Wednesday, December 23, 2009

FAMILIES AND FRIENDS GET-AWAY TO VIRGINIA TO GATHER PEACE, VIM AND VIGOR


By (c) Russ Barnes


IN THE NEW YEAR


VIRGINIA. December 23, 2009. Lodging isn’t always just glamor. There are inexpensive, quiet, rustic Virginia getaways this winter after the New Year to foster good family relationships or to gather one’s wits, bearings, and vitality for the the coming year. Here are a few places worthy for a familiar group’s consideration:


The Cabins at Crabtree Falls (http://www.crabtreefalls.com) in Nelson County features cabins and cottages, fully equipped, accommodates up to eight people.


In Luray/Page County, the luxury cabins of Appalachian Adventure Lodging (http://www.appalachian-adventures.com). These three bedroom sites are built for comfort, with fireplaces and hot tubs. Enjoy the natural setting just outside Shenandoah National Park and also nearby Luray Caverns.


Like A-Frames? They are cedar constructed. Growling Bear (http://www.rentbear.com/) in Massanutten. They make up part of a resort complex in Bath County. Three bedrooms, three baths, and two stone fireplaces. Ski, golf, hike, and fish. Snow board. The whole family will find something engaging here.


Gather the family and friends in a Great Room. At 3200 feet. Socialize at high altitude. Mountain Laurel Lodge (http://www.warmspringscottages.com), in Bath County. Views for over 50 miles across the Alleghenies and Shenandoah valleys. Beamed cathedral ceilings and a fireplace to relax for conversation, board games, and a hot drink of each’s choice.


Don’t forget Virginia is on the sea. Makes for a serene winter retreat. Sandbridge (http://www.sandbridgebeachva.com/), just south of Virginia Beach, is the place for family and friends to gather. Take your ease. Listen to the waves. You may even see a whale surface during the winter months.


Then there is the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia, the largest bay in the United States, outstripping San Francisco Bay in shoreline mileage. Try Bay Creek Resort and Club (http://www.baycreek.net/) in Cape Charles here. Along the Virginia tributaries, you and your family may find recovered indigenous seafood going back centuries. The fish are place-specific such as branch oysters which are ecologically unique to the brackish waters. You decide which waters you want to visit. Shell fish are best and the plumpest in winter.


Many more wintering places in Virginia. For more information about winter places for family and friends in Virginia, contact http://www.Virginia.org.


© Russ Barnes 2009. Bethesda, Maryland. All rights reserved. May be re-printed with permission. russ@bonmeasure.org

Sunday, December 6, 2009

A HAWAIIAN BIG ISLAND JUKE-JOINT THAT SAILS


BIG ISLAND, HAWAII. December 13, 2009. I’ve always liked frequenting juke-joints, a southern hyphenated term and a southern phenomenon -- especially along the Mississippi River and its tributaries.



Once I worked with Penny Rotheiser in New Orleans. She was promotion director for the Phil Donahue Show based at that time in Chicago. Being born and raised in the Northern suburbs of Chicago, she had never visited a Juke-Joint. Penny begged me to escort her to a New Orleans Juke-Joint.



I said, “I’m not sure you’re the type who would enjoy it.”



She persevered and I relented and took her on a Friday night to a particularly nasty, avaricious, and enjoyable “fish fry.”



Penny was stunned silent at the spectacle. As we walked back to our hotel, she said, “I really loved it. Thank you for showing me something wonderful my Jewish mother never knew anything about.“ She later inscribed those exact two sentences in a book she sent to me that Donahue wrote. Donahue also signed the book, “For Russ, my fellow river rat.”



But one of the greatest joints I ever frequented was, oddly enough, a floating one in Hawaii in 1990 after I first moved to Washington.



My “girl” friend at the time was Sharon Strover, a tenured professor at the University of Texas, a Stanford PhD, and a good-looking blond from Appleton, Wisconsin, a soulmate, a love. Although I bought a chess set once and beat her on our first game together, and so she refused to play me again.



Anyway she and I met up on the Kona Coast, the Big Island. Now Sharon got it in her head that we should take this late night boat cruise out into the Pacific Ocean. I thought, “Well, it would be kind of romantic to go to sea in Hawaii.? But I didn’t have any idea what was in store for me.



