UT-OH! The Introduction to a New Series

January 15, 2026January 15, 2026 / Curt Mekemson / 20 Comments

A family portrait taken near Santa Jose, California in 1945. My father, Pop, and my mother, Mother, are in the back. My sister Nancy, brother Marshal and me, the giggling two-year-old, are in the front.

Years that end in three have a special significance to me. They mean another decade has passed. I was born on March 3, 1943. According to the March issue of Life Magazine that year, Americans and Australians were duking it out with the Japanese at the Battle of Bismarck Sea, Westinghouse was firing frozen chickens at airplane windows, and women were wearing bow ties as a fashion statement. None of these events registered on my mind. It was still devoted to getting milk, although, looking back, I would have loved to have witnessed the frozen chicken splat test.

The introduction to my new series is below, but first I want to share a few thoughts in general about UT-OH.

My objective is to relate stories from my past in a memoir format which incorporate— if you’ll pardon the expression— Oh Shit! moments. We all have them, right. My focus will be on such experiences that you laugh about later, not on those you find yourself asking yourself, “Why or why did I do that?” I can haunt myself on those. I don’t need to haunt you.

Second, let’s talk about the name: Ut-Oh. Some of you may look at it and say, “Curt doesn’t know that the proper spelling of Uh-Oh. Maybe I should tell him before he embarrasses himself further.” For the record, I know it’s Uh-Oh, but Ut-Oh is how I pronounced it as a kid and I have every intention of continuing to, no matter how embarrassing. It fits.

Third, a number of these stories I have told in the past in my 15 years of blogging. In fact I even started to organize them once before. I’m doing it again. My apologies to those of you who have already read them. A handful have been with me the whole 15 years. I love you, but a good story deserves to be told over. And there will be new tales!

Finally, there is the issue of accuracy. Peggy read an article recently that stated the older the story from your early childhood, and the more it has been told over the years, the more likely it is to change. Very slightly each time perhaps, but after 75 years? Who knows. Here’s a summary of what AI has to say about it: “Yes, memories from early childhood change over time… reflecting how our brain develops, making narratives richer or more fragmented.” I like richer. Having said that, I’ve tried to make my stories as accurate as possible given my memory and active imagination. Each one actually happened, even if my mind has modified the script, especially from my earliest years.

My intention, assuming I don’t get sidetracked, is to post UT-OH stories on Thursdays and my normal travel blog and focus stories on Mondays.

UT-OH! AN INTRODUCTION

We all have Ut-Oh moments where things don’t go according to plan. Most are relatively minor, like spilling a bowl of spaghetti in your lap when you are having lunch with your future mother-in-law (first marriage). Minor, perhaps, but it’s better if she does the spilling. Either way, it’s an ut-oh in small letters unless your sense of humor (or hers) is out of whack. Even then, it has the potential for making a good story.

In this book, I am mainly talking about larger Ut-Ohs, even all cap UT-OHs— like the time a group of murderers, kidnappers, bank robbers, and Patty Hearst got stuck in a snowbank next to me on a remote mountain road in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. They were out practicing with their automatic weapons, apparently preparing to rob a Sacramento bank.

UT-OH is full of such tales. Most take place in the outdoors. How could it be otherwise given that I’ve spent over 77 years of my life wandering in the woods. I started when I was five by exploring the jungle-like graveyard next to my house. (I’d been kicked out of the first grade for a year.) At 75 I was backpacking 750 miles down the Pacific Crest Trail to celebrate my birthday. Now in my 80s, the adventures continue— as do the Ut-Ohs.

I know what it’s like to be stalked by a grizzly bear in Alaska, charged by a herd of elk in New Mexico, and attacked by army ants in Africa. Once, a rattlesnake tried to bite me on the naked butt. I hadn’t seen it slither into a cat-hole I had dug for bathroom duty in the woods and I’d almost pooped on him. Fortunately for both of us, he had rattled his displeasure as my rear loomed above him.

There are lessons to be learned in this book. Checking your cat-hole for rattlesnakes is one of many. For example:

You should sleep with your shoes in the sleeping bag when you are snow camping in minus 30° F weather at Denali National Park. Toasty warm toes do not appreciate being shoved into solidly frozen shoes.
Screaming loudly may dislodge a bear when you wake up at 4 AM with one standing on top of you.
It’s best to be in shape before venturing out on a solo 10,000 mile bicycle journey around North America. Boy did I pay for that. Did you know that having calluses in your crotch is an important part of preparing for a long distance bike trip?
And finally, I recommend you have more than a 20 mile backpacking trip behind you before you decide you are qualified to lead 60 people, aged 11-70, on a hundred mile backpack trip across California’s Sierra Nevada Mountain Range. The learning curve was straight up that time— for nine days in a row.

But hey, I’m a man who has been carrying a horse bone with him as a traveling companion for 48 years. What could possibly go wrong? Join me next Thursday as I get kicked out of the First Grade and learn that the graveyard next door is a very scary place at night.

Bone at Burning Man in 2023. He’s been there 10 times with me, starting in 2004. Here he is making a sacrificial offering to the Rain Gods: Not to make rain start. But to make it stop!

Everything had come to a dead halt, mired in mud. The porta-potties were overflowing and nobody was going anywhere. It was scary— a hair raising, nail biting experience. UT-OH!

We lucked out. A Ranger told me we could leave, given our powerful 4-wheel drive F150 complete with a special mud and ruts drive mode. Off we went, merrily fish tailing along while pulling our small Imagine trailer. Bone sat up on our dashboard, supposedly guiding us. He was covering his eyes instead. We were out in 20 minutes. A television camera caught us escaping and the video was shown nationally. When the Burners were finally released to leave the next day, it took up to 14 hours to get out.

Peggy found this photo of us escaping on an Imagine Trailer Facebook page.

