Reflections on the jungle, love & life

The Costa Rican rainforest near Braulio Carillo National Park
Copyright (c) 2011 Wendee Holtcamp

On this day, God wants you to know ... that your love is a gift to the world. Let your love radiate out to all you meet. Let your love touch the hearts of people you don't even know. Let your love reach to the far corners of the earth. Love is what is saving the world.
- From a silly Facebook app but so beautiful!

Upon returning to Houston from the jungles of Costa Rica, I found myself going to the grocery store, walking through the parking lot, and I just had this overwhelming feeling of "living in Houston is so mundane!" I have never been shy about my feelings about living here. I'm here only because I share custody with my ex-husband, and because I vowed to not do what my parents did; that is, move halfway across the country from one another and force the kid to commute back and forth on jet-planes. I wanted my kids to have the stability of having both parents nearby, and of growing up in one place, something I never had moving from place to place every couple years (hence, the bohemian was born! But I digress).

To be sure, Houston burbs are a good, safe place to raise kids. It has low cost of living and I have a beautiful home and some amazing friends. I have a healthy balanced life. But that's not enough for me. I want a bigger life - not just the occasional adventure that I take, but a life that is, itself, an adventure. I'm not sure what that may be yet, but I have a short two and one half years here before both of my kids will have fledged the nest. Oh, my it makes me tear up when I really think about it! But it will give me the freedom to leave this place and find a new home, and a new life, and a new mission for the next chapter of my life.

What will I do? Travel around the world for a year? Go on a mission trip? Move to another country - Australia maybe, or Costa Rica? Go back to graduate school? The world is my oyster. I only know that I don't want it to be a vain search for adventure for adventure's sake. I want to do something that makes a difference. I love to write, and I love my career but sometimes I wonder, does any of this make any difference to anyone? And why is supporting myself such a struggle? (I know, I should go Occupy downtown Houston right!)

But I am in a very good place. I feel happy and content and life is good, really good! I am blessed. I look forward to the chapters of my life yet to unfold.
And last, I want to share with you the two podcasts and slideshows that I did for Adventures in Climate Change/The Wendee Holtcamp Report! Please visit, listen, view and comment!

• In the first, A Sustainable Adventure in Costa Rica I discuss the Planet, People, Peace (P3) conference on sustainable tourism, as well as some of the cool sustainable ag education happening at Earth University, where the conference was held.
• The second, Living Large Without a Carbon Footprint talks about the Selva Bananito Ecolodge & Preserve and why they deserve 5-leafs for sustainability from the Costa Rican government - the maximum level.

Last night's surreal sunset

Yesterday was filled with SO much fun - my first time sandboarding, flying in a helicopter over the coast, eating more delicious food and exploring yet more tidepools but last night's sunset blew me away so I wanted to post these. The beach is very flat in Florence. It is very interesting how the coast changes as we have gone further south even staying within the central part of the Oregon coast. First there's jagged rocks and islets offshore, then the lava flows (like the Galapagos or Hawaii) and now just dunes and flat beach. To the right in this image is a lighthouse that is one of the most photographed in the nation due to its location and a nice pullout on the road. It's called the Heceta Head lighthouse and that point is Heceta Head (We also had lunch at the lighthouse yesterday). I tried to get a shot with the blinking lighthouse beacon but alas I didn't succeed.
Because the beach is so flat you would get these rivulets of water that reflected the light. Just gorgeous. My hands were freezing when I finally came in.
The waves rolling back out to sea. Nice quilt-like juxtaposition of the landscape here.
A rolling wave. I didn't actually see the sun going down, because I was in my room! I got out there afterwards but the view was worth it. Hope you enjoy!

Fun in Portland!

A few quick photos from my trip to the Pacific Northwest -so far! In an hour or so, I'm meeting up with my dad and going to his log cabin northwest of Portland, and tomorrow we're headed to Olympic National Park (my favorite in the US-and I've been to a lot!) Sat through Monday. Unfortunately the forecast calls for rain... so I'm calling on the Lord to supernaturally clear the rain! :) I'm coming back to Portland Tuesday morn, and then driving to the Missoula, Montana for the Society of Environmental Journalists conference.

