Wild Moose Chase

Story and Photos by Jean Kepler Ross

“Brake for Moose - it could save your life” - the road sign in Maine promised. My cousin Julie and I toured New England in the Fall and we were excited at the prospect of viewing moose.  Unfortunately, they were proving to be elusive.

The road signs were encouraging: “Moose - next 3,000 feet,” “Moose next 4,000 feet,” and “Moose - next 9 miles.” Finally, we saw a moose: a metal moose sculpture hiding in the grove of trees next to a scenic waterfall in Rumford, Maine. I began quizzing the locals to find out how we could maximize our chances of seeing the actual animal. 

Innkeepers in Bethel, Maine, reported once sighting a moose in their backyard. It was looking in their window at their son, who was watching television. So we gazed endlessly through our hotel window, but no luck. We saw a billboard in Bethel promoting a three-hour guided tour to search for moose at dawn. We were very motivated, and we were sure a guide would help us in our quest, but we wanted to do it without losing sleep and turning into zombies.

As time passed, we started to doubt the signs. “Moose Crossing - 2 Miles” - if only. We spotted a flock of wild turkeys and a road-killed red fox and got a whiff of a skunk. 

Our waitress at a cafe in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, told us, “You never know where or when you’ll see one. They’re not afraid of cars. If you see one on the road, stay back as far as you can to watch it; if you go close, they might charge you.” She told us that one had recently appeared right in front of her in the woods while she was riding a four-wheeler on trails. She added that she’s seen moose many times. This village is near Moose River, and the name made us hopeful, but although we looked everywhere, we didn’t see one.

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Use It Or Lose It - A Tea Story

by Jean Kepler Ross

Thirty years ago, I was dazzled by my action-packed month visiting a friend and his family in Japan. They live in Fukui Prefecture near the Sea of Japan, but I gazed in wonder at the Gion Festival and temples in Kyoto, kabuki theater in Tokyo, the deer park in Nara and Himeji castle from shogun days. The most delicate and intimate thing I recall was a tea ceremony performed by a friend of my friend at her home. 

 

Garbed in a kimono, our host greeted us and led us to her tea area where a small shrine, with incense and blossoms, dedicated to her ancestors, stood in a prominent spot. She went through ritual preparations and whisked the powdered green tea with hot water in special bowls, then presented them to us to admire. We turned the bowls three times to appreciate the decorations inside each bowl before we drank the frothy tea. At the end of the ceremony, our host presented me with a fine tea bowl painted with fall leaves and gold leaf to take home with me. It’s been keeping me company ever since as a treasured objet d’art and memento of my trip. 

Before I left Japan, I purchased a bamboo whisk and a tin of special powdered green tea with the thought of trying my hand at preparing the tea once I got home. I’ve kept them with my kitchen spices above my stove for thirty years, admiring the Japanese letters, waiting for that perfect moment when I would perform my own tea ceremony and savor the tea. Somehow, the moment never arrived. Maybe I was too busy with life and the years somehow passed. I often looked at my whisk and tea and enjoyed the anticipation, the possibility of someday re-creating the tea ceremony.

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The Magical Dunes of White Sands

words + photos by Jean Kepler Ross

They say one picture is worth a thousand words. I believe being there is worth a thousand pictures.

For several years, I edited a travel guide about New Mexico and saw many photos of the gorgeous white sand dunes in southern New Mexico known as White Sands. Each photo illustrated the beauty of the dunes - sensuous mounds of sand, blooming yuccas, delicate lavender wild flowers, kids jumping off the dunes into space...it all intrigued me. I traveled in that area a few times but never had a chance to actually visit White Sands until a few weeks ago.

I was visiting a good friend who lives just out of La Luz, near Alamogordo. We watched sunsets from the west-facing portal of her house and, through a notch between mountains, looked out at White Sands in the distance...it beckoned me. I remembered all the photos I had seen and I knew it was the right time to go.

We visited White Sands National Monument late one morning. The monument is part of the worldʼs largest gypsum dune field - 275 square miles in all; about 40% lies within the monument and the rest is home to White Sands Missile Range. Some of the dunes are active and move to the northeast about thirty feet each year, while others move very little. Gypsum is clear and translucent, but scratches on the grains cause light to reflect in a way that makes them appear white.

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Travel Is For The Birds

by Jean Kepler Ross

The last time I was in Bali, I stayed with a friend on the outskirts of Ubud, up in the foothills. I kept hearing about a fabulous heron/egret rookery where the birds came in by the thousands to roost in the trees for the night. I wanted to see the spectacle and my time to go was growing short, so I succumbed to a spontaneous urge late one afternoon, borrowed my friend’s bike and took off down the lane through the rice fields. 

I found the rookery, a few miles away in Petulu. The roosting was a spectacular scene as wave after wave of the showy wading birds arrived and competed for space in a squawking, flapping ritual.