I mentioned that you would learn things in this series. Here’s one way of keeping cool when you find yourself at Burning Man and the temperature has climbed over 100° F, dust storms are whipping across the Playa, and you don’t have air conditioning. Settle into your vehicle, take your clothes off, and cover your body in wet dish towels. In no time, you will be grinning like me. That’s it for today. Join me on Monday for our post on “Cats of the World.”

Hello Deer: I Won’t Say We Were Part of the Herd, But It Was Close… Focus on a Deer’s Life Cycle

January 12, 2026January 11, 2026 / Curt Mekemson / 31 Comments

Today’s post on deer is part of our focus series where I make use of our extensive photo library to feature a single subject. From 2011 to 2021 we lived in Southern Oregon up in the mountains about 30 miles west of Ashland on five acres that backed up to a million acres of national forest. There were many things that we loved about the property. The deer herd that insisted on calling it home was a big one!

I walked out my door one June day and found this fawn napping next to our doorstep. It was wedged in between the step, a chair, my walking stick, and a natural wood shelf we used for our shoes. One eye was checking me out but it obviously wasn’t worried about my presence. In its short life, it had determined that I was harmless and might indeed be helpful. Mom wasn’t worrying either. She was out browsing (eating) while her baby was sleeping. Our house and yard served as a safety zone for the herd and the cement porch was apparently the safest place in the yard, considering how often it was used as a day bed. Hunters weren’t allowed on our property and natural predators of the deer such as bears and cougars tended to avoid it— for the most part.

This was the first time we saw this youngster. Mom was performing some hygiene with her tongue while the baby ate. Grooming is common among deer and is one way they maintain close ties. We’ve watched adult deer simultaneously groom each other.

Fawns on our property were normally born in April or May, hidden away by the doe, and sternly instructed to stay put and not move when she was away eating for the first 2-3 weeks. The spots they are born with serve as natural camouflage making the fawns extremely difficult to see. They are also scentless when born, making them impossible to smell.

We did come upon a newborn fawn once. The mother had blown it and given birth right in the middle of our driveway. We were returning from town and sat for 30 minutes as the doe urged the baby to get up. Its twin was already off to the side. Finally the youngster stood on wobbling legs and managed to totter off to the side. I kicked myself very hard for not having my camera.

If this buck appears nervous, it’s for good cause. A few minutes earlier we had watched junior walk under him, see danglies, and assume they were udders. Reaching up, it had chomped down. Deer are noted for their prodigious ability to leap, jumping over fences as high as 5-6 feet. I swear this guy cleared 10! Apparently, the baby was coming back for more. The buck ran away. The small size of the fawn signifies how young it is. They grow fast. The buck’s antlers are still growing and are in velvet. More on that shortly.

Does brought their fawns by to meet us shortly after they had grown out of the ‘hide the baby’ stage. Or at least it seemed that way. Anyway, they trailed along with mom. At 3-4 weeks, they could easily keep up with her and even run fast enough to get away from many predators. They would dash madly around in our yard playing. Not sure whether baby is smelling its feet or scratching an itch. The ears on the doe are almost as big as its head! Deer have extremely sharp hearing and constantly move their ears to detect sounds that might suggest danger. I actually watched one with its ears pointed in two different directions.

Hello. The deer in the west are black tail deer as opposed to the white tail deer found in the east and the south. One sign of a black tail deer is its dark forehead.

The fawn from above and its twin walking across our deck. Speaking of the deck, it was right next to our bedroom and we could hear deer (and bears) when they crossed it at night. Once we heard a loud thump followed by two quieter thumps immediately afterward. I went out and checked the tracks in our yard the next morning. It was a deer that had made the loud bump as it landed on and cleared the deck in one leap. It was a cougar right behind in hot pursuit.

One of the reasons the deer were frequent visitors was that they considered our bird bath their watering hole, especially in the summer. The section of Southern Oregon we lived in has a Mediterranean Climate and is very dry in the summer. The nearest water was down the hill, across the road, and down to the Applegate River. I’m sure that the deer thought ‘why bother.’ The challenge was that two thirsty adult deer would come close to emptying the bird bath. Other deer, birds, squirrels, foxes, etc that used the watering hole were out of luck until I refilled it.

Hey, save us some water. We don’t drink much.

What is it that you guys don’t get about ***bird*** bath!

Who? Us? Note the antlers on the buck in the background. There’s a reason why yearlings are know as spikes.

My solution to the water hole problem was to add a five gallon paint bucket filled with water. It was a welcome addition. How welcome?

Well, baby climbing over Mom to get to it is an example. The laid back ears suggest that Mom wasn’t particularly happy with being used as an obstacle course.

No smelling this time. The fawn is scratching an itch. Flies, fleas and ticks all hassle the deer. Again, I enjoyed the three leg acrobatics. Now note the next photo…

One of the fawn’s responsibilities is to learn what is and isn’t edible. It watches what Mom eats and also smells her breath. Lavender isn’t on the deer menu. We grew lots. It took us a few years to figure out what plants the deer wouldn’t eat and plant accordingly. In the meantime, Peggy would rush out and lecture the deer. It was quite humorous, for me and the deer.

This young buck, who had leapt over our Gabion cage wall, climbed over the cement blocks, and worked its way past the lavender, stopped to listen to Peggy’s lecture before leaping up the cliff to gobble down the plants and flowers it loved to eat.

The real treat was acorns. Squirrels, turkeys, woodpeckers, Stellar jays, and bears seemed to agree.

Remember how I said the fawns grow up quickly. Check out the legs. Also note that the fawn’s spots are disappearing.

By fall the spots have totally disappeared. The young deer will hang out with their mom through the winter until she gives birth to her new fawn in the spring. Mom then chases them away. They aren’t happy about it and often continue to stay nearby for a while longer—at a safe distance. The young doe will become part of the herd that Mom, Grandma, and possibly Great Grandma oversee.

