles in the ponds, butterflies in the air, and birds like this egret fishing. I felt like my own childhood self again, exploring nature and being delightfully surprised by what I found. It was wonderful to see nature alive and well both in the outdoors and in the spirits of the children in the schools. I hope that the children, too, get opportunities to go outside and explore, to make their own discoveries about the wild world that shares their world.

It's been too long since I've added to my blog. A few days after writing my last post, I watched the morning unfold from my bedroom window--yes, I do have this view!--and realized that winter DOES have color at times, even beautiful magical color. Now we're into the beginnings of springtime, with returning geese, ducks, and songbirds. A pair of blue birds has already claimed the nestbox on the meadow near our road, and small flocks of birds rise up from the trees and speed their way to another perch. Soon, the first shoots of daffodils and tulips will peek out from the soil and I will know I can look forward to the blooms of spring.

The importance of color

Here I am, back in my home in Montana, happy to be back, but missing color in my environment. I look out my window and see the snow white meadow, with bunches of dead tan grass sticking up through the snow, and the blackish green ponderosa pines scattered about and forming the forest on the mountain. Instead of showing you a photo of this scene, I'm using a photo from our time in Hawaii, land of gorgeous color. Between sunsets like this one and the tropical flowers that blaze in gold, orange, cerise, and crimson, the island is awash in color. My love of color is one reason I've taken up watercolor painting as a hobby and been attracted to painting Hawaiian flowers. While we were there, I didn't lift a brush, except to paint the cabinet interiors of our condo. But now that I'm here, I am eager to paint again, maybe to conpensate for the lack of color in my environment.

Beautiful Hawaii

We're now at our condo on the beautiful Kona coast on the Big Island of Hawaii, right on the oceanfront, where we can watch surfers, green sea turtles, and spinner dolfins every day. What luxury! We rent the condo out most of the time but reserve the month of November for ourselves. I see Hawaii as a place of special beauty--the flowers, the music and dance, and always the ocean. Then there's the drama of the volcano, Kilauea, which has been active now for about 20 years. While I'm here, I've been giving workshops and talks, too, so it's not all relaxation!

More travels

A long time has passed since my last posting. I was on the road from mid-October, first for the wonderful Author Festival in Eureka, CA, where I spoke to children about my adventures with and books about wolves at Cutten Elementary School and Pacific View Charter School. The students were great! I also enjoyed seeing writer friends and making new friends and seeing the beautiful redwoods.
The volunteers who run the Festival are great--well organized and enthusiastic. I've been part of the Festival now for many years, and I always look forward to the next time. It's important for children to meet authors. The names on book covers don't mean much, unless the children can see that they are actual real people, with real lives. Meeting authors sparks interest in books and in reading, which is so important, and more difficult to promote to kids in this highly visual age.