Road Scholar Redwood’s June 10-15, 2018 Hiking Program
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Category Archives: Natural History
Mad Marshmallow Disease & Other Fireside Stories
“What do you really do at the hotel?” is one of the questions I was asked most often this summer at the Overleaf Lodge.
“This is it,” I’d say. “Giving a nature walk and then watching the sunset and whales while tending a camp fire and passing out the fixings for s’mores. Those are my only jobs at the hotel.” Continue reading
You’re a Forest Ranger, So Go Out and Range
A friend of mine working on the Malheur National Forest in eastern Oregon said they have a wild horse problem. I jokingly suggested one solution was for all the Forest Service employees to give up their pickup trucks and ride horses.
Here’s a piece about rangers and horses I wrote 20 years ago when I was working for the Siuslaw National Forest.
You’re a Forest Ranger, So Go Out and Range … Preferably On a Horse
2003 Highlights: The Spotted Owl and the Pussy Cat
My 2003 year-end letter where I tell about an owl I found sitting in the middle of the road.
The Owl And The Pussy Cat
2000 Highlights: Getting Paid to Not Play a Guitar
My 2000 year-end letter where I talk about getting Elderhostlers lost in a parking lot and getting paid to roast marshmallows and to not play the guitar. Only in America.
T- not playing the Guitar @ the Overleaf Bonfire
1999 Highlights: Cleaning Whale Snot off a Ship
My 1999 year-end letter where I talk about frozen pumps, cleaning whale snot off a ship and broccoli that’s growing out of control.
License Boat Cartoon 8018
1996 Highlights: Into the Woods with Juvenile Delinquents
My 1996 year-end letter in which I write about, among other things, my failure to inspire a bunch of delinquents who were put in my charge.
Zooey
1991 Highlights: A Drive Across America & Nature Walks for the Disabled
The year-end letter I sent in 1991 describing driving the back roads of America in a 1951 Plymouth and taking disabled kids into the woods.
Is It Art or Is It Gross Anatomy?
It’s squished frog season here on the Oregon coast.
The Skin Man
I passed at least 20 on my morning dog walk. I feel sorry for them, but I am also have a morbid fascination with them and often examine what’s left of them. That’s not surprising since when I lived in Washington D.C. in the 1980s and 90s one of my favorite haunts was the Walter Reed Medical Museum. Among other things it had very graphic displays of reconstructed faces after they’d been mutilated in various wars, the leg of a Civil War general who ordered a medic to preserve what was left of it after it had been severed by a cannon ball, the bloated leg of someone who had died of elephantiasis, lots other diseased, abnormal and normal body parts in jars, the bullet that killed Lincoln, and what I believe was the worlds largest collection of human embryos. Obviously it was not a museum suitable for everyone. Then again, I’m not suitable for everyone since the only thing I found gross in gross anatomy was the smell of formaldehyde. Continue reading
Hiking in Siuslaw National Forest
Last week I led hikes for a Road Scholar (formerly known as Elderhostel) on trails in the Sisulaw National Forest in Oregon. Here are a few photos I took.
T- and Sammy at Sweet Creek
They don’t do justice to the magnificent scenery. Going through them now I realize I didn’t even take a single photo of the 500-year-old trees we walked under on the Gwynn Creek trail. That’s because I don’t want to see the world through a teeny lens. Consequently, I rarely take photos. Continue reading