My dear friend, environmental reporter, Terri Hansen graciously is hosting me while I'm in town. We went out to get some coffee at the Fresh Pot and then took our annual photo at Ben & Jerry's!
Our two mochas from The Fresh Pot. So yum- especially with the double chocolate flourless cookie.
Me outside Fresh Pot!
Inside... funny thing that on Beth Moore's blog, she just wrote about how her daughter's favorite coffee is Stumptown Roasters from Portland and that's what they serve here! Good taste! :)
I made Terri and her roommate Amy this delicious Vegetarian Times magazine soup I'd been wanting to make - spinach zucchini soup and like almost every recipe I've tried from their magazine it didn't disappoint! As the website says, "This light soup is full of sunny flavors like lemon, zucchini, and dill." Ironically the recipe ingredients did not list dill so I didn't include it but after the fact I realized it would have been delightful in it! We did not have white beans so we subbed red potatoes as a starch, which were great but I would recommend peeling them.
Sauteeing onions, scallions, and garlic. The recipe only calls for onion but I always add garlic and they had some scallion on hand so I added that too.
We served it up with a yummy salad - a most excellent meal!
We had a little get together at the Laughing Planet Cafe on SE Woodstock, one of my favorite places to eat in Portland. They have an assortment of plastic dinosaurs on the tables... for fun and entertainment. This is writer Bill Lascher, me and Terri. Plus dinos. The stegosaurus has special meaning for me because in my Beth Moore bible study workbook she talks about how stego is Greek for "protection" in the 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 bible verse that is so famous "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." - the "protects" word has stego as a root.
Terri looking beautiful as always!
My high school sweetheart Jimmy and me.
Bev, my dad and me! It was so great to see them! I was here last August for their wedding - they are soul mates! I'm headed out right now to meet my dad and Bev for a long weekend. I'll be back with photos! If it does not rain too much, that is...

West Texas Adventures ahead!

A Cholla cactus in the Chihuahuan Desert of West Texas.
All photos below from West Texas copyright (c) 2007 Wendee Holtcamp

I fly from Houston tomorrow morning to the booming town of... Midland, Texas! Well I'm not sure how hopping the place really is, but I can say that when my friend Laurie & I drive west from there to our actual destination in West Texas, we will be laughing it up and enjoying the West Texas mountain scenery and desert oases. Laurie was my companion on my last trip to West Texas when I was researching the Top of Texas cover story for Texas Parks & Wildlife magazine, which covered the best vantage points from various parts of the Lone Star State! I had so much fun on that trip! Laurie & I hiked up Guadalupe Mountain, the tallest peak in Texas, and had quite the experience as I blogged about in "Wendee Holtcamp EXPOSED!" (There are some fantastic shots in that blog post, if I do say so myself - and not of ME - Ha - of the gorgeous scenery of West Texas!)

Laurie is such a fun person and I love her laugh and I am very much looking forward to this trip. I'm off to report three different stories, and love traveling on a magazine's budget and not my own penny! :) Here's our tentative itinerary.

Saturday after we arrive, we will drive out to Alpine, Texas which is about 3 hours west of Midland where we'll drop in on the Shooting West Texas photography symposium at Ross University (I asked the guy in charge for directions, and a physical address, and he said good luck with that, West of the Pecos!)

Realistically, we will probably only arrive for the book signing part around 5pm, but my friend Laurence Parent, a truly phenomenal photographer, will be there, as will Texas Parks & Wildlife official photographer Earl Nottingham, who has shot for several of my articles for the magazine but I've never met him in person. After the book signing, we are going to dinner somewhere in Alpine. Wyman Meinzer was the keynote speaker but he spoke today not tomorrow. I met him when we both gave guest talks at the University of North Texas Nature Writing Conference in 2007.

After dinner, we'll head to the McDonald Observatory for their Saturday evening "star party." I covered this in my Top of Texas article so Laurie & I visited before but it's awesome! We were there in November last time, and the constellations I learned I still vividly remember now. They have benches outside, and several telescopes and they have a guide who teaches visitors about what to expect in the night sky after dark. Astronomers come here from around the world to study the stars, as it has several powerful telescopes (not for your average visitors - for scientists). Last time we actually stayed overnight at the lodge there.

This time, we will be staying at El Oso Flojo Lodge in Balmorhea Saturday and Sunday(the rooms look pretty nice), and then at the San Solomon Court lodge at Balmorhea State Park on Monday night. Balmorhea State Park is renowned for being an "oasis in the desert" (the Chihuahuan Desert as a matter of fact) with a gorgeous, clear, blue cold spring that you can swim, snorkel and even scuba dive in. I'm actually thinking about diving if I can swing it! Just got off the the phone with Neta, owner of the Toyahvale Desert Oasis and Funky Li'l Dive Shop.

Sunday, a guide from Davis Mountains Education Center (DMEC) is taking us birding in Balmorhea State Park and nearby Lake Balmorhea. We also may go to the Madera Canyon Trail, a property owned by The Nature Conservancy in the Davis Mountains. After that, we'll head to Balmorhea State Park's San Solomon spring to swim, snorkel or dive and lounge about until that evening when Jenny from the DMEC Lodge is making us yummy fish tacos for dinner! They have lodging and food but we're not staying there. Maybe next time!

