Gatlinburg, Tennessee

Hi again! Today I'm posting photos Doug and I took in Gatlinburg, Tennessee! After exploring the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, we spent some time in Gatlinburg visiting the attractions. We ate lunch at the Smoky Mountain Brewery, and then walked around until dark. Most of the attractions stay open until 9pm. We had a great time! There are several "Ripley" museums, such as Ripley's Believe it or Not! Museum, Ripley's Aquarium, etc. We also went to a cool 4-d moving theater, which had 2 ~6-minute shows in sequence - it really tossed you around! Then we went to "Earthquake: The Ride" which was freaking hilarious in its total stupidity. You get into this train car ride, thinking it's actually going to be a sort of roller coaster but it just shakes you around, and puffs nasty chemically smoke in your face, and then you see a gorilla peer through the "train" window. Then it's over. The train doesn't move more than about 15 feet forward, then back! But Doug is now enthralled with saying (in the same way the advertisement that blared out onto the street did) "Earthquake: The Ride!" (The real thing! Earthquake, the ride!) LOL.

Most of the photos were from the Ripley's Aquarium which was an amazing aquarium!! We took these photos with Doug's point and shoot and my phone so the quality isn't stellar but I wanted to share. Tomorrow or the next day I'll share pics from the Northshore of Louisiana and all the cool stuff we did there. And then snow in Houston!! My kids made a very cool snowdude named Frostbite.

This is from earlier in the day when we were still exploring the park, but I forgot to post it yesterday!
This is a shot of our beautiful room in Gatlinburg's new Hilton Garden Inn (they've applied for LEED certification and should hear back any day now). Notice it even has a fireplace!
A cool bear made of nails at the front of the Ripley's Believe it or Not museum.
At the Ripley's Believe it or Not museum they had a thing where you could capture your shadow. This is Doug jumping! He thought it kinda looked like a skateboarding jump.

This - fuzzily - shows the lights (LED!) that illuminated the main street in Gatlinburg.
Doug standing next to a replica of the tallest man that ever lived, who was an outrageous 9 foot and some change!
The rest of these are taken at the Ripley's Aquarium. This is a shot of a shark in the cool tube-like maze aquarium. I like its abstractness.
Another shark photo.

Another shark pic.

These seahorses were so cool!

I loved the jellyfish too.
Another shot of jellies.
Me with a crab on my head (after all, I am a Cancerian!)

The Great Smokies!

The Great Smoky Mountains!
Copyright (c) 2009 Wendee Holtcamp

I promise to write more about the trip and post more pics soon. These are the first batch of photos, from our short exploration of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. We mostly just drove through the park, starting at Gatlinburg and going first towards Cade's Cove (which was closed at the end of the road because they were treating for the Woolly Adelgid, an insect affecting the hemlock, if I recall correctly. We actually met up with Bob Miller, a Park Ranger, in the morning. Then we drove through the park. After going towards Cade's Cove we turned around and drove the other way, down Newfound Gap Road towards the Oconaluftee Visitor Center. We stopped a lot and took some photos but sadly didn't have time to go on a hike. It was a gorgeous day, if a bit cold, especially in the morning! After we drove through the park we spent some time in Gatlinburg and I'll post some pictures from that part of the trip tomorrow!

This and the photo above and below are the view of the Smoky Mountains I see in every brochure! It's taken along Newfound Gap Road, which runs from the park entrypoint near Gatlinburg to the southeast.

And another!
A view of one of the rock tunnels in the park

A lone maple leaf overlooking Laurel Creek

My shadow as I take photos of the creek.

Another view of the same tunnel.

We saw some whitewater kayakers in the park. Looks like fun!

We saw two white tailed deer and a fawn! This is the fawn, she's already lost her spots. We didn't see any elk or any bears, and I was very disappointed about that especially since there are like 2 black bears per square mile!

Laurel Creek
The Mountain Farm Museum near the Oconaluftee Visitor Center.

