Travel Tuesdays-Cambodia

Just a little something to cure your wanderlust for the week.

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“Two roads diverged in a wood and I – I took the one less traveled by.” – Robert Frost

The Mighty Mississippi

Well, we were off again yesterday morning on another road trip.  Eventually we made our way to Bemidji, MN, to find Paul Bunyan and Babe. 

And find them we did at a nice park downtown along the lake shore.  We also encountered Chief Bemidji and a marvelous metal sculpture dedicated to all pow-wow dancers.  Jack got up close and personal with Babe, and found a bird’s nest in her nostril!  Did you know that these statues are thought to be the second most photographed icons in the nation, behind only Mount Rushmore?

Then it was on to Itasca State Park.  Itasca was the first of all the Minnesota State Parks, and is famously known as being the headwaters of the mighty Mississippi River.  Because of all the recent rains and the spring thaw, we were not able to straddle the headwaters that emerge from Lake Itasca, but what a difference from crossing the Mississippi down in, say, Baton Rouge.  I tried to get Jack to hop the rocks into the middle of the headwaters, but he just wouldn’t do it!   I was looking for a good action shot.  He sure can be stubborn at times.

Today was a much more relaxing day as we stayed on the refuge and decided to drown a few worms in Lost Lake.  I’ve always enjoyed fishing, and it has been way too long since I’ve taken time to do it.  The weather forecast was not good, but it turned out to be a simply gorgeous six hours spent enjoying the solitude by having the whole lake to ourselves.  With it being Memorial Day Weekend, I was happily shocked that no one else came to take advantage of this beautiful place.  The birds were singing, the sun was shining, and the fish were biting!

Here’s Jack’s monster catch of the day.  I’m surprised he can hold it with one hand! Ha Ha!  He was mostly using artificial lures, while I just stuck to the worms.  (I do have to admit that I didn’t take a picture of the Northern Pike that he caught and released to grow up some more.)

And here is what I ended up with using my lowly worms.  Enough perch and one biggie sunfish to provide me with about three meals.  What a fun time I had, and it was such a treat to have someone help me with tangled lines and behead and gut the fish!  You rock, Jack!  Guess I better quit for now and get busy trying to filet those fish…

                                                                                THE END!

Thanks for stopping by… talk to you later,  Judy

The New Norm Part III

Sometimes living in a different country you forget that some of the very odd and different things around you are in fact...odd and different. Here are some more things from around Korea that I first thought were odd and different but now just blend into the background. 

.Neon lights. Down every road at night it looks like a mini version of Vegas.

.Mixing up the language. When I first moved here and started teaching kindi, they would always say 'shi shi' when they had to use the bathroom. As a naive newcomer, I assumed this was the proper way to say 'bathroom' (because kindi kids always speak in perfect grammar right?). I went to a restaurant and tried to practice my newly learned Korean phrase on the waitress to ask where the bathroom is. She started giggling and pointed towards the bathroom. I learned later that 'shi shi' is the equivalent of saying 'pee pee'.

.This may just be the best thing ever invented. It's a call button, and it's placed on every table in most restaurants around here. So instead of a waiter hounding you every few moments if you need something, they only appear if you press this little button and call them. Absolute genius.

.Hiking gear. This is common hiking gear in Korea. Bright as a rainbow and covering every inch of your body.

.Having an escape route out of the country. No, we don't feel in danger. But yes, we have talked about the 'what if'. And don't worry mom, as much as we joke about stealing a boat and rowing to safety, we have a slightly more secure plan than that.

.Outside of a new business you can find several large planters sitting out with ribbons on them. These are bought by the company or friends and partners of the owner to wish the new business good luck.

.Not knowing appropriate or more importantly, inappropriate gestures. In the states it's common to play the game 'I've got your nose' with little kids. Little did I know that the gesture that we use with our thumb in-between our two fingers is a very vulgar gesture here in Korea. I unfortunately learned this after I had done taught it to every single one of my kindi classes. Sorry parents.

Liked this one? Check out Part One and Part Two

Linking up with  Carissa, Rachel, Logan, Leann, Meg, Molly

 

It was a very LARGE day… Part 2

After visiting the Big Books at the Fergus Falls library on Friday, we headed out to find the last big thing in Fergus Falls.

It was the Big Canada Goose that was located on the grounds of the Otter Tail County Historical Museum.  It was not as impressive as some of the other big things we had seen, but the bonus was that the museum was open and it was free.