The bell rings for boarding, the whistle blows three times, the signal for casting off. We are ushered into this hall with stage and dance floor. A musical band of native Hawaiians promptly begins to smoke and rock. A group of stunning Polynesian women come out and begin to dance the hula in grass skirts.



What impressed me was the tender humor, actually a sort of kind humor and tolerance for the human condition, that was expressed by means of the seduction of their dance.



Well, it wasn’t any more than two minutes after they started dancing, that one of the hula dancers motioned toward me, beckoning me to come up on stage. I thought, “Jeez, I haven’t been on this boat for more than five minutes, haven’t even seen the ocean yet, and I’m about to be made a spectacle of.



But when a beauty calls, do you refuse?




I went up on stage to become a fool along with the rest of humanity. The other hula dancers left the stage and only the beckoning women stayed. She began to unbutton my shirt. She leaned very close and whispered in my ear,



“Where you from?”



“Washington, DC,” I answered.



“So far away,” she protested. She continued to undress me. She whispered very tenderly, pausing momentarily, looking me straight with her twinkling dark eyes,



“Is this okay?”



“Yes, it’s okay.”



She undressed me down to my drawers which isn’t such a bizarre outfit in Hawaii -- pretty much like wearing a bathing suit. Screams of pleasure from the audience -- whistling, hooting, howling, etc. Then she teaches me the hula. It’s different moves for men than for women. Much absurd and bombastic pounding of the chest and thighs as the women rotates their hips and move their hands all in that seductive, sensitive, tender and humorous way.



The ordeal ended, and then a bunch of Polynesian men came out, dressed pretty much as I’d been, and a poor woman from somewhere in Iowa had to go though the same experience with one of those hula guys.

Next day, I traveled to the City of Refuge on Hawaii’s big island, fast by the Kona coast. That place is no juke-joint. Dedicated to several “pagan” gods, it also reflects a concept and places described in the Hebrew Bible. If you commit a crime, intentionally or unintentionally, and if you can swim, walk, fly, or canoe to the City of Refuge, you are protected by the priesthood from revenge. I found the place serene. The atmosphere is quiet and holy.


Copyright (c) Russ Barnes 2009. Bethesda Maryland.

Friday, December 4, 2009

Colorado High. Down Route 17

ALAMOSA, Colorado, December 4, 2009. Some places are glamorous. Some places are just good people. Sometimes both are attractive.


You cruise down route seventeen to get here to Alamosa. Down from Denver, down from Vail and other points north. Down through Moffat. Paved. Dirt roads off to the side.


There is no cell phone traffic along much of the way. No noise except the engine of your car. Hawks fly overhead.


The telephone poles to your right are equally spaced. Placed by a rural telephone cooperative. One mile exactly between each pole. So if you go sixty miles an hour, you see a pole every single minute. It’s like clickity clack, click, clack on your way here.


And that’s about all you see or hear. Except for some blossoming blue thistle and wild orange sunflowers, and then, getting close to Alamosa on the right, you see a solar electricity experiment in the thin high-elevation Colorado sky-blue sunlight. You see signs for viewing UFOs at night.


You see signs to get to the Sand Dunes National Park, bigger than any Atlantic sand beach I’ve ever witnessed. Pressed up against the Rocky Mountains by a prevailing wind blowing off the western desert.


You cross the Rio Grande River, up-stream. Then roll into town. Civilization. Cozy. Barbershop on the left. Nice small town main street stretching east to west. Everything you need and want is here.


Some places are glamorous. Alamosa isn’t. In Vail, Lionshead Ski lift to the mountaintop at eleven-thousand feet or so. Stayed with hospitable, creative people in Edwards, a gated community, Arrowhead. Sunning by the pool. Cocktail party at the club. Jolly dinner at the Saloon at Minturn, a little town just south of Vail. A viewing of a movie provided by my host, Norm, who produced it. The movie: “Under the Same Moon.” A hit (information below). And so was my pleasant stay in Vail a hit.


I rode to Alamosa to get our Lincoln Town Car serviced after a transcontinental trip from Washington, DC. The service. Town and Country Ford and Mercury dealer on Main Street. What do you see when around here? People riding bicycles for transportation. The dealer said there was a right rear tire leakage. While other mechanical car things needed some attention.


So we were chauffeured into the center of town by Rodriguez.


As we were escorted by our dealer, he recommended a tire shop. Our driver said, “Jim’s Tire Store is the best guy for tires in town. You’ll like Jim.”