Water droplets over the creek.

pics from PA trip

Hi again! We made it to Gatlinburg Tennessee this evening, the gateway to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Yesterday we left Doug's mom's place around 3pm and went to our friend April's parents log cabin in Hollidaysburg, PA where we stayed overnight. Her mom served a delicious venison stew, and then we watched the Ravens-Steelers game. I was rooting for the Ravens because that's the team that (left guard)Michael Oher plays for. He's the player the movie Blind Side (currently in theaters) is based on, and his life is such an amazing story! And they won in overtime which was very exciting. We were exhausted by the time that ended.

Got up around 7am, and hit the road from PA, through Maryland, then West Virginia, then Virginia, then Tennessee. It was relaly cool driving through Pigeon Forge and then Gatlinburg as it became dark as it looks like a Christmas wonderland with all the lights up. Gatlinburg's lights are all LEED and the area is really developing in a sustainable direction which is interesting. Pigeon Forge looks like a fantastic and fun place to take kids for a vacation! We arrived at our hotel, the Hilton Garden Inn (a LEED Certified hotel) around 6pm and then had dinner at the restaurant, then back to the room where Doug's watching the Saints-Patriots game and I'm updating the blog :) Doug is teaching me about football (I'm totally clueless, or was until recently!).

Tomorrow we're going to drive through the national park and try to see some black bears. :) I'll take some pics and try to upload... have a happy day!!

This is a pic of Doug's grandma and I on Thanksgiving. You can see the food on my plate, rapidly disappearing! We arrived around 3pm and had a delicious meal. Doug's 92-year old grandma is amazing! She is sharp as a tack and still walking and getting around great! On our second day there Doug and I went for a couple mile walk through Mechanicsburg (a suburb of the capitol city of Harrisburg)., and this is a self-portrait from our walk :)
One of the old buildings in Mechanicsburg.

Another historic building, this one says the Orris House.

Doug gave his grandma a pink Snuggie for Christmas! We had to restage the event and we think she looks scared of the Snuggie! I think we chose a good color for it though don't you?
Grandma, Doug, and Mom. Doug's grandma does her hair in rollers every day and always fluffs her curls with her hand, which is so adorable.

Another photo of me and Doug's grandma
We went out to eat with Doug's aunt and uncle, Pat and Marvin, on the left behind Doug. On the right is Doug's grandma and mom.

This is our room, with fireplace even, at the Hilton Garden Inn Gatlinburg. Nice place!

hello from PA!

I'm sitting at Smoothie Joe's Juice & Java in Mechanicsburg, PA - the town my boyfriend Doug grew up in - drinking a Milky Way frappucino. Mmm. It's not a chain but a locally owned cafe, and it's very good! I had a grilled veggie sandwich too. Mmm.

We flew out Thanksgiving morning from Houston at 6am (meaning, we woke at 345am, caught a cab at 430am). Our flight to Newark was uneventful, where we had a 2 hour layover, then we got on a puddle jumper to the Harrisburg airport. Dougs lifelong friend Al picked us up from the airport, and brought us to his mom and grandma's house where we had a yummy Thanksgiving dinner with turkey and all the fixins! It was so nice to meet his family.

Yesterday we just hung out at the house, went for along walk, and then in the eveing we went out to downtown Harrisburg with Doug's childhood friend Lance. They've been friends since like 3rd grade. Harrisburg is about 20 minutes from Mechanicsburg and is the capital of PA if you forgot that little fact since 5th grade when everyone had to memorize all that info... We went first to the Brick Haus, an upstairs pub, and then to this Ceoltas Irish Pub/Restaurant that was really cool looking. Then we ended up home by about 10pm. You know you're getting old when you're home by 10! :)

Today we picked up the rental car (a nice trusy Toyota Corolla) which we'll use to drive home starting tomorrow. Well technically the long drive starts Monday. Tomorrow we're leaving in the afternoon to go visit Doug's friend April who lives outside Hollidaysburg. We're staying the night there with her and her family, maybe doing a bonfire, and then leaving about 8am the next day for Gatlinburg, TN where we'll stay at the brand new http://hiltongardeninn.hilton.com>LEED certified Hilton Garden Inn for 2 nights, guests of the town. Gatlinburg is right outside the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The next day we'll explore the national park! Hopefully the weather isn't rainy like I think it might be...