The herd of does browsing in our back yard…

The young buck, Spike, here growing his first set of antlers, will slip off to join the boys.

And now to the bucks. They lose their antlers in January and February and begin to grow new ones in March and April. A soft, hairy skin known as velvet covers the new antlers providing them with the blood and nerves necessary for bone growth. Aren’t the legs impressive?

The antlers will continue to grow until they have reached the size of the previous year and then grow larger, dividing into more points.

Bucks are judged by the size of their racks and the number of points on one side. A deer with two points is a forked horn, with three, a three pointer, and so on. The first year the deer grows spikes. Second year is normally a forked horn. Third year 3 and 4 pointers. Five pointers plus grow in the fourth year and beyond.

A three point buck without velvet. “Did somebody say apple?”

This big boy in velvet is a five-pointer. The back antlers are split but can’t be seen in this picture.

Two bucks displaying a forest of antlers! We thought this was a fun photo. Come August-September the antlers have completed their growth and the bucks scrape off their velvet on anything available, normally a tree or bush. It’s time to get in fighting form. One year we arrived home and found a buck using our hammock to scrape off his velvet. I chased him off but it was too late. The hammock was torn to sheds.

By November and December it’s time to decide who gets the girls.This is a contest that the bigger buck normally wins. Size is often enough to decide the outcome without a contest.These two three pointers have been checking each other out. The one on the left is larger and has a bigger rack, but…

They go at it, head to head and antler to antler.

The biggest buck shoved the smaller buck around. I worried about their eyes.

And then they separated without either being harmed. The big fellow seems to be saying, “You want more of me?” The smaller guy had had enough, however. He vacated the scene. For a day or so, the three pointer chased does around our yard, happily making the rounds and rutting away— until a bigger buck came off the mountain. After the rutting season is completed is when the bucks lose their antlers and a new year begins.

As you have probably figured out, this doe and her twins were the stars of our blog. She was usually somewhere nearby and was the first to bring her fawns by. Always curious about what we were doing, she often stared in our window. Here she is looking though our screen door.

Our house was surrounded by windows providing excellent views of everything happening outside. I had the best seat, however. I turned my writing chair around in our library and could watch all of the action in our backyard. We considered it a great privilege that the deer herd allowed us to share in its daily and yearly life. Here, Mom taking a snooze on our back porch, was about four feet away. That’s it for the day. Next up:

On Friday I will do the intro to the my memoir: UT-OH. I am blogging one chapter at a time. I am quite excited about the book and have already written 22 chapters. Please join me.

In Search of Wild Areas, Culture and Beauty in 2026: We Return to Costa Rica, Bali, and Scotland

January 6, 2026 / Curt Mekemson / 22 Comments

2025 was a good year for us from a travel perspective. We stayed home, so to speak, and limited our wandering to Hawaii, the Southwest, and New England. Now we have the itch to go abroad again. We’ve chosen three areas known for their beauty, culture, wild areas— and relative safety: Costa Rica, Scotland, and Bali.

First up: Costa Rica. We took the above photo when we were in a small plane flying back and forth across the country on a tour in the 90s. This year we will be renting an SUV with high clearance and driving ourselves. The country roads can be challenging— even in the dry season! Peggy and I will be going there for the month of March. Our son Tony and his family will join us for a week in Monteverde.

Next up, we will be visiting Bali. I visited in 1976 as part of a six month tour of the South Pacific. I’d lost my camera in Fiji, so I don’t have any Bali photos. I brought a painting home instead. The region is known for its colorful art. This one depicts a rice harvest. The woman on top is making an offering. It’s important to keep the gods happy. We will be there in May. Our grandson Ethan will join us for a week.

We met this fellow in Scotland when we were doing family genealogical research in 2014. He had positioned himself in the middle of the narrow road we were driving on for about 10 minutes before finally moving over to the grass. Peggy and my families were Lowland Scotch so we were in the southern part of the country. This year we are visiting the highlands, coastal regions and islands of the north in late June and July. We will be checking out castles and looking for Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster. Our grandson Cody will be joining us for two weeks. We are planning to hop over to Northern Ireland after Scotland.

Naturally, we will be blogging about our journeys. But there is more, as they always say on late night TV ads. Or at least they used to. Peggy and I don’t stay up that late and most of our TV time is streaming without ads. I am continuing our focus series over the next two months and beyond. “Oh Deer” is my next one. I’ll be featuring the herd that lived in our backyard in Oregon and liked to stare at us through the windows.

And finally, I’ll be offering a new series I’m calling “Ut-Oh” where I will be pulling together posts that I have included on my blog over the past 15 years plus new material featuring my more serious/humorous misadventures in my life. I’ll do an introduction to it next week.

The question here is why should such an innocent looking child be kicked out of the first grade for a year. My first post will answer the question plus relate how a caterpillar I was using to cut a road fell off a cliff— with me on it.

The Southwest: Where Geology Lives, Deserts Thrive, and Ancient People Speak… 2025 Wrap-up

December 29, 2025December 29, 2025 / Curt Mekemson / 30 Comments

As we noted in last week’s post, our 2025 wrap-up is based on three trips we made during the year and blogged about. The first was Hawaii, which I posted last Monday. Today’s post features our Southwest journey where we wandered through the Southwestern US for five months visiting national parks, state parks, and national monuments. Next week’s post will cover our three week leaf-peeping trip through New England in the fall.

The photos used in the three posts are all from ones we selected to include in three calendars we developed for our extended family, each focused on one of out trips. (Not all of the photos here made it into the calendars, but it was a flip-of-the-coin type decision.)

We discovered the towering rock above in Chiricahua National Monument, which is located in southeastern Arizona. The monument is named after the Chiricahua Apaches who roamed the area prior to it being occupied by pioneers from the eastern US. A couple of notes. One, the park is filled with a fascinating variety of rock structures. Two, we have discovered over the years that national monuments often include scenery, geology, history, plants and animals that easily match those found in national parks. They are definitely worth visiting and are usually far less crowded.