“Oh,” and he continued, “And if you need to be taken anywhere in town while we fix your car, please just call and we’ll pick you up and take you wherever you want to go.”


So I was waiting for my new tire purchase. Jim has a braided pony tail reaching down to the middle of his back. As he processes my credit card order, a couple pulls their car into Jim’s parking lot in a heap having a nearly flat tire.


“See what we can find,” Jim announces.


Jim rummages around his shop to find a used tire that, with some help, would work. This interrupts his sale and service to me. It was clear I had to be patient. For I was not first in line. When the couple asked, “How much?” Jim answered, “$2.00”


I am on hold about my tire, I walk down toward Main Street. I pass the rail station that offers and takes tourists on steam engine rail rides from Alamosa to La Veta through thrilling Rocky Mountain countryside. I cross the tracks. In that Alamosa neighborhood there are many bars and clubs for about three blocks. Somehow that is very comforting to me. And yet really not that different from the cocktail party in Vail.


My friend and I, later, bought some car/cleaner wax and buffed our car down at the city park, Cole Park. Many walkers came by to chat with us about trivia, life, cars, and the universe.


A contrast. Vail and Alamosa. I like them both.


=================================================


NOTES: Alamosa is 45 miles north of the New Mexico border. The town is 31 miles south of the great Sand Dunes National Park off route 17. Alamosa is the county seat of Alamosa County in the San Luis Valley region. The town’s population is 9500. Fly into San Luis Valley Airport from Denver. Home of Adams State College which has a great theater department.


LINKS: Basic Alamosa information: http://www.alamosa.org. Information on the movie Under the Same Moon, Norman Dryfus, producer, http://www.foxsearchlight.com/underthesamemoon/. Places to stay in Alamosa http://www.alamosa.org/Lodging.aspx. Basic information on vacations in Vail http://www.colorado.com/Listing.aspx?did=437.  Of interest on energy issues, Gender, Energy, and Development at http://energyfordevelopment.blogspot.com.


Copyright © Russ Barnes. Bethesda Maryland, 20814. All rights reserved.

Monday, November 2, 2009

A HOP, SKIP, AND A GRAPE AWAY FROM WASHINGTON

VIRGINIA WINERY OFFERS SPECIALTY WINES AND OTHER REFRESHMENTS

by Russ Barnes


WASHINGTON DC. November 2, 2009. Here in Washington, people make policy. It’s important stuff done here. Capital of the free world.


Out in places like Loudoun Country, Virginia -- a hop, skip and a jump from downtown Washington --people make things. At one spot, Loudoun Valley Vineyards, they make good stuff. Bree Ann Moore, and her husband, Cameron, make things. Wine. A line-up of very locally indigenous wines.


Tasting Room, Loudoun Valley Vineyards

Photo Credit: Michele Surwit


Their grapes are grown, harvested, fermented, and oak-barrel aged within a unique micro-climate. The vineyards are located near Waterford in the rolling foothills of the Shenandoah mountains. The weather and the alkaline soil resemble regions in Southern France and California’s Sonoma Valley.


Bree Moore, 30, the youngest vintner in Virginia, with whom I talked last week at her Vineyard’s “tasting room” is an heir to the art and science of winemaking. Her father operated a vineyard in Sonoma Valley. Bree is obviously keen on the challenge of creating fresh wine labels emerging from the local conditions of the Virginia countryside.



Travelers take note. A journey to a place like Loudoun Valley Vineyards, and other specialty wine makers in the Virginia countryside, offers a refreshing contrast for long-time Washington residents, visiting business people, and traveling vacationers alike.


It’s a short drive from downtown Washington. And there are several limousine and hotel shuttles that will take you out of the Washington intrigue toward a refreshing aside.


Things -- wine and the hospitality that go with it -- are made at this small family farm in Loudoun County, Virginia.


The cares of Washington -- the policy, the publicity, the lobbying, the calculating, the idealism, the long busy work hours -- all these melt away as you meet your equal enthusiasts at the tasting room and maybe a large friendly Virginia dog on its veranda.


At my tasting, along with my photographer friend Michele, I met several fellow appreciators. Folk from Germany, Switzerland, Russia, and England. And a pair of motorcyclists cruising the Virginia countryside who had more knowledge about wine than I do.



One informed me, “Virginia wine has a different taste. There are many good wines in the world. But here they are in a class by themselves. I

like this Classic White. It is sweet, but smooth. Only place you can find it on this earth.”