Sorry I can't leave you with any photos yet - I am using the wifi at Juice & Java and haven't downloaded any pics from the camera! :)

a deep breath

Two hoatzins (Opisthocomus hoazin) on Cocha Blanco (White Lake) in the Peruvian Amazon near Blanquillo. See my other Peru photos!
Copyright (c) 2006 Wendee Holtcamp

Well hello!

It has been a crazy last few months, I tell ya. I am finally starting to breathe a long sigh of relief (though the final sigh to end all sighs will come after my book is fully approved and edited!). Writing that book, the draft that is, has taken me - from proposal to now - five years!!! At times I didn't think I'd finish, I didn't know if I wanted to, I thought I didn't have anything new to say, I questioned who was I to write a book on this topic, no one would listen, no one would care, it sucked, and on and on and on. But I felt some relief in hearing at least two writers say that they had very similar feelings. One was Liz Gilbert, the author of the amazing runaway besteller Eat, Pray, Love. She wrote about her feelings of the book's inadequacy (ie it sucked) on her website's Thoughts on Writing page. Another was Rachel Held Evans, who I met online because of her book on a similar topic - Evolving in Monkey Town - which is due out by Zondervan Press soon. I know that such thoughts are held by many writers in the long process of writing their books. And another thing, I've long since let go of the thought that if it didn't become a critically acclaimed bestseller, I was a massive failure. I can almost guarantee you, it won't. And I'm ok with that. At this point I just want it published!! Of course I'd be thrilled with wonderful sales and good reviews, but with the topic being so controversial (evolution and Christianity) I have no doubt there will be some authors on various sides of the fence slamming it. We'll see.

Regardless of all that, I feel a sense of freedom that I haven't felt in a long time because having the book incomplete felt like a huge weight on my shoulders. On top of having the book to write, I had tons of other writing to do in order to pay bills, plus my kids, my boyfriend, and the stress of life in general kept me so busy I hardly had time to write the book in the way that would serve it best - start on it and focus on it and finish it. That's why I went to Montana, and that turned out to be a huge blessing! Then as soon as I turned in the draft, I had a nearly 3,000 word feature due a couple weeks later, and now I have to write several blogs for my Animal Planet blog post to line up for when I'm out of town for the Thanksgiving holiday and my drive home from Pennsylvania to Texas. But I feel a whole lot lighter in my load right now!

In the past few months, Doug and I attended a 7-week Couplehood as a Spiritual Path workshop, a Christian-based workshop based on author and psychologist Harville Hendrix's bestselling book Getting the Love You Want (which is secular). Reading that book changed my life, and I tried to apply the techniques within my marriage many years ago, but the hard thing is if you don't practice it regularly, it doesn't become second nature. Then you don't end up using it when it counts, when you're upset. I wanted to introduce Doug to the concept now rather than later, even though every other couple in the class was married (and the fact that he will attend a class like this says so much to my heart about him!). I missed two of the sessions because I was in Montana but the ones we attended truly helped communication in our relationship. It can be so difficult to overcome some of those behaviors that we bring from our childhoods, the fears that prevent us from doing things or lowering our walls, or the triggers (buttons) that get pushed and make us over-react. But I believe self-awareness is the first step, and then the committment to start to change, to move in the direction of greater love and greater empathy for one another.

The final day we got a "Roadmap to Change" that includes the following advice:

Do this daily for the rest of your life:

• Spend a few minutes a day praying for your relationship
  
• Do at least one caring behavior for your partner
  
• Send your partner an appreciation (ie say one thing you appreciate about your partner)

Do this weekly for the rest of your life:

• Visualize and review your Relationship Vision (something we created in the workshop)
  
• Engage in a shower of blessings (this is where one partner sits on a chair and the other person walks around them saying praises about that person - first physical attributes, then behaviors, then character traits then general affirmations - in an increasingly loud voice so you end up yelling loving things by the end! It counteracts the negative stigma we have with raised voices and replaces it with loving affirmations). I can say when Doug did this for me, it truly made an impact on both of us. It was a transformative moment.
  
• Take turns planning at least one high-energy fun activity per week
  
• Create new gifts of change (ie decide one small, measurable behavior you will change for your partner and then tell them you want to do it as a gift to them).

