Saturday, June 2, 2012

Betty in the National Parks, Part 1

Here is the first entry for a chance to win a coveted item from The Betty Neels Collection!

This is the first of a 4 part series by Betty AnoninTX.  I plan to post one each day around noon. 
-Betty Debbie

Hello all!  This is Betty AnoninTX.  My PRT (poor retired teacher, as opposed to RDD) husband and I love national parks and monuments, and we plan our vacations around visiting the parks.  We love mountains and streams and waterfalls and snow and wildlife, such as you would find in Yellowstone.  So where did we go on this trip?  The deserts and canyons of Utah.  In 2008 Wall Arch in Arches National Park collapsed.  When I read that news release, I immediately knew we needed to go before another one was lost.  We finally made it!  Someone on the blog suggested I take Betty in the Wild photos.  Unfortunately I did not read that until *after* we left the Grand Canyon, but Betty did go there too for part of the day.  It wasn't really part of the vacation, but who could be near the Grand Canyon without at least stopping for a few hours? We had a great trip, and I hope you enjoy some of the photos.  I will say that I had a few strange looks.  I just smiled and said "it's for a book challenge" and posed anyway.


The first park Betty visited was Zion NP.  Julie and Simon (A Kiss for Julie) posed against the red rocks at the bottom of Checkerboard Mesa.  I wish I had taken them along to the Weeping Rock or to Lower Emerald Pool, for better pictures, but I forgot.  This was our second trip to Zion NP, and it is truly a stunning place.  We stayed in a cabin at Zion Lodge and loved it.


After we left Zion, we drove through Cedar Breaks National Monument.  It wasn't open for the season yet.  There was snow on the ground still, and it was extremely windy and cold.  I unfortunately left Julie and Simon in the truck when we walked to the viewpoint behind the visitor center, and they did not pose for a photo here.  Standing on a cliff, looking down at the hoodoos still covered a bit in snow, was quite amazing.


Speaking of hoodoos...  The third stop we made was Bryce Canyon NP.  I cannot express how incredibly beautiful this place is.  We stayed at the Lodge, and it was just yards to the edge of an amphitheater.  A hoodoo is a tall, skinny rock caused by erosion.  The colors range from oranges and reds to browns and white.  The amphitheaters full of the hoodoos are stunning.  Julie and Simon were as close to the edge as I dared to get because I am a big chicken.



20 comments:

  1. Betty Debbie, The Invisibility of the Pictures is not part of the great art, is it?
    Maybe there will be pictures tomorrow.
    Betty Anonymous

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  2. Blogger fail.

    I'll give it another whirl...the pictures showed up in the preview, I'll try putting them in another way.

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  3. These are some of my favorite places! Thanks for the pictures!

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  4. Betty An TX You remind me of a man.(Sorry, its the hoodoo thing!)

    Betty Ariel's first National Park was her volunteer stint at Bryce Canyon, 2005 I think. From the connections there she got a job working in Media relations for Yosemite. There she met and married Ranger Bear Guy and went 3 years to Katmai in Alaska. They try to find jobs together but this year they couldn't find two good jobs together. So they took a leap and Ranger Bear Guy took a job at Shenandoah N.P. in VA. But things are looking good! She interviewed yesterday for an innovative ranger position that just opened up in the park. If she gets it I'll share more details.
    Positive thoughts and prayers requested for Betty Ariel. For those who are newer, she's my #2 child and the person who first got me hooked on Betty Neels. I'd never even read a romance novel til my girls got into college!
    Great work on the Betty's in the N.P.s!

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    1. I swear I'm female, even though I like hoodoos and geology. :) All the hoodoo shapes are fascinating.

      That is awesome about your daughter working for the Park Service. I *always* wanted to work for the Park Service as an interpretive ranger. Seriously, from about grade 6 or 7, it's what I dreamed about. But then I fell in "love" with my hs boyfriend who was going a totally different direction. So when I started college, I decided I'd be a teacher. Of course we didn't marry, but I finished up the degree. Within the first week or two of my first teaching job, I met my husband-to-be in the hall. We're working on 30 years together, so I think the fates had a different plan for me. I just travel to parks now. :)

      Betty AnoninTX

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  5. Okay, now I'm just bragging!
    Ar got on National TV twice. Here she's in Yosemite
    & this is Katmai

    I beg your indulgence, I'm shameless and just so darn proud of her. This gal had her own language as a child and was LD and in speech thru elementary. It would be a wonderful accomplishment for anyone, but for her it's stellar!