I hadn’t figured on how dark it is at night in Petulu, which I discovered as soon as the sun set. No street lights, no light on the bike, no one knew where I was and I didn’t have a cell phone on me. It was pitch black and I was sorry I hadn’t planned better. I was saved by a local guide on a motorbike and his Australian client - they led the way and I followed their light as they guided me home.

Why had I been so reckless? How did I become such an enthusiastic bird watcher? I was afraid of birds in my childhood. I grew up on a farm in Iowa and it was my duty to collect the mail from the mailbox out by the road. In the summer, I was terrorized by baby black birds that fell out of the trees and, in their terror of me approaching across the broad, grassy lawn, would suddenly flap and screech and scare me. 

Later, I lived near wonderful woods in Ohio, walked there often and learned to know the wildflowers. Then, I wanted to know the name of the brilliant blue bird I saw diving into a stream, so I got a birding guidebook and signed up for a birding class. I also realized that birding is a great way to learn about other places and that I could see a wide variety of birds in the course of my travels.

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Searching for Shakespeare

by Jean Kepler Ross

Venice. I was waiting for a traghetto gondola to ferry me across the Grand Canal when I spied a building plaque indicating that the palazzo in front of me was the home of Desdemona, the tragic heroine of Shakespeare’s “Othello.” I didn’t have time to check it out on that trip, but it fired my imagination and I did some research. Desdemona’s home is traditionally set at Palazzo Contarini Fasan, a private home, but now I must go back to see what I can of this home with the plaque. I’ve already been to the Doge’s Palace on Saint Mark’s Square, the Rialto Bridge and the Jewish Ghetto to breathe in the scenes of “The Merchant of Venice.”

from the Wikimedia Commons filesI bonded with William Shakespeare at a young age. I got to play Katherine, or Kate, in our high school production of “The Taming of the Shrew” - a fun and boisterous role - and later played Miranda in a university production of “The Tempest.” Through my exposure to his dramas, I learned to love the language of the Bard.

These early impressions follow me on my travels and when I have a chance to explore sites or works related to Shakespeare, I jump. I’ve been to the Old Globe Theater in San Diego’s Balboa Park to see “Macbeth” (a fine production, but it was my birthday and by the end of the show, there were bodies and prop heads on stakes all over the stage – a bit heavy for a celebration) and to many plays at the renowned Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s Elizabethan stage in Ashland.

On one trip to Europe, I made a pilgrimage to Stratford-upon-Avon and saw Anne Hathaway’s cottage and Shakespeare’s house, but missed out on seeing a play in Shakespeare’s home town as the productions were all sold out. I made do with a performance of Tom Stoppard’s “Rozencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead” at the Old Vic Theatre in London where I saw the minor characters from “Hamlet” star in their parallel side story. In Denmark, I stopped by Elsinore Castle to see where the Danish royal family used to live and imagined Hamlet pacing the ramparts, deciding whether to be or not to be. My strongest memory is of a torture device in the dungeon and I could see how easy it would be to be melancholy there.

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Confessions of a Cemetery Junkie

by Jean Kepler Ross

I had a close encounter with Marilyn Monroe recently. I was in L.A. and decided to pay my respects to the iconic movie star, who rests in a cemetery tucked away near Westwood Village. My brother, who lives in the neighborhood, told me Marilyn has been in the news recently - the widow of the man buried in the wall vault above Marilyn (supposedly upside down) wanted to raise some money by auctioning off the vault and moving her husband. My brother also said the empty vault to the left of Marilyn is reserved for Hugh Hefner...it seems Marilyn is forever desirable.

While checking out the small, quiet memorial garden and the resting sites of Dean Martin, Farrah Fawcett, Natalie Wood and other Hollywood elite, I met a young man from Ohio who asked me to take his photo next to the tombs of Marilyn and Truman Capote. I told him I’ve been to other celebrity gravesites.

It all started with Isadora Duncan. I lived for many years on Nob Hill in San Francisco and once passed a building with a plaque announcing that it was the birth site of Isadora, the mother of modern dance. I was thrilled that fascinating Isadora was born not far from where I was living. Some years later, I was in Paris and made a pilgrimage to her final resting place in the Pere Lachaise cemetery. I also got a map and toured the graves of other notables buried there, like Edith Piaf (grave covered deep in flowers by current fans), Oscar Wilde (a winged white marble art deco monument covered in lipstick kisses), Sarah Bernhart, Jim Morrison (attended by young fans burning candles and playing guitars), Chopin, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas (buried in the same grave), Moliere and legendary lovers Heloise and Abelard.

On other trips to Paris, at the small Passy cemetery across the Seine from the Eiffel Tower, I found the grave of Debussy; went to the cemetery in Montmartre to honor Nijinsky and see the sculpture of him dancing that was on his marker; and stopped by the cemetery in Montparnasse to seek out the sites of Jean Seberg (a fellow Iowa girl) and Jean Paul Sartre.

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