Petrified Forest National Park is found just off of I-40 in eastern Arizona. There are thousands of logs like the one above found in the park. You can still see the bark on this petrified wood that was once a tree that fell 200 million years ago.

While most people come to the park to admire the petrified wood, there is also much beauty such as the colorful ‘Teepees’ found on the main road. Each color has a different story to tell representing millions of years in geological history.

The Blue Mesa side road includes many other interesting and colorful land forms such as this. If you visit the park, be sure to take the short detour. A walk out in the desert on well maintained trails is definitely in order.

Ancestral Puebloans and other indigenous tribes left a view of their ancient world in Petrified Forest NP in petroglyphs on Newspaper Rock. While our understanding of what they were communicating is limited, there is magic in contemplating the possibilities.

While we are on the subject of petroglyphs, we found this unique one staring out at us in Petroglyph National Monument in Albuquerque, NM. Over 20,000 petroglyphs have been discovered in the monument. Peggy has plans to include this one in the revision of her word search book: *Artistic Word Searches, Unique and Magical: Discovering Petroglyphs from the Southwest.*

Canyon De Chelly (pronounced shay) is located in northeastern Arizona. Jointly operated by the Navajo Nation that owns the property and the National Park Service, Canyon De Chelly features striking canyon views plus Ancestral Pueblo ruins and petroglyphs left behind by both the Pueblo peoples and Navajos.

Our trip this past spring and summer took us into Califonia where we visited family and friends in San Diego, LA, and Sacramento. We also took time to visit Joshua Tree National Park in Southern California, known for its strange trees, after which it is named.

We found the rock structures to be of equal, if not greater, interest. Some of which could be said to possess personalities.

In addition to being known for its outstanding rock forms (think of the Grand Canyon, Zion, Bryce and Arches— plus what we visited this year), the Southwest is noted for its deserts and cacti, none of which is better known than the Giant Saguaro. We’ve often stopped to admire these huge plants in Saguaro National Park but have never been in Arizona when they are blooming. Things were about to change. Note the buds popping out on top of the arms.

This time we were lucky. The blooms are almost other-worldly, in addition to being a source of food for numerous insects such as the bee coming in for a landing.

A number of other cactus flowers also lit up the desert.

Like plants, animals adjust to the deserts of the Southwest. Several birds choose to nest among the needles of various cacti including the curved bill thrasher Peggy found raising her family in a cholla cactus. The thrasher was not happy when she sneaked up to it and her hatchlings to catch a photo with her iPhone. It’s probably a good thing Peggy couldn’t understand what momma was saying.

Bandelier National Monument, located mere miles away from where the first atom bomb was created at Los Alamos, New Mexico, features the ruins of homes built by Ancestral Puebloans that included natural and carved caves (cavates) with pueblo structures once built up against them.

Peggy and I climbed up to one of the cavates. It was quite cozy inside. “Honey, I’m home.”

Just beneath the cavate, this outcropping of rocks overlooked the large Tyuonyi Pueblo at Bandelier. A corner of the ruins can be seen here. It was built in a circle and contained contained 400 rooms.

This tall rock was among the rocks in the outcropping. My first thought was wow! Nowhere in our travels though out the Southwest have we seen a statue like it carved by Ancestral Puebloans or any other indigenous tribes. We had a guide to the trail we were walking on, but there was no information on the statue. Nor was there anything in the information center. The emphasis was all on the scenery, cavates, petroglyphs and pueblos. Human or nature carved, I would think that the park’s literature would at least comment on it. That’s it for today. Next up:

We wrapped up our year of travel with out trip to New England so it’s proper that we finish off 2025 with the trip.

Happy New Year to everyone and thanks for joining us on our adventures in 2025. It’s much appreciated. Costa Rica, Bali, and Scotland are coming up in 2026! Curt and Peggy

Wishing You All a Happy Holiday…

December 23, 2025December 22, 2025 / Curt Mekemson / 22 Comments

Each year, I create a Christmas Card for Peggy and me to send out to family and friends, and, I might add, share with you on Wandering Through Time and Place. Admittedly, they are designed to be a bit strange, and hopefully elicit a chuckle. After all, Santa is ‘a jolly old elf.’ This year, he has a bit of a problem, however…

Okay, let’s think about this. Rudolf only has to work one day out of the year. What in the world does he have to complain about? Well… Here’s some information I included on the back of the card:

-To start with, Santa is really old. He takes his origins back to Saint Nicholas who was born around 270 AD. That makes his age around 1700 years! No wonder he hasn’t kept up with modern production and delivery services. If he contracted with Amazon Prime, he, his elves, and the reindeer could all sit around a bonfire drinking rum infused eggnog and celebrate a job well done on Christmas Eve. Instead…

-He and the reindeer have to visit some 300 million homes. And, they have to do it in 34 hours, given changing time zones. “So what are you whining about?” Santa likes to argue. “I got you ten extra hours.” But what does that really mean…

-He has to deliver gifts to 9,127,789 houses per hour, or 2,536 per second. And what applies to Santa, also applies to his reindeer. That’s one heck of a lot of landing on roofs, taking off— and flying. How far do the reindeer have to fly, you ask…

-It’s been clocked at over 100,000,000 million miles by according to Santa’s odometer (and confirmed by scientists who have ‘worked’ it out). That means the reindeer have to fly a staggering 2,823,529 mile per hour.

No wonder Rudolph is upset about his pay. But Santa has a solution that won’t cost him an extra penny. He has recruited Rudolph’s girlfriend who is willing to work for less to get into the business of guiding flying sleds on foggy nights. Rudolph is not happy…

Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, and Blitzen are all for Santa’s decision. They think it will be a lot more fun to follow Rudette for 100 million miles than Rudolph. What a surprise? But wait, negotiations are under way, and…

There is good news from the North Pole! Santa and Rudolph have reached and agreement. 10 pounds of apples, 4 pounds of corn and 5 pounds of alfalfa will be added to Rudolph’s trough each day. Plus, he will have Rudette along as a partner on Christmas Eve to help light up the night and his life— at equal pay. Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, and Blitzen will each get 9 pounds of apples, 3 pounds of corn, and 4 pounds of alfalfa, and, they still get to follow Rudette. Everyone is a winner!