The view outside the tasting room is made aesthetic by the facility’s generous glass windows and doors, its tile patterned floor and its abundant outside verandas.


What your eyes see from the tasting tables are six acres of chardonnay and five acres of chambourcin grapevines in orderly vineyards that gently roll out in different directions against the backdrop of the Blue Ridge and Catoctin Mountain ranges.


It makes for a relaxing view of one of the unique Loudoun County micro-climate’s landscape and bounty. There is live music many days and evenings in the tasting room.


“Ninety-nine percent of our wine is sold right here,” says Bree. “The other one percent we sell only to boutique delicatessens and wine shops. We don’t sell to big chains. We give exclusive rights to independent boutiques.”


“This is small farming,” Bree continues. “It doesn’t emit the global warming methane gasses in the huge quantities of industrial farms. We do fertilize with some nitrogen. But we also have a trade arrangement with many equestrian VIrginia farms.”


“Horses love to eat the grape must [part of the grape skin] which we dispose of anyway. So we ship the must to the horse farms. In return, they truck us back the horse manure that is THE best fertilizer for grapevines.”


There is something fundamentally human and god-like about wine and wine-making. And you feel it in the atmosphere of Loudoun Valley Vineyards. Theater, the ancient ancestor of our modern movies, began at the Temple of Dionysus,dedicated to the god of wine, in Greece. And Virginia celebrates this heritage in its many theaters and provides many settings for modern movies.


If you go to Loudoun Valley Vineyards or other wineries around Virginia, there are many ways to get there. You will see some transportation methods and directions in the sidebar below. There are also many other attractions in the area which are referenced.


===================================================


© 2009 Bethesda, Maryland. All rights reserved. Text copy is owned by Russ Barnes. All original photos are owned by Michele Surwit. Licensing of either may be arranged by contacting russ@bonmeasure.org or msurwit@gmail.com. Or call 301-637-7841.

===================================================


IF YOU GO:


Loudoun Valley Vineyards. www.loudounvalleyvineyards.com

Custom limousine tours. Point-to-Point: http://www.visitloudoun.org/things-to-do/details?id=77822

Specialized tours at http://www.visitloudoun.org/things-to-do/details?id=49603

Nearby attractions at www.VisitLoudoun.org; www.YouTube.com/VisitLoudounHD








Sunday, September 27, 2009

Austin, Texas


Hello everyone. I'm off to Austin. Hope you like this one. Russ




AUSTIN, TEXAS

By (c) Russ Barnes
Austin photo (c) Michele Surwit


She liked the idea of Barton Springs,
pure spring water into a pool, no chlorine no chemicals,
twice as big as a football field,
where you don’t have to wear clothes unless you like.
Sleeping together every night.
Someplace her son is more likely to visit
more than Washington. Young in spirit.
Not a bunch of old white-guy geezers
harping on the same old themes day and night.
Music every joint down the block from the 60s, 70s,
hip hop, Mexican, blues, jazz, whatever.
Alice's restaurant, next door to City Hall,
where you walk in and there’s no roof above
and you look up and see the stars way out in space.
There is a steel band from the islands
and everyone is smoking MJ and drinking beer.
Bumper stickers that recommend, “Eat at the Y.”
Guys, middle of town, in jeans with no shirt.
Blue sky with a whiff of slow-cooking barbecue smoke
rising in old smoke-signal puffs. The bats at sundown
charging out for their meal of central Texas bugs.
And everyone saying, “Wow!”
People say, “Howdie,” and they mean it.
You say, Howdie” back and you mean it too.
Where you drink watermelon juice and eat huevos rancheros
for breakfast with pico de gallo on the side.
Where the women tilt their heads to the right
and are fierce for reality and not for social norms,
and they speak and act that way.
They spank their men and then stand by them.
Where the men are willing to take a risk, even lose,
and still think of themselves as men.



Text and photo owned respectively by Russ Barnes and Michele Surwit. Permissions for use available upon request at russ@bonmeasure.org.

Friday, August 28, 2009

What’s Coming Up on “Travel with a Twist.”


This week, I want to let everyone who follows “Travel with a Twist” -- or those wanting to begin following these blog posts -- what will be coming up every Friday in weeks ahead.


Some fun places to go or at least read about.