A central part of this is the concept of mirroring, which is a pretty standard technique in psychology circles. You repeat back what your partner says verbatim, or as close as possible, to make sure you got it right. And then you go through the steps of validating it and empathizing with them. It's a lot harder to do than it sounds!

If I don't get a chance to post again before Thanksgiving, have a very blessed Thanksgiving!!

Caught in a Bad Romance...

Had to share this video - I Love it - so hot! I didn't really care much about Lady GaGa before - just thought she was very odd with all those outfits, but I fell in love with this song the first time I heard it, and having read about her interest in fashion and that she has a lot of input into the creative aspect of her music and videos and strange fetishistic (is that a word?!) clothing I am loving her - very avant garde and original. Check it out!

finished a draft of my first book!

My kids Sam and Savannah being silly - as usual - in Mount Field National Park in Tasmania, Australia. This was near a stream where Sam spotted a platypus. Copyright (c) 2006 Wendee Holtcamp

I am excited to report that I finished the first full draft of my book on making peace between evolution and Christianity! It's in my editors' hands, and I'm waiting for news, and we'll start editing for publication in - if all goes as planned - Fall 2010. It's been a long journey for this book. I started writing the book proposal in New Mexico which I blogged about toward the beginning days of this very blog in November 2005, and I also published an essay in E/The Environmental Magazine about that great solo adventure in Back to Nature: What is it about simplicity and solitude that inspires writers?. The book goes as far back as 2003 when I testified at the Texas State Board of Education hearings over biology textbooks, but really goes all the way back to my childhood and my own spiritual formation. I'm very excited about the book and though it took way longer to write than I ever imagined, and was more challenging, I am finally over the hump and super excited about refining it and presenting it to the world. A bit scared too! It's my baby!

In other news, my next big adventure: I plan to fly to Pennsylvania for Thanksgiving with Doug, and then we'll drive back! We will go to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park - my furst time there - and to Louisiana's Northshore for some R&R. It's going to be a long drive but I'm excited to visit some states I've never visited before. I have been to every state out west, and only a few on the east coast but will get to see Pennsylvania, and West Virginia for the first time, and maybe North Carolina (The national park is in both Tennessee and North Carolina, so if we drive through the whole thing, I'll see both states. I've been to TN before though). I'll get home just in time for my lovely daughter's 15th birthday! She is very excited about getting her driver's permit. Me, not so much...

On a personal level, despite some ups and downs in figuring out communication in relationships, my spirits have improved dramatically from a few months back. There are a couple reasons. I am convinced that a main reason is that I hadn't been on any big trips for the year and a half prior... except for the one to Portland, Oregon during December when I got snowed in! Taking another trip to Oregon and Washington in August so rejuvenated my spirit! I love traveling so much. But also, though I am a person who has long been adamantly opposed to antidepressants, I started taking a very low dose a few months back, but then got off of them a month ago and I feel great! I believe that they helped me through a rough patch, and my body and mind, perhaps has fixed itself, who knows. Though I'm not sure what my future holds on many levels, I am feeling great and excited about the possibilities!

Now that the draft of my book is complete, I have started to ponder the many things I've long put off that I have passion for. Should I produce and star in a documentary on sand mining on the San Jacinto River, raising some funds through the nonprofit organize I run (though it's been on hiatus for a while) - the San Jacinto Conservation Coalition? Should I turn my material from my online writing green class into an e-book? Should I start a local natural foods co-op? That last one is a recent passion of mine, and the biggest and most challenging idea but I'm pondering it. I'm considering starting a book club geared towards socially conscious books and documentaries, and I've run the idea by several of my conscientious friends in the area and we're going to get that started soon. The first book? Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals, which has gotten a lot of attention so far. His article, The Fruits of Family Trees, in New York Times Magazine based on the book wowed me.

a few of my favorites

Sunrise on North Padre Island
Copyright (c) 2006 Wendee Holtcamp

Just a super quick update. I am so close to being done with a full draft of my book. So close that I can see the light at the end of the tunnel but it's still not done which frustrates me because I was only one half-chapter away when I got back from Montana and I have not had time to just do that single half chapter!! I understand why, just basically getting caught up at home, spending time with my beautiful awesome kiddos when I can, some time with Doug, and then writing several Animal Planet blog posts so I can have a week to focus - this week. And here it is, Tuesday!

