Thursday, November 25, 2010

Happy Thanksgiving

Illustration of Peter Rabbit with his family, ...Image via Wikipedia
Happy Thanksgiving to all my American friends down south.  Don't forget that too much turkey can be soporific.  I wonder if Beatrix Potter was the only children's author to use that delightful word.  Anyone out there know of others?
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Monday, November 22, 2010

Snowy weather

This is what it looked like out my window when I got up this morning.




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Thursday, November 18, 2010

Dec. 4 is Take Your Child to a Bookstore Day






















So many independent book stores have gone under.  It's about time that we started supporting our local booksellers.  So here's your chance.  December 4 is the first annual Take Your Child to a Bookstore Day.  If every reader with a child celebrates this day, booksellers and bookstores won't become an endangered species!
READ DREAM GROW

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

2010 GG Awards announced.

The 2010 GG's have been announced.  Check out the news release here.  And, at 2pm Canada Council for the Arts is doing a "live chat" with the winners.  If you have the time today, hustle on over.

Friday, November 12, 2010

Check out my two new reviews

I've posted new reviews of books on both my book review blogs.  Check them both out.
Baseball Saved Us by Ken Mochizuki and Salt by Maurice Gee.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

A Pittance of Time - Terry Kelly

Thanks Sheree Fitch and Valerie Sherrard for the link.  This is a very moving video clip done by Terry Kelly.

Lest we forget

Poppies Field in FlandersImage via Wikipedia
Today's post is a poem written by John Gillespie Magee, a young Canadian  pilot who did not survive World War II.  He wrote this at age 19 a few months before he died.


High Flight
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft thro' footless halls of air....
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark nor even eagle flew—
And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God
*Thanks to my friend Linda Granfield for the reminder.  She's one of those special people in the world who has been able to lead the way in helping us celebrate fallen soldiers without glorifying war itself.  Thanks for all your work Linda.
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Saturday, November 06, 2010

Home sweet home

Arrived home sweet home last night and my puppy was super joyful.  So nice to be loved...
Today was laundry, bill-paying, shopping, walking Ruby and catching up on my mail...writing up conference talks, updating bios & booklists, etc.

Tuesday, November 02, 2010

The next travel installment

Here's the next travel installment...



Weather has been fabulous...we're so lucky.  Went to Arches National Park and had a really hard time leaving.  It's one of those magical places in the world, especially with so few tourists visiting during the late fall. Having stayed in nearby Moab, Utah, we were able to get there quite early.  The sky was crystal clear, and we definitely need our toques, gloves and down jackets.  We did several short hikes which added up since the elevation was between 3900 and 5800 feet.  One of the hikes we took was led by a young volunteer and his theme was survival of the park.  This is a place whose survival is in our hands.  These parks are such a treasure.  This is a place I want to go back to...

Down the road in another canyon cut by this lovely sedate river, we discovered some amazing petroglyphs.  There were dozens of panels that stretched about 125 feet along a rock face.  I'm including one of the panels.




We left these amazing petroglyphs just as the sun was setting and drove some long hours through two mountain passes that had me white knuckling the steering wheel so that we could be close to Zion National Park the next morning.  It was worth the drive even though it was probably the most developed of the parks we'd been to, complete with shuttle busses.  See for yourself.



The road out of Zion to Bryce is seriously scary with 1000 foot drops and no rail guards and a series of tunnels blasted through the sandstone during the depression.  One of the tunnels was over a mile long.

We stayed just outside of Bryce National Park that night and it's a good thing we did.  Although we woke up to sunny clear skies, by 2 pm, the first snow storm of the season hit. The altitude made for hard hiking.  We started out at 6500 feet and topped out at 9100 feet.  The last time I was there (30 years ago) I hiked the entire way up to Rainbow Ridge, but this time, we drove most of the way.  Still, it was beautiful.

After Bryce, we did a lot of driving...and driving...and driving until we hit the Columbia River Valley.  We decided to go to the top of the ridge for the views and discovered wind, and power in the form of 500 + wind turbines (soon to be 1000) in high ranch country.  I was kind of excited about the whole renewable energy in action concept until we had lunch in the tiny town of Bickleton (population 90) where a man by the name of Bob, the County Highways Supervisor informed us that most of the power produced in the area goes to California...go figure!

At least Bickleton is getting a new school out of the deal, although not much else seems to have changed there in the last fifty years.


The last place on our list to see was Mount St. Helens National Volcano Park.  On the way there the rain was coming down so hard that we could hardly see the road.  We were almost ready to cancel the Mount St. Helens portion of the trip, but decided to hang around to see if the weather cleared.  Lucky us...it did. The views were stunning.  I remember when this volcano blew back in 1980.  The blast snapped trees as if they were matchsticks, and ash filled the air for months.  It changed the face of the valley, and the pacific northwest.  It reminded us that nothing is permanent.  After a few hours of fog, and a climb of a few thousand feet (by car, not foot), this was our reward...
 

We've only a few days left before crossing the border and taking the ferry home.  It's been a wonderful adventure.  Glad to have shared a little of it with you...

Sheryl