First, bird watching. The southern New Jersey shore near Cape May is the place to go. Birds migrate there in spectacular numbers and species. In September, there are big surges of neotropical songbirds all month along the beach. Hawks (Merlins and Northern Harriers) are migrating. You can see flights of loons and cormorants.


In October, you can see the height of neotropical songbirds. Scoters come along. And so do gulls and terns. Owls come in at mid-month. Egrets and great blue herons are on the scene.


Check in to the blog as zoologists explain what is described as the greatest bird migration in the United States.


Also in New Jersey. Sho-be-do, do-wop, do-wop. Yeah! The epicenter of Doo-Wop. It’s not just music. It’s architecture too. Amazing 50's motels. And oldies-but goodies at the convention center in Wildwood.


Off to Texas. A quilting convention in Houston, mid-October where 55,000 women will gather to show their artistry at the International Quilt Festival. “Travel with a Twist” will preview the festival and cover it live.

We will do our best to interview and survey the work of Peter Kramer, master cabinet maker in “little” Washington, Virginia. We may also give a review of the renowned five-star restaurant in the same small town, “Inn at Little Washington.”


We will visit three small towns all of which have renovated old movie theaters for live stage performances to enhance local economic development and give pleasure.


Austin, Texas wants to be “weird.” It’s the place where 100's of thousands of bats stream out from under the Lady Bird Johnson bridge every evening when the sun dips below the horizon. One of the only towns in the world that would not eradicate the bats. Learn why? It's an interesting story. Sit back and enjoy the thousands who watch every night.


Oh, and in early October, we may visit Kreutz’s barbecue in Lockhart, Texas. There’s an open fire in the joint with smoldering live oak logs, a hole in the roof for the chimney, BBQ served on butcher paper with bread and pinto beans. No utensils. Reviewed by the New York Times. We’ll do a better job. So tune in.


See you all next Friday.


© Russ Barnes 2009. All rights reserved including text and owned photos indicated as copyrighted. Reproduction or re-transmission of material available upon request. Links to this posted article are welcome and encouraged.



Saturday, August 22, 2009

Life is Good in the Brush! --Outfitted on a Texas Ranch


Life is good in the brush! So proclaims outdoorsman Joe Heidelmeier as we drive through the Texas Hill Country to Hickory Pass Ranch in Joe's well-provisioned 1988 Ford pick-up truck, "Silver."

Joe, who is referred to as an “outfitter” in ranch lingo, will be my guide and mentor during my stay on the 3500 acres of near wilderness that make up Hickory Pass Ranch near Marble Falls.


Being “outfitted” on massive private ranches such as this one makes for an active getaway. In Texas alone there are hundreds of these private ranches, some providing the public with respite from the cacophony and confusion of city life -- and adventure through managed outfitted ranch experiences.


In such a getaway, your private outfitter guides you, supplies you, teaches you, befriends you, corrects you, informs you, protects you, and chastises you -- out in the brush.

Spending a vacation like this feels nothing like taking a Caribbean cruise, bargaining in the markets of Marrakesh, or doing the grand tour of Europe.


Nope. Getting out to one of the many Texas ranches that provide outfitting to the traveling public, your eyes may first be greeted by live oak and mesquite trees on the horizon, quisatche weed and prickly pear on the ground. Hidden, initially, from view but there to be discovered are also -- depending on the ranch -- quail, deer, wild turkey, dove, geese, wild sheep, wild boar, elk, bobcat, an occasional mountain lion. Snakes. lizards, spiders and insects find their place in the wilds of bush country. Your guide instructs you in how to deal with all the critters.


Why go there? What’s to do?


There are several answers. The first and most obvious is to hunt game. For the avid hunter, this is often an experience for a lifetime. But bringing home the game for bragging rights, while a big incentive, doesn’t explain the depth of the experience you get.


What you get besides maybe a “trophy” deer is more subtle to express. But most participants feel it. Want it. Come back for more. One appealing dimension to the experience, not often mentioned, is the mysterious connection that develops between people and nature in a communal setting on a managed Texas ranch.


Here are some of the rewards of time spent in company with other seekers of experience in the wild:


1) Learning -- not only about hunting and bagging the quarry (although that foremost). You may hear a few tips as I did from my guide, Joe, for example, about rattlesnakes. “Never walk in the shade during the day. Walk in the sun. At night, always carry a flashlight outside.” Or for another example, “If you see a skunk or a fox in the bright sun of daylight, shoot it or back off. It will be rabid.”