It turned out to be one of the largest and best county museums that I have ever visited.  I couldn’t believe all of the displays they had depicting life in Otter Tail County from the time of the early Native Americans to the present.  Two of my favorite things were the information on how the county, lake, and river got their name of Otter Tail, and the cedar waxwing portrait made out of butterfly wings. (top right pics in the collage)

As the skies were darkening with rain clouds, we hurried on to what we thought were the last two Roadside America attractions for the day.  How do you like this ‘Booming Prairie Chicken’?

It’s located just off the exit for Rothsay, MN.  I’m not sure if this bird is endangered or not, but it is quickly declining.  I sure would like to see one of these males displaying like this in early spring.  It’s on my bucket list.  Next week, I’m going to check to see if it’s too late to get a peek at this ritual.

Charles Caleb Colpon once said, “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”  Ha!  Okay, Jack.  What do you think you’re doing?  Buzz off!  Don’t you know I’m trying to become the queen of ‘The End’ shots?

The last scheduled stop on our tour on Friday was in Pelican Rapids, MN, to see the World’s Largest Pelican, and we found it perched at the dam overflow behind the visitors center.

The rain was beginning to fall as we hurriedly got these shots while not so legally parking Jack’s big dually truck in a fifteen minute space for Post Office customers.  Of course, one of Jack’s hobbies is taking pictures of Post Offices, so I didn’t feel too guilty about parking there and hopping out for these shots of a breeding white pelican.  I think I’ll probably make a trip back to Pelican Rapids some time this summer to get pictures of all the pelican statues around town.

From there, we beat a trail back to Detroit Lakes, but it turned out we had one more stop to make.

As we were tooling down one of the county roads, we spotted this roadside oddity that isn’t listed on Roadside America.  It seems a John Deere green-headed ostrich was pulling a John Deere wagon down the hill.  Jack thought it might be a manure spreader, but I’ve had enough of crap dusters for a while so I chose to think of it as a Conestoga wagon.

We went on another long adventure today, and the plans for tomorrow could be a total bust or a most memorable experience.  I guess I’ll be a bit behind in posting and reading blogs for a few days, but you know how it goes… Carpe Diem!  (Seize the Day!)

                                                                               THE END!! 

(I have to add that this is one of the more anatomically correct ‘the ends’ lately.  It even includes a ‘vent’. )

Thanks for stopping by… talk to you later,  Judy

It was a very LARGE day… Part 1

I had compiled a list of seven oddities I wanted to see today with the help of my Roadside America investigations that I made late last night.  Jack was up for the adventure, so early this morning I drove over to his campground on the outskirts of Detroit Lakes.  The first place we stopped wasn’t open yet, but the Chamber of Commerce Visitors Center for Detroit Lakes was, so we stopped there and I picked up a bag full of information on interesting things to do in the area while I am here for the next four months.

                     Then we were off to the town of Frazee, MN, to see the World’s Largest Turkey. 

It was located in “The Best Lion’s Park By a Dam…Site”!  As we arrived, we both needed to visit the rest rooms first.  Interesting… no door to the restroom and no doors for each of the three stalls.  I was sure glad it wasn’t a busy day at the park!  The toilets did flush, however, and there was TP.  Makes one wonder what other Lion’s Parks are like…

An interesting side note about this large turkey, is that a number of years ago they were getting ready for their annual turkey festival, and members of the fire department were doing some repairs to the big bird.  One of them was using a torch and guess what?  The bird went up in flames!  It created quite a stir.  The bird was rebuilt, and I assume repairs are now made without torches.

As we then headed to Fergus Falls, we drove through the town of Vergas, and lo and behold found the World’s Largest Common Loon in a small park along side a lake.

This gem wasn’t even on my list as I thought Vergas wasn’t near our route.  I’m not sure why I get a kick out of these big things, but I do.  I remember dragging my daughter and 87 year old mother to see the World’s Largest Sausage in Canada on our trip to Alaska in 2004.  It’s kind of like geo-cashing to my way of thinking, only there’s a BIG bonus when you get there. I thought it was fitting that we visited the Minnesota state bird.  Jack just groaned.

First up on my list in Fergus Falls was “Otto” the large river otter.  Seems he was built by a bunch of high school students. 

Otto is located in Grotto Park in the city, and several people were taking their lunch in the park as we visited.

As an added bonus to Otto, there was a great egret rookery located on a small island in the lake that the park surrounds.  Lots of egrets were busy bringing nest building supplies to the tree tops.  A little surprising to find this rookery right in the middle of town.

The Fergus Falls Public Library has a large sculpture of a stack of books at the corner of it’s parking lot.  It was a nice touch, but not as huge as the other things we had found.  I would have liked to see some titles on the spines of those books.  If you look closely at the background in two of the pics, you’ll see the grain silos.  I got a kick out of those in the middle of town too.  It surely shows the importance of agriculture to this area of the state.