Wishing each of you a great holiday season and a healthy and happy New Year. Thanks for coming along with us on our journeys this past year!

Curt and Peggy

*A final note, I know that Ut-Oh is usually spelled Uh-Oh but Ut-Oh is how I pronounced as a kid and continue to today.

2025: Focus on Hawaii… The Year in Review

December 22, 2025December 21, 2025 / Curt Mekemson / 11 Comments

Our blogs each year, for the most part, are based on our wandering ways. We kicked off 2025 with a trip to the Big Island of Hawaii where we stayed in a VRBO 30 miles outside of Hilo for a month, rented a car, and explored the island. Spring and summer found us wandering through the Southwestern US for five months, pulling a small trailer behind our truck, and visiting national parks and monuments. In October/November, we left the trailer behind at our home base in Virginia and traveled for three weeks through New England admiring the beautiful fall colors.

Our next three posts will be devoted to doing our yearly wrap-up of our travels— based on our annual calendar. Each year we select 13 photos from among what we consider our best travel photos for use in a calendar we create for our extended family. This year we created three: one for each of the areas we visited. Family members got to choose which calendar they wanted. The photos for today’s post were selected for our Hawaii Calendar. The orchid above is one of numerous different species found at the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden just outside of Hilo. We highly recommend a visit if you travel to the Big Island. Over 2000 tropical plants are found in the garden.

Big leaves are expected whenever one travels in tropical rainforests. Having served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in tropical Africa for two years, I can speak to this personally. Peggy and I were particularly impressed by the beauty, size, and importance of taro leaves to native Hawaiians. Served as a food staple thoughout the islands, Taro is also important in Hawaiian mythology where Taro is regarded as the ‘Elder Brother’ of humankind.

If you are a crossword buff, you will know the name of this bird: Meet nene, the native goose of Hawaii.

While we photographed a number of birds, as always, we found this slender golden plover particularly attractive. It hardly looks like it is up to a 3000 mile journey to get here each year, but it is. Breeding and raising its chicks in the arctic each summer, it makes the 3000 mile journey to Hawaii each August/September where it will live and feed until April/May when it will make its return journey to the far north. A couple of other facts we found interesting: It often flies non-stop and it always returns to the same location. We would likely find this same bird here if we traveled back to the Big Island this year!

Any discussion of the wild birds of Hawaii almost always includes chickens which arrived in the Hawaiian Islands with the Polynesians around 1200 AD, went wild, and have since interbred with modern chickens brought over in the 19th and 20th centuries. We found this gorgeous fellow wandering around in the forest near us.

The anole is another interesting member of the Hawaiian wildlife. We had been shopping at a local supermarket when we came out and found the colorful lizard on the hood of our rental car. I suggested that it might want to relocate but it refused, even when we were driving 50 miles per hour down the road. Turns out that anole lizards have specialized toe pads covered with millions of tiny, microscopic hairs that create molecular attraction with slick surfaces. They are related to the iguanas I featured three weeks ago and even come with dewlaps.

We were fortunate to find the Kīlauea Volcano active during our visit in February. We watched as it spewed lava 300-400 feet into the air. By November, it was shooting lava as high as 1500 feet!

Isaac Hale State Park was located 15 minutes away from where we were staying south of Hilo in the small development of Seaview on the coast. The park was the end of the road for us. No sign was required. An eruption of a side vent on the lower east rift zone of Kīlauea sent lava spreading out over 14 square miles in 2018, destroying 700 homes, blocking several several roads, and covering a portion of the state park before reaching the ocean. Residents of Seaview watched in fear at the time, hoping that the lava flowing a mile away wouldn’t reach their development. They lucked out.

Having destroyed homes and blocked roads, the lava finally plunged into the ocean, sending steam high into the air and adding new land to the island. This is what it looks like today off of Isaac Hale State Park as waves from the Pacific Ocean roll in.

With Hilo, Hawaii receiving over 100 inches of rain a year, it isn’t surprising that there are a number of waterfalls in the surrounding country. Rainbow Falls is actually located in the town.

Coconut trees are a common sight in Hawaii.

As are Banyan trees. This one was located in downtown Hilo.

While we spent the majority of our time on the Hilo side of the Big Island, we did take a day to drive over to the Kona side, which is where most of the tourists hang out. We went to check out a petroglyph site we had been to before and visit the Puʻuhonua o Hōnaunau National Historical Park, or Place of Refuge. Ancient Hawaiians who broke sacred laws could flee to the site and find safety instead of death. A number of wooden carvings like these represent the Hawaiian gods that once protected the sanctuary.

That’s the overview for our trip to Hawaii. Next up is the Southwest.

Our trip though the Southwest took us to three national parks and five national monuments. This photo is from Chiricahua National Monument in southeastern Arizona.

I want to give a special thanks today to Lauren Scott at baydreamerwrites.com who did a great review of my book, The Bush Devil Ate Sam. Lauren is a published poet and author of a children’s book. Her most recent works include King Copper and Cora’s Quest. King Copper is a touching collection of poems about her dog, a chocolate lab, that recently passed away. Cora’s Quest is a children’s book that follows a young fawn as she goes on a delightful journey of exploration through the woods with her parents— until she gets lost.(Don’t worry, the book has a good ending.) You can learn more about both books by visiting Lauren’s site listed above.