2) A rare camaraderie especially to be found among men as they encounter the natural world together. What is this? Much -- including a feeling of well-being, connectedness, and personal power few feel in the modern offices and busy chores of city life.


3) A primal relationship between man and beast, and between man and nature, that cannot be found fully in a zoo or even in a state or national park. You experience this in your group even if you hunt only with a camera, as I do.


4) A growing experience of mystery at which I can only hint as these paragraphs unfold. The ranch setting, as well as the growing bonding the group experiences as they are immersed in that setting, provides a substantial contrast to the urban environment.


Consciousness changes. “Being in the brush is good ju-ju,” points out Joe Heidelmeier, using an African expression meaning a combination of luck, magic, and power. “There are people who, if they can’t get out to the brush on a regular basis, they could turn into something like a serial killer.” (It’s clear Joe doesn’t mean that literally. There are many subtle ways to murder a part of someone out of frustration.)


Allen Spence, manager of AC Hunting Ranches in Fort McKavett, Texas, agrees. “I used to come out here as a participant -- 180 miles from Austin -- to hunt for a week. Out here I felt content," Spence continues. “When I started back to the city and my job, my head started buzzing. You worry, what emails will be waiting? What’s happening with office politics?”


AC Hunting Ranches are actually three working ranches, all managed by Allen and his wife, Allison. One is 10,000 acres, the two others 5000 acres each (for a total of 20,000 acres), one of smaller ranches high fenced to contain sizable game like elk. There are several ranch houses, one of them elegant, “as nice as any found at Lakeway" (the sophisticated Austin resort). The accommodations at Texas ranches that outfit vary considerably. Those at AC Hunting Ranches extend from luxurious to a comfortable rustic apartment constructed inside a barn.


Sunrise, Sunset


Days begin with a robust breakfast, such as eggs, bacon and sausage, pancakes, fruit, coffee and the like, and end with a hearty group chowdown, with a chance to replay the tall tales of the day with a repast of such entrees as fajitas, Tex-Mex, steaks, chicken-fried steak and all.


Days more often than not end with a sunset in a signature Texas burnt-orange blaze. What follows is a night sky so black you can see burning debris streaking through earth’s atmosphere, the Milky Way laid out beyond as a light-show backdrop almost every night.


About the mystical experience. “An adrenaline rush” is how Allen Spence describes it.


Picture it like this: Your guide takes you through the brush to a “deer blind” -- an elevated, camouflaged lookout with horizontal rectangles for sighting a camera or rifle. You are quiet. You are still. You begin your look-out just when the sun comes up or goes down over the horizon at sunset.


This is the time of day Joe calls “the magic moment.” Creatures stir. You look out over the Texas land -- wooded with live oak, cedar, mesquite with meadows of quisatche, algerita bushes, prickly pear cacti, and grasses of all sorts.


It is quiet. The air is cool. You hear only the snapping of twigs and swishing of the brush as hidden creatures begin to stir. For a while you don’t care what happens. The silence, broken only by these soft sounds, is all-absorbing.


Time stands still. You watch. You wait. Then in a moment, out of the brush, a creature appears. As it comes into range, the guide coaches you through the shot. It is a dramatic moment in a mighty and intimate relationship between two animals: one human and one wild.


It is at this moment that many hunters suffer what Allen calls "buck fever." The guy begins to shake, quake, and quiver,” Allen reports. “He quivers like he is freezing even if the temperature is 100 degrees.”


It is an ancient rite. There is protocol, even courtesy, to the death -- little different from the priestly sacrifices on the temple altar described in the Bible. This is the moment of the “adrenaline rush,” “buck fever,” and awe before the creation we inhabit. “When I make my harvest and pick up the animal,” Joe confides, “I feel a twinge of regret. A spirit is gone and I feel sad about its passing."


Adrenaline Rush; Buck Fever


As to learning proper manners and protocol, Joe, my guide, explains, "There is a difference between a shooter and a hunter. First of all, many of these ‘shooters’ don’t know how to use a rifle. Second, they shoot deer in the body, through the internal organs. That wounds the quarry," Joe continues, "and the animal flees, the adrenaline flowing through its body. The animal suffers and the taste of the meat is ruined."


"What you need to do," says Joe, "is reach out and touch the animal. You need to target the animal right through the brain. We’re not shooters of animals. We harvest them when they are over-populated. And we do it in an organized, managed way."