Monday, we're headed to Elephant Mountain Wildlife Management Area to traipse around looking for bighorn sheep! I am doing one travel article, and one piece on bighorn sheep. They reintroduced bighorns here in West Texas, after they were basically exterminated from the state many years ago, and they've been going great guns ever since. After a day hiking if we're not completely about to collapse, we're going to drive around some of the scenic routes (it's part of the Texas Mountain Trail) and maybe even get a massage if we can find a good spa!

Tuesday, we're meeting up with Beth Nobles, Director of the Texas Mountain Trail program of the Texas Heritage Trails Association. We met her last time we visited too. We don't leave until around 6pm, and this day is kind of flexible and we may head back to Midland and go to the Museum of the Southwest or we may go to the Chihuahuan Desert Research Institute in Fort Davis although that's the opposite direction of Midland!

It's my son's 14th birthday and I'm about to take him out to the Happy Buddha Japanese steakhouse - one of his faves - then over to his dad's. I'll post some pics from the road if I can!

Wow!

Somewhere in the Texas Hill Country...
Copyright (c) 2005 Wendee Holtcamp

Wow! It's been a fantastic day. Just one of those days where I could really see God at work in my life and like a lot of things are coming together. I can't explain it, totally, but things I've been praying about for a long time are coming to fruition. Subtle things, things within my heart and soul, things of God, things of grace, things of love, things of friendships. When connecting with an old friend from college recently, I told him the last 20 years in a nutshell: life has been both incredibly hard and painful, and amazingly spectacular. The paradox is that without one we can't really see or feel the other so well. At any rate, I'll be glad to put my 30s behind me later this year, and move into a hopefully better decade. The 30s were not the best, but many good things took place during those years at the same time.

In the past few days, I connected with a really neat woman, a new friend, which is always so good for the soul! I also participated in something at our church called theophostic prayer. The concept is simple: expose the lies we believe in and that keep us stuck. Interestingly, it's kind of controversial in some evangelical circles. Lucky for me, I'm not what you would call an "evangelical." It is offered though my pretty traditional Lutheran church and seems pretty normal and legit to me. I have read about it and now participated in it and found it very healing. I will keep going for several times more. It's sort of a guided visualization/prayer session over some issue going on in your life currently as well as how it connects back to your past memories. It's such a blessing to have these opportunities for spiritual and emotional growth, and the women who are sharing their time and their hearts leading these ministries to help people voluntarily- it's really quite amazing. To God be the glory!

At any rate I'm super psyched about tomorrow, and next week! Tomorrow is a long-planned but never-seeming-to-happen get together with my best friend Daline (who I met at Texas A&M years ago)! For Christmas she got me this "groupon" to Naked Body and Bath. Get your mind out of the gutter, already! That does sound kind of kinky though I must say, especially when combined with the word groupon. At any rate, it's not! Naked Body and Bath is a place in Rice Village in Houston where you can make your own perfume and potions and lotions. The groupon is just a gift certificate and to tell you the truth I had no idea what the heck "groupon" meant until today. I thought it meant coupon that you do with a group (hence, Daline and I). But I think - and I have to ask her - that its rather through this Groupon website where through group purchasing rates online you get good deals on various stuff.

Also we are going to do FREE HUGS! Remember Doug and I did this the last two Christmases in a row - 08 and 09. I've always had to rope my friends, kids, and Doug into this crazi-fun-ness but Daline is totally into it too so it will be fun to have two hug-a-holics hugging away!

Next week I'm heading to San Antonio for an article I'm writing on, as mentioned. And the kids are excited about getting to go somewhere new and different, rather than just sitting at home on spring break. I asked each where they want to go or one thing they want to do, and Sam wants to see the Alamo, and Savi just wants to take pictures (with my camera, of course...). I'm VERY Happy that both kids actually want to go, because sometimes I want to bring them places and they just whine and complain! OK Savi isn't too excited about the couple hour hike in Government Canyon, but I am! Anyway, we each get our favorite things to do, so it all balances out. And let me just take this opportunity to say that I am so incredibly proud of my two amazing children. They are both so smart, so hard-working and responsible, so kind-spirited, and I just can see the true light of Jesus Christ in their lives. That means more to me than anything and I hope they know that!

Anyway, while in San Antonio, we will stay at the gorgeous Hotel Contessa on the Riverwalk. There's a new mile-plus "Museum Reach" stretch of the Riverwalk that has some green development that I may check out (and am trying to sell a second travel piece on). We're going to go on a riverboat cruise thing. Not sure what else! Another bohemian adventure coming up ahead!

