The #1 Vacation

Posted on March 4, 2017March 4, 2017 by Dusty Roads | 4 Comments

It’s so hard to chose one vacation as the best. Every vacation has a high point, a sight or event that makes it special. Some have several but as I sit back and review the places I’ve been so far I keep going back to one particular vacation. It may come as a surprise to you when I tell you that my #1, absolute favorite vacation so far was our trip to South Dakota.

Maybe it was because I had no expectations for it so it couldn’t fail to live up to anything.

As Sandy and I prepared for the trip my friends all asked me, What’s in South Dakota? What could I say at that point? Mount Rushmore? I really had no idea.

We stayed in Rapid City. I remember that even though we were tired from the time zone changes and plane travel, I insisted we start exploring right away. We were burning daylight and thus started a jaw dropping adventure where each day was better than the one before.

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Our first view of the Badlands was as an afternoon sun was dropping toward the horizon. The lower angle brought out the colors and made the whole scene surreal. Throw in some animals, deer, rabbits, pronghorns and it was magical.

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Wait, was that a Unicorn?

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The vacation continued like that.

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Buffalo herds in Custer State Park along with some silly wild “beggin'” burros.

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More pronghorns, prairie dogs, wild horses, big horn sheep even dinosaurs.

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We laughed ourselves silly on what we named “the longest dirt road in the world” when we got lost on the reservation looking for a Pow Wow.

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We passed through beautiful land and saw more animals and very few people.

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We road an 1880’s steam train and went deep underground in Wind Cave National Park.

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And oh yes, we did see Mount Rushmore. That was pretty awesome too but not the main event by any means.

Mount Rushmore

So you see, I get excited just reliving that vacation. Even though I love Hawaii and Florida and so many other places I’ve been, this one is still the #1 Vacation.

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How NOT to have a productive day

Posted on March 2, 2017March 2, 2017 by Dusty Roads | 4 Comments

Editor in Chief

I was trying to choose a post to share and ran across one of Rocky’s old posts. Just goes to show that I’m still scrambling for things to write. Re-reading it made me laugh so here is is. I hope you enjoy this old re-run.

Hi. It’s me, Editor-In-Chief Rocky, here to make our apologizes for the missing post today. Our traveling correspondent and main author, Dusty Roads, is having a BAD day. And that is really bad with a capital B! She just locked herself out of the house for the 2nd time in a week. It wouldn’t have been so bad if the spare key she keeps hidden hadn’t fallen out of its hiding place yesterday and she brought it inside and yes, you guessed it, she didn’t put it back out.

So now she’s spent all morning running around trying to find a way to get back in. Inspiration finally hit her. The pet sitter, my 2nd favorite human, has a spare set. So She called Diane and yes, Diane had the keys with her so off Dusty went to pick them up.

She just got back in and wanted to put the spare key back out in its secret place and, well, umm, let’s just say it was shiny and it had tape on it…two of my favorite things. Well, I don’t think she’s in the mood for me to tell her where it is right now. She’s turning the diningroom and livingroom upside down and inside out because she knows she left it on the diningroom table yesterday.

I think I’d better just sit back and watch. Sooner or later she will give up and I can sneak it back out for her to find. It is rather amusing watching her stress out like this. But I can tell you any creative juices have taken a run for it for today.

SCOUT

Scout is preparing a Scout’s Tips column for tomorrow in case Dusty is not back on track by then. So please accept my apologizes and thanks for your patience.

Rocky

Bridgewater Triangle

Posted on February 28, 2017February 28, 2017 by Dusty Roads

The Bridgewater Triangle was an area in Southeastern Mass that that covers about 200 miles. It includes the towns of Abington, Rehoboth and Freetown ans the points of the triangle. Brockton, Whitman, West Bridgewater, East Bridgewater, Bridgewater, Middleboro, Dighton, Berkley, Raynham. Norton, Easton, Lakeville, Seekonk and Taunton make up the interior of the triangle.

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It includes the Hockomock Swamp which is about 5000 acres. Now before I ever heard of the paranormal claims I’d heard of the Hockomock Swamp. I’ve just never figured out how to get there. I’ve always wanted to take a canoe or kayak in there to try to get animal/ wildlife photos. Now I hear all kinds of stories, from Big Foot to serial killers.

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The first time The Bridgewater Triangle popped up (to the best of my knowledge) was in the 1970’s in book by cryptozoologist Leon Colman. Since then I’ve read another ready poorly written book about it and seen several ridiculous documentaries. I mean these documentaries are cringe worthy and not because they are dealing with the supernatural.