By this time, we were only done with half of the list, but I think I’ll leave the rest for another post.  This is long enough for tonight.  We were having a great time, but needed to stop for lunch before pressing on with the rest of this adventure.  The clouds were also creeping in after a beautiful morning.  As I’m writing this tonight, it is once again raining…

                                                THE END… TO THE THIRD POWER!! 

Thanks for stopping by… talk to you later,  Judy

Jack to the rescue!!

Spent a good share of the day doing some laundry and going to town for birdseed.  I’ve just been using my on board Splendide washer/dryer rather than hauling everything up to the bunkhouse.  It takes longer, but it saves all the trips back and forth up the road.  I wanted to get things in order for my afternoon visitor.

Along about 4:00 in the afternoon, my good friend Jack (the Bugman) pulled into my site.  He’s staying about 20 miles away outside of Detroit Lakes for a week, so we have some fine adventures together planned since I don’t have to be back to work until Tuesday.

We sat outside chatting for a while, and then I put him to work!  First up, he thought he could straighten my bird feeder pole by sticking into his hitch, and bending it back to upright.  It worked like a charm.

Because of all the rain since I arrived and my reluctance to get up on the roof, I haven’t taken off the zip ties that were holding my awning in place.  Jack to the rescue!  Now I can use the awning again, but it still doesn’t go back in place when it retracts.  He doesn’t have any idea why that is happening.  The nasty winds may have warped part of the arm.  I’ll have to figure out how I’m going to get that repaired.  I forgot to ask his opinion about the busted windshield wiper thingy.  Guess I’ll save that for another day.

I had asked staff the other day about places to eat since Jack always takes me out for dinner when he visits.  The Ice Cracking Lodge was suggested for a good burger, so that’s where we went.  The Thunder Burgers were good, if too large for me to finish. 

On the trip back to the rig I suggested we drive the access road to Lost Lake on the refuge to check it out for fishing possibilities.  It was quite a long two track drive to the lake access, but what a surprise along the way.  Down the track, coming toward us was a beaver!  It was soaking wet, and we have no idea where it was going, but it sure was determined to get there.  It would stop, look at us, and come a little further before it stopped again to look us over.  Can you believe I didn’t bring my camera with me on this trip for dinner?  Shockingly, I didn’t.  Luckily, it was once again Jack to the rescue.  All the wildlife pics tonight are his.

After finally getting to the lake access, we decided we’ll give it a try on Sunday morning.  It’s kind of remote, so I’m hoping there won’t be many holiday crowds there.  I know the other bank fishing spot I had in mind will be very busy.

It was about 7:30 by the time we once again headed for home.  It wasn’t long before I shouted for Jack to stop and back up.  One beautiful bald eagle was majestically perched on a tall dead snag over the water.  When I first started birding, these birds were on the brink of extinction, so it always thrills me when I get to see one.  What a photo op with the setting sun shining on it’s white head.  Giving us the old eagle eye!

Tomorrow I’ll drive over to Jack’s campsite in the morning, and from there we’ll head out on a Roadside America excursion.  I’ve got a number of oddball things on the list to see.

                                                                             THE END!

Thanks for stopping by… talk to you later,  Judy

Letters/55

Dear Zeke, the other week we decided that you needed a 'friend' to play with. So we headed to the store and brought you home a pet fish. We put it in the sink and figured it would be a quick snack for you (and some good entertainment) but instead you spent the next few hours carefully watching it and gently tapping it with your paw. When your fishy friend finally passed on (probably out of pure exhaustion of swimming away from a cat) you meowed incessantly and kept racing back to the sink to see if he had reappeared. 

Dear PETA, please don't lock us up. Dear Culture, I never realize how strange and bizarre something is about my own culture until I try to describe it to people who are not Americans. Like the garter tradition at weddings? Try to explain to a room full of men how the groom goes up the brides dress to fetch a piece of fabric and then tosses it to a group of awaiting guys. Cue bright red face. Dear Granny Booty, after starting the squat challenge this month with a friend, you're actually beginning to take the shape of something acceptable for a 20-something girl. Thank you squat challenge. Has anyone else tried it? Dear Buddah's Birthday, even though our work schedule here isn't too strenuous, it's nice to have a day off to go roam around the city with my man. And eat brunch...like actual brunch, with french toast, bacon and sausage. Ok, I was more excited about the food than anything else that day.

Don't forget to enter in my giveaway for your chance to win a souvenir from Thailand and ad space!

Linking up with Ashley, Jean, Lauren, Kerry, Chrissy, Kenzie