Yellowstone National Park Travel Tuesday Destination
Glad you stopped in grab a peanut butter cookie and a mug of hot chocolate. Then take a peek at our Travel Tuesday featuring Yellowstone National Park another of our very favorite camping spots.
Yellowstone National Park is a nearly 3,500-sq.-mile wilderness recreation area atop a volcanic hot spot. Mostly in Wyoming, the park spreads into parts of Montana and Idaho too. Yellowstone features dramatic canyons, alpine rivers, lush forests, hot springs and gushing geysers, including its most famous, Old Faithful. It’s also home to hundreds of animal species, including bears, wolves, bison, elk and antelope.
The first time we visited over twenty-five years ago, we stayed in Fishing Bridge campground inside the park. It was built for tiny RV’s and you could touch your neighbor’s RV by reaching out your window. Too tight for my liking. But the wolf song in the evenings were fantastic. This is the trip that we drove our brand new mini-van.
Subsequent trips we stayed in several KOA’s in the area that were great. On in West Yellowstone, Montana was outstanding. The last time we were there (2017), the asphalt was actually melting on one of the roads to a geyser. Not Old Faithful, but a smaller one just down the road. We couldn’t figure out why everyone was parking on the side of the road and walking up to the smaller geyser. Upon closer inspection, the middle of the road was melted into a large hole. In addition there were smaller melted areas all over the road. The park had increased its bubbling pots in the ground three fold since we’d visited three years before. Kinda scary.
I have to tell you about an experience we had at a gift shop in Yellowstone. I swear this is a true story. My friend and I went into the shop to get the national park Christmas Tree decorations we collect. There was this lady standing in front of us, obviously from one of the tour busses. As we waited, it was finally her turn at the checkout. She asked the lady behind the counter, “What time do they let the animals out?” She was completely serious. The lady behind the counter, didn’t even crack a smile or blink an eye. She simply said, “We don’t control the animals. They roam the entire park of their own free will.” By this time, we had to turn our backs to the women and trying to keep from busting a gut laughing. Finally the lady took her purchases and left. It was out turn. We asked the counter person how she kept a straight face. She glanced at us over her spectacles, smiled, and said, “We get that question more often than you’d believe.” We were dumbfounded to say the least.
Next week we’ll explore Glacier National Park in Montana. The scenery there is spectacular! You don’t want to miss it.
So this happened. Squeal!! HIDDEN GYPSY MAGIC is nominated for 2020 PARANORMAL ROMANCE GUILD REVIEWER’S CHOICE AWARD! Mark your calendars, Please! VOTING WILL GO LIVE Saturday, February 6th THROUGH February 12th, 2021. Discover the consequences of awakening hidden Gypsy magic! #timetravel #fantasy #love #Magic #witches #wildliferescue #wrpbks https://buff.ly/35NLe7A
The Salem Wildlife Sanctuary is Gwen Taylor’s life work. Her Irish Gypsy heritage provides a hidden talent she uses to help the creatures under her care. But even her magical skills can’t help new rescues in dire need of veterinary care.
The opportunity of signing on as the vet for Gwen’s sanctuary dropped into Brock Scutter’s lap after he expanded his practice to include wildlife. The personal attraction he and Gwen experience is undeniable the more their professional and personal lives collide.
Touring the only “non-haunted” house in Salem they both feel a spark of magic. A trip to his family’s cabin uncovers a heritage he didn’t know existed. If they want a future together, it means facing the consequences of awakening hidden Gypsy magic and a race against the clock to correct past wrongs.
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Posted in My Say What Blog and tagged Geyser, Hidden Gypsy Magic, Paranormal Romance/Mystery, Tena Stetler, Travel Tuesday Destination, Wyoming, Yellowstone by Tena Stetler with comments disabled.
Interview with Laura Bickle Author of Witch Creek
Give a warm welcome to Laura BIckle, author of Witch Creek, second book in The Wildlands Series just released on February 27, 2018! Following Nine of Stars comes the next chapter in Laura Bickle’s critically acclaimed Wildlands series.
Pull up a chair, grab a drink of your choice from the cooler, a Chocolate Chip or Peanut Butter cookie from the plate, and let’s find out a little about Laura Bickle and Witch Creek.
Lets start with what inspired this particular story?
I’ve always been very curious about alchemy, about how the ideas of magic and science got mashed up in our history before taking divergent paths. Researching alchemy has been one of my hobbies, and I finally got the chance to work what I learned into the Wildlands series.
I created Petra Dee, the protagonist of the series, to reflect some of the uncertainty of alchemy. She’s a scientist, a geologist working in the back country of Yellowstone. But she’s also the daughter of an alchemist, and has to come to terms with magic that’s unraveling the edges of her world.
This magic takes various forms – an undead cowboy she’s fallen in love with, drug-dealing alchemists, the alchemical Tree of Life. In WITCH CREEK, she faces off against a sinister mermaid. Muirenn was once a witch, cursed to take the shape of a flesh-devouring mermaid. She’s been imprisoned underground for more than a hundred and fifty years. But now she’s on the loose, and it’s up to Petra and her coyote sidekick, Sig, to stop her.
What secret do you use to blast through writer’s block?
For me, there’s no cure for writer’s block except doing it. I’ve been experimenting with various carrots, like promising myself some relaxing time in the garden for completed scenes. But I haven’t really come up with a solution other than sitting down and writing. I tend to get into a trap of perfectionism, and giving myself permission to write something imperfect (to edit later!) helps a lot.
Who is your favorite character of all of the books you’ve written and Why?