I wanted to link to some of my favorite Animal Planet Animals in the News blog posts in case you haven't had a chance to read them.

Massive oil spill off Australian coast puts marine life at risk - The news in yesterday's post horrifies me because some 400-2,000 barrels of oil per day are spilling into the Timor Sea off Western Australia and it's been going on since August 21st. Yet it's barely made the news. WWF-Australia made an expedition there to survey the damage to wildlife.

Hydraulic fracturing or "fracking" may kill animals- I like this post because it reports on something that, once again, has only started getting the public attention it deserves. It's a frightening story that we all should be aware of! My friend Sharon Wilson who writes the Blue Daze blog has been a longtime advocate of drilling reform in the Barnett Shale of Texas.

Open Season on Gray Wolves - I like this one because it's based on my recent visit to Yellowstone National Park and seeing the wolves in the wild, then I give an update on the first wolf hunting season in recent history.

Costa Rica’s “Leatherback National Park” threatened - Discovery Channel sent me to Las Baulas National Park in 1999 for a totally amazing expedition Love & Death on Turtle Beach! Now the national park may get downgraded by Costa Rica's own government.

Meatless Mondays - I have enjoyed writing about food/meat issues on the blog, which is something "animal" related that I never originally intended to write about. But as I come across story ideas, more and more I realize that food issues affect us all, and actually a lot more than many other wildlife or animal stories. I am trying to do "meatless monday" which means no meat on Mondays, and it's embraced by the likes of Paul McCartney and many others. The goal is to help curb global warming because meat production is one of the leading contributors to greenhouse gases. This post gives the facts about meat consumption as gathered from various sources, and the low-down on meatless Mondays.

Good year for endangered coho salmon - Again part of this was based on my visit to the Pacific Northwest and I really like writing about the places I visit, and learning more about the salmon hatcheries and the endangered species of salmon that live there. I like to choose sustainably harvested seafood and this blog has helped me learn a lot in that regard. According to most seafood watch reports, Alaska salmon is mostly ok, farmed salmon is bad to eat, and it depends on which precise river drainage in the Pacific NW you get your fish from on whether it's sustainable or not...

That's all for now! :) Visit and leave some comments, if you get a chance!

home again home again jiggity jig

Yellow flowers in Elissa's yard in Montana.
Copyright (c) 2009 Wendee Holtcamp

Just wanted to give a quick update. I'm back home in Houston after a very productive and awesome time in Montana. My goal was to write two full chapters of my book, and I accomplished that goal and even got another half chapter completed. So now I have to complete that last half-chapter, and I'll have a full draft of the baby into my editors. Yea! This book writing thing has been way harder than I ever imagined, on many different levels. I will be so incredibly happy to see my book in real-book-form one of these days! If all goes as planned, it should be on shelves in Fall 2010.

I got back Saturday evening after a crazy day of airport travel. Have been writing up several Animal Planet blog posts so I can again shift my focus back to finishing my book! I have a feature due mid-November so I plan to try to get my book draft done next week then shift my focus again to pikas, the topic of my next article.

Tomorrow I am giving a mini-photography workshop project to my son's middle school. A few weeks back I did a journaling workshop, and I'll be picking those up from students so I can read them. I had assigned them each an "outdoor observation journal" which I also use in the online writing class I teach (the next one starts Oct 31 if you're interested check it out!) But the next project I'm working with students on was inspired by the documentary movie Born Into Brothels where a handful of kids born into poverty (children of sx workers specifically) in Calcutta India's red light district were given cameras and it allowed them to express themselves in ways they weren't able to in words. I was touched by the updates I read of Avijit Halder the one child who made his way to America, first attending school in Utah and then being accepted into the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. He seems wise beyond his years. At any rate the people involved in the production of Born Into Brothels have an awesome nonprofit called Kids with Cameras which inspired my idea to have these middle school students capture a day in their life, through the camera lens.