What I like most about Lauren is her humanity— her warm sense of caring. Here’s what she says about her writing: So, whatever genre I share with you, whether poetry, personal stories, fiction, or kid-lit, I hope you’ll discover a piece of writing that evokes a special memory or acts as a reminder that you are not alone living with your emotions. Maybe you’ll get a good laugh, after all, we know laughter is the best medicine. Or perhaps you’ll experience an ‘aha’ moment.

Dangerous Romanian Apple Is Caught Slipping into US without Passport… With Us. We’re Back!

October 14, 2024October 14, 2024 / Curt Mekemson / 30 Comments

This apple is a dangerous criminal, an illegal alien attempting to slip into the US from Bucharest without a passport. I am using it here to hide my identity as it is interrogated under the bright lights of the law in a US Customs Detention Center at Dulles Airport. I can still hear the questions, over and over: “Are you or are you not an apple? Did you or did you not come from a former Communist Country? Where is your passport? Is it your intention to destroy America’s apple crop and replace it with foreign apples? What about oranges, grapes, turnips, and petunias?” Petunias?

Peggy and I were innocent victims. The apple was using us for its nefarious purposes. The staff at our hotel in Bucharest had slipped apples into breakfast paper bags when Peggy and I, along with her brother John and wife Frances, checked out at 2 AM. They had included a sandwich made up a slice of cheese and a slice of ham on white bread without any condiments, plus— the piece de resistance— a two-bite muffin. I’d eaten the sandwich and muffin on our ride out to the Bucharest Henri Coandă International Airport. I was suspicious of my apple, however. It had a not-right feeling. I tossed it into a trash can. Let the Romanian authorities deal with it.

Peggy, on the other hand, had visions of eating the apple somewhere along the way on our seemingly endless journey as a defense against starvation. She slipped it into an extra bag she was carrying for gifts and the apple immediately burrowed itself into the bottom of the bag, where it hoped to be forgotten. I can’t blame it for not wanting to be eaten, but apparently it had other motives as well. I don’t know what John and Frances did with theirs. I’d watched Frances cut up lots of them on our trip down the Danube, however. As for John, it probably depended on his political assessment of the apple. Had he thought of it as liberal, or radical, he would have consumed it on the spot, down to its very seeds. Had it been Libertarian, he would have coddled it, possibly even slipping it into Texas where the laws are different (not really, when it comes to US Customs).

We had a 4 hour layover in Zurich where the apple would have been consumed except we were traveling business class and could hang out at the Swiss Air lounge where all sorts of goodies were available for eating. Likewise, we were fed two full meals on our flight from Switzerland to Virginia. The apple continued its happy and secretive existence in the bottom of the gift bag— until we were in the middle of a massive crowd of people slowly making our way toward the passport check stations. It was then that Peggy saw the sign: “All travelers entering the United States are Required to Declare meats, fruits, vegetables, plants, seeds, soil, animals, as well as plant and animal products (including soup or soup products) they may be carrying. The declaration must cover all items carried in checked baggage, carry-on luggage, or in a vehicle.” The food might contain dangerous pests. Not declaring it is a crime subject to fines up to $10,000!

It was an “Oh poop,” moment. Oh well. Having lived in California for many years, we were used to border checks for fruit. We either got rid of it before entering the state or declared it if we hadn’t. I’d stopped being overly concerned when the border checks were frequently unmanned. If we declared fruits, the guards told us to throw it into a nearby trash can, or eat it. So much for the dangerous pests.

When we reached passport control, Peggy bravely pulled the offending apple out of her bag and explained why she had forgotten it. “Here, you can have it,” Peggy offered with one of her dazzling, disarming smiles. “Or is there a place I can toss it?” The agent reacted like Peggy was offering her a dead rat with the bubonic plague. She grabbed Peggy’s passport and locked it up in a plastic box for Peggy to carry. “Follow that red line to Custom detention,” she told her. Suffering from guilt by association, I was directed to go with her.

We opened the door and a very stern looking fellow took Peggy’s passport and glared at the apple. We were told to go sit on the side with a lot of other people. We would be allowed to go when and If the agents found no more apples in our luggage, which, at the time, was going around and around on the Swiss Air’s luggage carousel. “Can I go pick up the bags and bring them back here?” Peggy asked. “No” was the terse reply. “You will not bring fruit into the country,” we were reminded again. We were very close to being criminals. Agents would go collect our luggage so we wouldn’t try to escape.

A sign declared we were to take no photos or record any conversations. I understood why. Four agents were standing in the back of the room sorting through a pile of garbage four feet high and four feet across, carefully pulling out each piece and examining it. I certainly wouldn’t want my photo taken doing that. I hoped that they were well paid. As for the no photos, I wasn’t going to take any photos of their secretive activities, but I really did want a photo of the apple.

I pulled out my MacBook Pro and opened Photo Booth. Positioning my apple where I wanted, I pushed the red cameral symbol. BEEP, BEEP, BEEP the computer went as it counted down. The wasn’t an ‘Oh poop’ moment. It was an “Oh shit” moment. I imagined guys with guns rushing over to grab me. I quickly closed my laptop and waited. Nobody seemed to have noticed. The problem was, I wasn’t happy with the photo.

Out came my laptop again, this time with the sound turned off. I positioned the apple just so (as you see it above) and snapped another photo. The only thing I could see in the photo that might be considered in the no-take area was a TV that featured Mr. Potato Head on the left and an orangish looking guy with horns on the right. Satisfied, I put the laptop away and we waited. And waited. Another family of four was in the same strait we were. The daughter had brought a closed package of beef jerky to give to her brother, which was apparently a crime even more serious than ours. Her father was roaming around like an angry bee.

A half hour passed, and then an hour, and then an hour and a half. Each time the agents brought in luggage, Peggy and the dad would jump up to see if ours was included. Nada. Once the agents brought in 20 pieces from a French airline. Who knows what that was about. Maybe the French were trying to smuggle in a hundred pounds of Foie gras. The French fellow they were holding couldn’t (or wouldn’t) identify any of the luggage. I felt for all of the passengers who were wondering where in the heck their luggage had disappeared to.