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    1. That is so cool! Thanks for linking us to your beautiful daughter in those beautiful places. Oh, honey, can we go to Yosemite and/or Katmai?

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  6. BettyMary, she is a beautiful girl and you have every right to be proud of her. The hoodoo skit is one of my favorites, too. I love how the French call hoodoos "demoiselles coiffees", or "ladies with hairdos". It would be great to see the ones in France, it's a shame that terrible fates will befall you if you go there.

    Was it Cassandra or Little Dragon where the RDD admits to owning a small house in the south of France?

    Betty Anon, I can definitely see my family coming from "beyond the wierde", to this very day we are "beyond weird". My G x 9 grandfather Simon left the Nederlands as a gunner on a Dutch East Indies ship called called the Geldersche Blom (Flower of Gelder). We were thrown out of New York after the Revolutionary War for being Tories and went to Tiverton, Novia Scotia but eventually snuck back in to America. Glad no one called the INS on us.

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    1. Oops forgot to sign ,

      Betty von Susie

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    2. I love hearing about family history, Betty von Susie, and yours seem very interesting. Unfortunately, I come from the Far East, and non-royal, so neither ancestry.com nor the folks in Utah can help me there. Maybe our founding Bettys can contradict me.

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    3. Dutch family names were not required until Emperor Napoleon stuck his little nose in about 1811 and forced everyone to register a family name. We were already in America by then and known as Outhouse (the anglicized form of Uithuizen). My dad's side of the the family had the name Branscum (my dad refers to us as "brand scum" , he thinks he's funny) so with "Outhouse" and "brand scum" I'm not seeing any royalty in my past either....

      Betty von Susie

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    4. Betty von Susie, France - what terrible fates?

      It was Cassandra.
      'There you go, exaggerating again! I am well-to-do, but no millionaire, and though I grant you I have a lovely home, I feel that I should point out to you that save for a very small cottage in the south of France, it is the only home I have, and I have yet to see hordes of servants in it.'
      Cassandra by Chance

      He listened courteously, but didn't press her for details, and presently began to talk about plans for his mother's proposed holiday later on—it seemed that he owned a villa in the south of France as well. She supposed he was quite rich ...
      A Match for Sister Maggy / Nurse in Holland / Amazon in an Apron (1969)

      BranscumFirst found in Devon where they held a family seat at Branscombe in the ninth century well before ... William the Conqueror in 1066.
      Need I say it? I am impressed.
      Betty Anonymous

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    5. Not saying that he is an direct descendant of that family - but then again who knows.
      Betty Anonymous

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    6. I guess it's only premarital weekends in Paris that are really dangerous.

      Betty von Susie

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  7. Ack! I was just at the Columbus Zoo last week, but my Bettys were in the car (A Kind of Magic) and back at the hotel room (The Quiet Professor). So no Betty in the "wild" pictures. I can't believe it didn't even cross my mind to snap a pic!

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  8. Update on BettyAriel! She got the job! HOOORAH!
    She'll be working for the law enforcement side but no weapon. She'll be walking the trails doing 'preemptive rescue' work. The idea is that she'll spot people who are not prepared for long hikes or the weather etc, or are being careless and counsel them to take the right precautions and do the right thing. The goal is to cut back on the number of rescue operations and searches. She's really pumped about the job. She loves the idea of being out in the park instead of in the Park Office where most of the time all you hear are the complaints.
    Thanks everyone and Thank You Lord!

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    1. Yea! Congrats to her! We'll be in Shenandoah NP this fall. Beautiful country for sure.

      I think that sounds like a definitely needed position in all the parks. I'm obviously older now and know my limitations. I tend to err on the side of caution too. But I see people doing the most foolish things in the parks. Some day I *know* I'm going to see someone go over the side of the Grand Canyon or else be attacked by an animal because of getting too close. We hiked up some pretty long and fairly strenuous trails in the HEAT in the parks this trip. I was blown away by the number of people not carrying water and also just wearing flipflops. I'm sure your daughter tells you some horror stories.

      Anyway, I really do think that it's awesome she got the job! I enjoyed the videos. Yosemite is where I always wanted to work. Yosemite, Yellowstone, and Glacier are my top three parks.(so far)

      Betty AnoninTX

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  9. Can we publish photos of places from other parts of the world? Next time I go somewhere in our fair land downunder I will take a snap with my Betty Neels books too. I always take them with me for re reading, never thought of popping them into the picture.

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    1. Of course you can take pictures from other parts of the world. Betty AnoninTX did too, if you see what I mean. So go ahead. I am sure we'll all love to see your pictures from downunder.
      Betty Anonymous

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