In other news:

I found out this week that I won 1st place (Gold) in the International Regional Magazine Association (IRMA) Awards for my article Dead Zone in Texas Parks & Wildlife Magazine! My editors at the magazine submitted it, not me, and I didn't even know about it until I found out I won! It made my week!

I went to see The Cove documentary at the Bozeman Film Festival (which is really just a movie shown at a theatre...). I really enjoyed it, especially since I'd written about it for Animal Planet, but it was not quite as exciting as I had hoped for, given the hype. What impressed me, though, is how much the film has made a difference in raising awareness of the issues, in helping the Japanese/Taiji locals become aware of the issue of mercury contamination, and in - so far - preventing the mass slaughter of the dolphins this year.

Elissa is an amazing cook and I'm trying out many of the recipes she made on my own. So far so good, though I'm still learning on some of the things, like how long it takes to actually caramelize onions! I am enjoying trying the recipes out on (my boyfriend) Doug and the kids. She follows the Paleo Diet which is high in meat, veggies, and fruits and low in sugar, dairy, and any grains other than whole grains. I'm trying to follow along with it sort of now that I'm back home. The Mark's Daily Apple has some info too.

Yellowstone National Park!

Photos from Wendee & Elissa's Most Excellent Adventure! We went to Chico Hot Springs in Pray, Montana and Yellowstone's north side. Highlights include soaking in the hot springs in 20 degree weather... closing the saloon down at 2am, and in the park seeing two wolf packs and hearing them howl!! Plus we saw bison, elk, bighorn sheep, a fox, and blacktail deer. Not bad! No bears or moose though! The only moose I saw was dead on top of someone's car driving through Bozeman. Oh and we saw some "homeo sapens"! :) (Inside joke! Well not anymore! LOL)

Emigrant Peak near Pray, Montana. This is where Elissa and Ben got married!

Another shot of Emigrant Peak. This is just around the corner from Chico Hot Springs Resort where we stayed last night. We soaked in the hot springs, had dinner, and then went out to the "saloon" and listened to the Clumsy Lovers play, and then we stayed until they closed at 2am!

The caboose we stayed in at Chico Hot Springs - it was so cool!!

Inside the caboose. It was a gorgeous room!

Hanging at the saloon at Chico Hot Springs.

We met some great people after dinner at the Chico Hot Springs dining roon.
Elissa and I on our most excellent adventure!
This arch gateway represents the original entrance to America's very first national park (Yellowstone, obviously)! Now most people use the east and west entrance and fewer visitors come to the northside but the Lamar Valley is a fantastic place to view wildlife. :)

Bighorn sheep alongside the road, just before entering Yellowstone National Park from the North entrance.

Icicles.

This is the walkway at Mammoth Hot Springs. There were several hot springs here which you can see by the rising steam!

A view along the Mammoth Hot Springs trail/walkway

A closeup of the terracing at Minerva terraces - "living sculptures" formed by the hydrothermal activity.

A bighorn sheep on the mountainside. Hard to see in the pic this size, click to see it larger!

Elissa and me with a moose hat on! This was the spot where we saw the Druid Wolf pack (near Slough Creek) but they were too far away to get a photo of. While here we met some folks who follow the wolves around and love to observe them using scopes. They're the ones who knew what wolf pack it was. One had a radio collar on. We even heard and saw them howl!! THAT was sooo amazing!!

A baby bison amidst a herd.

Bison saying hi!

An old timey bus at Mammoth Hot Springs. I think they use these for tours.

The Yellowstone River.

Devil's Slide and the Yellowstone River

Elissa spotted a second wolf pack on the roadside in the Lamar Valley near Blacktail Deer Plateau. There are 3 wolves here, two black ones in the foreground and a third grey one coming down the hill that I didn't even see until I upped the contrast in Photoshop!

There are two wolves here, a black one and one barely visible behind it that it's grey -you can barely see its ears and head just to the right of the other one.

Here's another shot of the three wolves walking across the valley. It's not as zoomed in as the other pic above but if you click on it you can see it larger!

A big daddy-o! We heard him make his bugle call. He was in the town of Mammoth Hot Springs just inside the park entrance.

A baby elk in Mammoth Hot Springs (a little community just inside the park). The elk often go there and hang out and eat grass!