Finally, the dad went over to talk to the “Big Guy,” who stood about five feet tall, and asked if he could go out with an agent and identify his luggage. Maybe the fellow was feeling a little guilty about the dad’s long wait with children. He said yes. Peggy, who knows an opportunity when it knocks, ran over and requested the same privilege. Five minutes later Peggy and the dad showed up with the luggage that the agents hadn’t been able to find in two hours. Ten minutes later our luggage had been scanned, Peggy had her passport back, and we were free to go. It was one AM in Bucharest. We had been traveling for close to 24 hours. All’s well that ends well. We had been worried that the following photo may have shown our fate.

Peggy is threatened with having her head cut off at Vlad the Impaler/Dracula’s castle in Transylvania. Our guide, whose name was also Vlad, was wielding the ax. That’s it for the day. Next up, we will start our Great River Series, including our adventure down the Danube River.

Happy Thanksgiving

November 23, 2022 / Curt Mekemson / 32 Comments

TURKEY DRESSING FOR THANKSGIVING DINNER.

Peggy and I want to wish you and your families a Happy Thanksgiving. Enjoy your day!

The card is from a series of Christmas, Thanksgiving and Birthday cards I created and copyrighted a while back. I’ll introduce you to the self-stuffing turkey at Christmas. Grin.

The Rhine River Trip Begins… The River, a Cathedral and a Chocolate Factory!

October 21, 2022October 20, 2022 / Curt Mekemson / 23 Comments

While the first part of our journey lacked the beauty and castles of the Rhine River Valley we were about to explore, it wasn’t lacking in charm.

Birthdays are important to Peggy. When we first met, she told me “Forget my birthday and you are toast.” She was kidding, sort of. Apparently her first husband forgot the warning. I never have. Grin. Decade birthdays are even more important. For her 70^th, Peggy planned a special outing. We would take the whole family on a riverboat trip up the Rhine. The kids and grandkids loved the idea (who wouldn’t), tickets were purchased, excitement grew, and then Covid struck.

While Peggy is usually laid back and willing to ‘go with the flow,’ she assumes a more regal persona when it comes to her birthdays. I laughed when I came across this crown chair in Rheinstein Castle and asked Peggy to pose under it, which she did good naturedly. Note the shocked expressions on the faces of the two Norse gods.

Fortunately, our kids came up with an alternative for Peggy’s big 70. They rented a large house on the Outer Banks of North Carolina for the celebration. We hopped in Quivera, our small RV/van, and zipped across the country. Carefully. Covid was raging. It was a great celebration and Peggy was quite happy. But the riverboat trip was not forgotten. We still had the tickets and would use them as soon as Covid calmed down and Europe let us back in, which happened this past summer.

I’ve already done two posts on Amsterdam where we started and ended the adventure. Today, I am kicking off the series about our trip up the Rhine.

It was special, no doubt about it. The boat trip in itself was a delight— good food, nice rooms, and great service. (Admittedly, Peggy went first class. But what the heck, it’s only the kids’ inheritance.) While I am not a fan of mega-cruises with thousands of people and their impact on local communities, I will admit they are good for family outings. People have their own space. They can come together or go their own way. No one has to plan entertainment, no one has to cook, and no one has to clean up. It reduces the likelihood of the trauma that sometimes accompanies family get togethers. Our riverboat offered all of these advantages plus one more, a big one: there were only a hundred people.

Our boat, the River Empress of the Uniworld Boutique line.

An example of the gourmet food we were served. I’m lucky I only gained a couple of pounds on the cruise.

Today, I am going to feature the first part of our journey. The countryside was relatively flat and industrial centers frequent. While it lacked the scenery and castles of the romantic Rhine River Valley we were about to experience, there was beauty and charm. And, we ended up in Koln/Cologne where we visited one of the world’s most beautiful cathedrals— and a chocolate museum/factory. Have I ever shared how much Peggy loves chocolate?

The photos for this post and all of the Rhine River series are all taken by Peggy and me unless otherwise noted.

There was plenty to capture our attention along the lower Rhine including colorful towns…

Attractive, modern cities and, I might add, a lot of beautiful bridges.

If we ran out of other things to entertain ourselves with, there were always barges, scads ands scad of them, each carrying up to 2500 tons. Annually, more than 300 million tons of goods are shipped along the Rhine serving Switzerland, France, Germany, and the Netherlands, making it the most important river in Europe for commerce.

The ease and inexpensive nature of river travel has encouraged the development of industry along the Rhine. For example, one fifth of the world’s chemical industries are located along its banks.

As might be expected, fighting pollution in and along the river is a major challenge. Global warming presents another problem: Drought has lowered the level of the river so much by late summer that it limits the ability of barges to navigate it.

Coming into Cologne, one of our first views was of the magnificent Cologne Cathedral that we were going to visit. First up was the chocolate factory, however. Peggy does have priorities. It was like Christmas to her…

She found a chocolate Santa and made a beeline for it. Who needs chocolate bunnies?

Of course there were *chocolate bunnies*, and even chocolate elephants. This is the mold for one.

But the prize, from my perspective, was the purple cow. Our grandson Cody agreed to pose with it and I recited the old poem to him: “I’ve never seen a purple cow, I never hope to see one. But I can tell you anyhow, I’d rather see than be one.” Maybe the last line should be changed to “I’d rather see than eat one.” I’m 99.9% sure the cow would agree with me.

The pre-Columbian artifacts on display caught my attention even more that the purple cow.

I’m not sure if the ancient artists had a sense of humor in creating their art, but these made me smile.

As we left the Chocolate Factory/Museum, our five grandsons agreed to sit with Peggy for a photo. It’s something akin to herding cats. I think she bribed them by buying them chocolate goodies. Cooper, the youngest is in front. He just turned 10 this past week.