I’ve written a lot of characters who I adore, but my most recent favorite is Sig, Petra’s coyote sidekick in the Wildlands series. Petra first encountered Sig digging up a magic compass in the field outside her trailer, and he’s stuck around ever since. At first, she thought he was hanging around solely for lunch meat. But Sig is has remained her loyal ally. He may or may not be The Coyote with a capital C, working his own agenda that runs parallel to hers. I find him to be charming, impish, and a lot of fun to write about.
If writing is your first passion, what is your second?
Heh. I think I’d have to say that one of my passions is working with animals. I have a pretty dense garden in our backyard, and every so often, a feral cat will find his way in. I will work with the cat until he’s ready to come indoors, get him medical care, and he’ll eventually decide to be tame. It takes a long time, sometimes years. But I am most proud of the cats that have come to trust me as much as they do.
I have one that I’m working with now. He’s very terrified at the moment, but has turned out to be quite the gourmand. He likes milk, tuna, salmon, but his favorite thing is hiding behind a bookshelf. Someday, though, he’ll be curled up at the foot of my bed, dozing in the sunshine. It always happens. It just takes time, patience, love…and a whole lot of tuna.
Petra Dee has battled supernatural horrors and experienced astonishing wonders.
But there’s no magic on earth that can defeat her recent cancer diagnosis, or
help find her missing husband, Gabriel. Still, she would bet all her remaining
days that the answer to his disappearance lies in the dark subterranean world
beneath the Rutherford Ranch on the outskirts of Temperance, Wyoming.
the sheriff and heir to the ranch, Owen Rutherford. Owen is determined to
harness the power of the Tree of Life—and he needs Gabe to reveal its magic.
Secretly, the sheriff has also made a pact to free a creature of the underground,
a flesh-devouring mermaid. Muirenn has vowed to exact vengeance on Gabe, who
helped imprison her, but first . . . she’s hungry. Once freed, she will swim
into Yellowstone—to feed.
Petra must descend into the underworld to rescue Gabe before it’s too late . .
. for both of them.
Peering through the cattails, she saw a man with a fishing pole, standing on an outcropping. He seemed alone, caught in a bit of reverie, gazing at his line skipping along the surface of the water.
She dipped below the surface of the water, toward the shiver of the fishing line. With green-spotted fingers, she lifted the struggling fish from the hook. The line jerked away.
The man swore.
Muirenn lifted her head above the water.
“Holy shit.” The man stumbled backward. “I didn’t realize you were swimming there . . . I . . .”
His expression changed from embarrassment to curiosity as he looked at her. The pupils of his eyes dilated. “Who . . . are you?”
Muirenn gripped the fish close to her chest, giving a small smile.
The fisherman crouched on the rock, setting his pole beside him. “Wow. You’re uh . . . green? Is that real?”
Muirenn cocked her head and slipped forward a bit in the water. The edge of her tail skimmed above the surface.
“Is that like . . . one of those tails that the girls have at that park in Florida? For a movie or something?” His suntanned brow wrinkled. “No. That’s real,” he decided. “You, um . . . want the fish? You can have it.”
She was within arm’s length of him. She released the squirming fish into the water.
“You wanted to let it go? Look, I . . .”
The man talked too much. She swam closer, tentatively.
The fisherman looked at her, at her dappled skin and the dark rust hair spreading into the water. She wouldn’t ordinarily have been so bold. The weight off her tail was going to her head. She let him take in the black of her eyes, the gills on her throat. He gazed in wonder, and his fingers twitched to a small square piece of plastic on top of his tackle box.
“Can I take your picture? What . . . are you?”
A smile played across her lips, and she spoke to him in a silvery voice. “I’m the Mermaid.”
“Wow. I . . . wow. I’m, uh, Norm. Do I, like, make a wish or something?”
“You can, if you want. I’ll listen.”
She reached up with delicate fingers to touch him. Her fingers brushed the pockets of his fishing vest, playing with wonder over the bits and baubles there meant to lure the attention of fish. The man forgot about his camera and stared, transfixed.
Muirenn reached up for his collar . . .
. . . and dragged him down into the water.
He splashed and flailed. She brought him down—down to the bottom of the creek. It wasn’t so far, but it was far enough for a land dweller. He couldn’t fight her for long. He thrashed until his lungs grew heavy with creek water. He convulsed as the lack of oxygen reached his heart and filtered up to his brain. And then he stopped.
Muirenn grinned, showing row upon row of shark-like teeth. She ripped off his arm and began to chew. It had been so long since she’d had anything but the errant fish that wandered into her realm . . . this was a meal worth waiting for.
The creek ran red.
Red as the idle red-and-white bobber drifting on the surface of the water.
You can find Witch Creek at the following online retailers.
Ohio, reading entirely too many comic books out loud to her favorite Wonder
Woman doll. After graduating with an MA in Sociology – Criminology from Ohio
State University and an MLIS in Library Science from the University of
Wisconsin-Milwaukee, she patrolled the stacks at the public library and worked
with data systems in criminal justice. She now dreams up stories about the
monsters under the stairs, also writing contemporary fantasy novels under the
name Alayna Williams.
ALA’s Amelia Bloomer Project 2013 reading list and the State Library of Ohio’s
Choose to Read Ohio reading list for 2015-2016.
It was wonderful having you with us today. Please feel free to stop by anytime. Good Luck with Witch Creek!
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Posted in Authors' Secrets Blog and tagged Dark Fantasy, Laura Bickle, Yellowstone by Tena Stetler with 2 comments.