Last memories of the Pacific NW

Today was my daughter's first day of HIGH SCHOOL!! Holy moly mackeroli, how does the time go so fast? Only four more years of my baby girl at home. :( I'm so incredibly proud of that amazing girl, though, she is such a brilliantly smart, kind-hearted, genuine, funny and super-creative talented young woman, and proudly a Christian too! And she had a good day, despite being initially nervous, and for that I'm very grateful. (I took the photo above of my girl at a local place called Old McDonald's Farm back in 1997 or so... she's so adorable! Copyright (c) 1997 Wendee Holtcamp)

Before too much time passes, I want to upload the photos from the last day of my trip to Oregon and Washington. I flew into (and out of) the Seattle airport because I found a ticket using frequent flier miles there rather than Portland so just rented a car and drove down to Oregon and all around. Since my cousin lives in Tacoma (just south of Seattle) I stayed with her on my arrival and departure. She has a beautiful home overlooking Puget Sound and I always enjoy visiting her and her adorable kiddos! I stayed there in December when I visited and it snowed and snowed and snowed, too!

After leaving Portland, I met up for a power unch with my friend Francis Zera, who is an incredibly talented photographer. We collaborated on this story, Candid Camera, for E/The Environmental Magazine and another on paddling Texas rivers for Canoe & Kayak.
We ate outside on a perfectly gorgeous afternoon at The Ram Restaurant & Brewery, which overlooks Puget Sound. We saw some people out there parasailing, which was very cool. One thing that isn't visible in this small version of the image is Mount Rainier just to the left of the tall building in the distance. If you click and get the larger version you can make it out. Or... you can look below.
Aha! Here it is, Mount Rainer, cropped out of the previous image, in a bigger size. Amazing isn't it? Especially amazing how it's so cryptic when the photo above is small but visible when larger.

After lunch with Francis, I went back to Holly's and we talked and hung out with her kids, and in the evening had a lovely dinner of stuffed salmon out on the deck. This is a view of sunset over the Sound, with a cross in the upper left corner and silhouetting our wine glasses. A perfect end to a perfect working vacation! (Just about all vacations are work for a writer, since I get story projects and network! And that's the way I like it!)

another bohemian adventure!

Snowshoeing on Mount Rainier in Washington state.
Copyright (c) 2005 Wendee Holtcamp

I had a great day! It doesn't FEEL like it's 2am Houston time, but alas it is. I better get to bed but not before a quick update on my latest "bohemian adventure." I left my home about 245, for a 430pm flight. Had a good productive morning and played Gin rummy with the kids right before leaving. When I was at the airport ticket counter, my cell phone dropped on the floor from the check-in kiosk. I have done this before, and it has never fazed it. But this time... it died. Dead as a doorknob. When I got to the gate, I desperately tried everything to resurrect it. Nothing. Not taking the battery out, not taking the battery out for 10 minutes, not taking the SIM card out, not plugging it in… Not prayer. It just got stuck in this endless “loading” loop. I even kept that loading looop on for 30 minutes to see if it would get out of the loop and load up, but no, it just got overheated. Ack! Panic! How can I go on a trip without my cell phone! How can I survive without instant access to email, facebook, and twitter?! But eventually I surrendered, put it in my bag, and took out the battery and flew to Salt Lake City, en route to Seattle.

When I got to Salt Lake City, I did what any reasonable person would do, and I dropped it two feet onto a hard floor to see if that would jolt it into action – sort of the way a defibrillator works on the heart. OK maybe this is not what a reasonable person would do, but I'm telling you this technique has worked for me on various pieces of electronic equipment in the past, so it was worth a shot. I did this in the bathroom stall so no one would see me and report me to the cell phone police. And guess what – it worked!! No kidding!! I’m a genius!

Besides that little excitement, the 2 flights were a wee bit bumpy but nothing bad, and I had some nice conversations with the guys sitting next to me on the flights, and with a guy at the bar in Salt Lake City, who, oddly enough had just dropped his girlfriend off at Texas A&M though he was from California and in Salt Lake City at the time - small world since that's where I went to school. Not that I hang out at bars typically, but I was waiting for my salad and the bartender was charging my phone, because oddly enough after it finally worked again, the battery had gone from totally charged to about 1/4 strength. Maybe all the endless feedback loop drained it, I don't know. And in other news, while on the plane I actually got a lot done on the book chapter I was working on foreevvvveeer, so I feel soooo great about that!

Then I arrived at the Seattle airport, rented a car and drove to my cousin Holly's home where I am now showered and tucked into bed, after a nice conversation with her this evening. Tomorrow morn I am driving to Portland to work on my book and blogs at The Fresh Pot which has wireless, then going to a Wednesday potluck with my dad and Bev at his church in Longview for dinner! So au revoir my friends, catch ya again soon!