As we left the museum, we took a final photo from outside.and started our hike over to the Cathedral.

The Hohenzollern Bridge loomed up in the distance.

As we approached the bridge, we saw that it was filled with people walking across. Most of them were involved in Cologne’s Gay Pride festivities that were taking place.

We also passed by another of Cologne’s famous landmarks, the Great St. Martin Church.

Finally we reached our objective, the Cologne Cathedral, which kept both of our cameras busy in an effort to capture its beauty. This is the back of the church.

Every angle provided a different perspective.

We discovered gargoyles lurking near the top.

Making our way toward the front of the cathedral.

I’ll finish up today with one of the things I find strange, if not downright weird, about so many of Europe’s medieval churches is their collections of pieces of long dead saints, like a finger, or a toe. The Cologne Cathedral is known for its collection of Magi parts, the Three Kings who came to see Christ bearing gifts. I believe they are stored in this gold reliquary.

Next Friday we will visit our first castle as we begin our trip up the Romantic Rhine River Valley. And— we meet some old friends we had never met before!

Amsterdam: Just Ducky… Things that Entertained Us

September 23, 2022September 22, 2022 / Curt Mekemson / 25 Comments

We are never bored when we wander. There are always things that capture our attention. It may be something we find beautiful, or educational, or interesting, or simply amusing, like the whacky-quacky characters above. The store caught us by surprise with its large duck and all of its ducklings that represent a multitude of professions and occupations from kings to rabbits. We had a traditional rubber ducky for awhile. It lived beside our bathtub and was occasionally known to go for a dip. I suspect we still have it, packed away for the time being. Do you have a rubber ducky? Are you willing to confess to it? Note the bike reflected in the window. As I said in my last post, it’s hard to take a photo in Amsterdam that doesn’t include one.

I found drinking this large beer amusing. And it became more so as I worked my way through it. Peggy stuck with the smaller one. I’m used to drinking pints. There are a multitude of brew pubs found in the US and it’s always fun to sample their wares. The locals in Amsterdam seemed to love their beer even more. I noted many of them were sipping out of mugs that we would call pitchers. My elder bladder would have little sense of humor about that! I’d be up peeing all night.

A walk down any of the streets is heaven for cheese lovers like Peggy and me. Alas, we had no way to pack it up and carry it home. (Photo by Peggy Mekemson.)

Just one of these large blocks would have fed us for months. You’d certainly want to sample it first. Imagine getting it home and discovering you didn’t like it!

This woman, carrying her large blow-up doll certainly caught our attention. We could only wonder about the large pink appendage. 🙂

We had never found a take out place that featured only French fries. Peggy loves them. She almost divorced me once before we were married because I stole one of hers. This store featured the fries cooked in a multitude of ways.

Peggy went in and ordered their smallest container. The fries were soaked in garlic, and, at Peggy’s request, smothered in ranch dressing. It became dinner for both of us. Heartburn!

I like fries. I certainly ate my half of Peggy’s score. But this tasty grilled lamb rib is more to my taste. Finger food, right? My hair was looking wild because we had dodged into the restaurant during a downpour. (Photo by Peggy Mekemson.)

We had failed to notice the name when we dashed in. El Pimpi: The Pimp.

Maybe it was the reason I found the poster of this cool cat in the men’s room.

This cat was the major attraction of another restaurant we ate at.

Just across from the restaurant, someone had found a unique way to keep his window propped open.

At first I thought this dog in the window was part of the show at the Orphaned Art Gallery. Then it wagged its tail. The description of the gallery on its website noted: “We are definitely not a typical gallery. OODE brings the work of young Dutch designers together with orphaned art – art from closed museums and art institutions. For this we work together with the Foundation of Disinherited Goods (Onterfd Goed).

Not all coffee shops are alike. Our Uber driver was taking us into our B&B when Peggy noted a nearby Coffeeshop. “Oh good,” she exclaimed, “We can go there for lattes in the morning.” “Uh, Peggy,” I noted, “they might serve lattes but the primary purpose of most Amsterdam coffee shops is serving marijuana. Your morning pastry would probably be laced with cannibis.” “Oh,” she smiled, not the least bit daunted.

Unique art is something else that always catches our attention. Birds had added their decorative touches.

It’s impossible to walk up and down the canals of Amsterdam without admiring the unique look of buildings. And the unique method of getting furniture in and out of the apartments… (Photo by Peggy Mekemson.)

Let me note in advance, how narrow the stairways are. And steep. This led up to our room. Imagine trying to maneuver a couch up this stairway. Or refrigerator!

The buildings compensate by having a pulley system using the upper arm that can haul furniture up to rooms and then in through windows. Note the decorative sculpture.

The imagination that has gone into the narrow homes of Amsterdam seems almost endless.

Another example. (Photo by Peggy Mekemson.)

Larger buildings also had both beauty and personality. This is the main train station. Numerous restaurants and shops are inside.

Now it has been repurposed as an attractive indoor mall.

The Droogbak office building is another repurposed building of beauty. It was originally designed in 1884 as headquarters for the Dutch Iron Railway Company. (Photo by Peggy Mekemson.)

Several large churches dominate the Amsterdam skyline. I took several photos of this one.

A view from across the canal. (Photo by Peggy Mekemson.)

We caught this impressive spire from a canal boat we were riding in.

And finally, a Catholic Church reaching toward the sky.

Our next major series will be on our Rhine River trip where we will take you along the river, introduce several castles, visit cities like Heidleburg, and make a journey into the Black Forest. But first, I thought it would be fun to take a quick break and catch you up to date on our present journey where Peggy and I will take you into Badlands National Park in South Dakota. Get ready for seeing rock spires instead of church spires and communing with prairie dogs, big horn sheep and buffalo, up close and personal from the safety of our truck.

Wandering through Time and Place

Exploring the world with Curtis and Peggy Mekemson

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