The paranormal claims include Bigfoot sightings, Thunderbird ( giant pterodactyl-like birds) sightings, animal mutilations and Indian Curses.

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Secondary claims are of UFO’s, Orbs and menacing little creatures described as 3-4 ft tall, potbellied , big-eyed, covered in hair and unclothed.

Something for everyone I guess.

Save the Whales

Posted on February 21, 2017February 21, 2017 by Dusty Roads

Back from Maui with only limited success I watched the Kia Superbowl ad that I missed on Superbowl Sunday because I was on plane over the Pacific. I laughed out loud as I watched Melissa McCarthy answer a call to “Save the Whales.

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She rushes out in a little pontoon boat only to have a huge whale breach right next to her! As the behemoth splashes down it lands on the end of her boat catapulting her into a larger whale watch boat. Its all an exaggeration but I suppose the whale landing on the boat is a real possibility…if you got that close. I sure would have been happy to take my chances with a close encounter.

So how would I rate my 4 experiences?

#1. For the best photo ops had to be the Pacific Whale Foundation’s Photo Safari. It was the only one that actually delivered a breaching whale, even if it was a baby.

Baby Whale Breach

#2. For shear fun and excitement, I’d have to vote for the Ocean Rafting. I had a great time when I was on a pontoon boat back in November and got the same thrill this time looking for whales. I love the smallness of the boat and being so close to the waves. Plus we saw plenty of whales. I would not recommend this one for small children. We had all adults on our trip.

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#3. Pride of Maui Whale watch and Snorkel. I hate to put this ahead of the Pacific Whale Foundation trip but the arrival of the spinner dolphins kind if pushed this over the top. Plus they did a great job with the barbecue lunch. Seeing a tiny octopus while snorkeling was another plus in their favor even though they can’t control what fish or animals we might see.

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#4. Pacific Whale Foundation. This is a great family trip. The boat is large and stable in the water. The naturalists are professional and friendly and a portion of the cost goes to support Whale Research. It may not have made the top spots in this particular lineup but we saw whales, it was educational and I would not hesitate to go again.

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Any of the 4 trips would be great. It kind of depends on what you are looking for and if you are a family with small children or a solo adventurer.

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I can’t wait until the whale season next year!

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My last Chance

Posted on February 20, 2017February 20, 2017 by Dusty Roads | 4 Comments

It was Friday. My last day on Maui. My last chance for that elusive photo. I’ve had a lot of fun on my whirlwind visit but I still don’t have that Breaching whale photo.

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I’ve got one more chance. My plane isn’t leaving until 6:30 pm so I have time for 1 more whale watch.

This time I switched my approach. The 3 previous whale watches were on good sized catamarans. Maybe the boats were intimidating the whales. We can’t chase or encroach on the animals. The boats can’t approach closer than 100 yards. Now that doesn’t prevent the huge mammals from coming close to the boats but that means we are leaving it up to the animals.

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On one of the previous whale watching trips I’d spotted a tiny little boat that seemed to be attracting lots of attention from the whales. They were blowing and flipper slapping all around it. It was a pontoon raft style boat.

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I found a flyer for Ocean Rafting and made sure I tracked them down in Lahaina Harbor. I got a spot on the 10 am trip.

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I had a death grip on the captain as I stepped onto the pontoon to the boat. We had bench seats to start out. Once out of the harbor we could move to the pontoons if we so choose. Standing up was also ok.

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Right away we saw action and the whales did come closer to the boat. Mostly we were looking at the wide backs as they cruised along with us.

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It was a hazy day. Not the bright , sunny days we’d been having but the seas weren’t too rough. We did get splashed a few times as we flew over the water .

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At one point a whale dove right in front of us. The captain brought us up to a stop and killed the engine. We all held our breaths and listened. We could hear the whale song without any magnification! The captain said we were right above the whale that was doing the singing. They tossed in a hydrophone which brought in the whale song loud and clear. It was much cleaner than the one from yesterday, probably because we were so close we were just picking up the one whale.

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As we passed the Queen Elizabeth, a cruise ship in Lahaina Harbor, we saw a mom and calf. The Mom dove giving us a nice shot of her flukes.

Cuise ship sighting

It was another successful whale search but still no breaches. The Captain said the whales breach every day but as I mentioned in the beginning, you just have to be in the right place at the right time. Unlike trained whales at Sea World, they don’t jump on command.