Joe describes how he guts a deer with only a penknife. "Anything you harvest, you must eat, share with your friends, or give away."


In contrast, Allen offers a ghastly example of this civilized code of ”eat your prey.” Narrating the story of a U.S. Marine sniper, who when the time came to kill his deer, began to shiver and shake in a classic case of buck fever despite his competent and dedicated years in the killing fields of war.


“Did you shake too in Iraq when you shot a man?” No, said the Marine. “That’s a job. I’m ordered to do that. I don’t even have to pick the man up once he’s down. Here I have a different experience. I pick up the animal up and help to clean it."


Men these days tend to be isolated from each other in the work-a-day world of civilian life. Women somehow seem to have a blessing, deserved, of meeting in groups to share their special problems and experiences.A place where they can experience a distinctive feminine community.


Allen, though, welcomes women as participants in the groups. The encounter with the wild is available to all.


How to Find Your Ranch; What Are Typical Terms?


There is little if any packaged travel to most of the ranches like the one described here. To get to AC Hunting Ranches, it is recommended that out-of-the region participants fly to either Austin or San Antonio. From there, they can rent a car and drive the 180 miles to Fort McKavett. An extra option is that the ranch will send a corporate plane to either airport to pick up participants and fly them to an air strip close by the ranch, where Allen will pick them up by van.



Group sizes at AC Hunting Ranches are six people and six guides for special game; ten to eleven people with accompanying guides for deer and hog hunting. Most hunts are three days in length. Prices range from about $800 to $3500. The price includes room and board, personal guides, and game handling. Specific details about AC Hunting Ranches may be found at: http://www.achuntingranches.com/index.html


For information on other game-managed Texas ranches, the following directory provides a starting place : http://www.judgeroybean.com/main/guidesandranches.html.


© Russ Barnes 2009. All rights reserved including text and owned photo indicated as copyrighted. Reproduction or re-transmission of material available upon request. Links to this posted article are welcome and encouraged.


NOTE: Hickory Pass Ranch mentioned in this post does not offer nor solicits outfitted hunting and is used here for illustration purposes only.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Crestone: Where Travel and Spirituality Meet


CRESTONE, Colorado.


This is a place where travel and spirituality merge. At 8000 feet, it takes your breath away. I bicycle up and down the high-desert, sandy foothills of the Sangre de Cristo mountain range from my digs to this small rocky mountain town close by the New Mexico border.


I tie up my bike in town, population 120. First stop, Curt’s Olde Country Store where I pick up sea salt potato chips made in Boulder. Then on to the post office (zip 81131) where four-wheel drive vehicles zoom into the parking lot as people pick up their daily mail. I drink water and munch chips. And I people-watch.


And then there is the Twenty-First Amendment -- a liquor store -- open when I was last there, now closed. The storefront has a sign which says -- in big letters, quoting Hunter S. Thompson -- “A word to the wise is infuriating.” Old dogs lie on the street in front of this old establishment. They half-way raise their heads in disgust as you approach. Accusingly, their looks say, “Why would you disturb my savoir faire, amigo?”


There is also the Shambala Cafe located next to a Buckminster Fuller geodesic dome in which grows who knows what. We won’t get into that here.


Okay. That’s travel. How about spirituality?


Well, there is a Hindu temple in the environs. Several Tibetan centers. An ashram. A couple of Buddhist stupas. The Shumei International Institute, an impressive facility located high on the mountainside.


(You can hear the drumming from the Shumei Center as it rumbles off the ridge of the Rocky Mountain range like a thunderstorm in late afternoon.)


It is said there is a crystalline formation nearby Crestone. Some say it provides the area with a special spiritual energy.


My favorite spiritual place (or should I say a favorite place, period?) here in Saguache County is a Carmelite Roman Catholic monastery, the Spiritual Life Institute. Unlike most, it is a co-ed monastic community whose welcoming sign broadcasts, "No fuss, no muss."


You go into Sunday mass barefoot, and the monks in their robes make their procession across the cool stone floor. The eastern light comes over the mountains and through the clerestory window. When you look through those windows from 8000 feet, the heavens appear dark blue. But then you also sense that you are peering into the blackness of outer space and the universe.



And then there is the altar. A rough-hewn block of Rocky Mountain stone, balanced on supports, that evokes solemnity, dignity, “gravitas.”


Following one mass, there is another celebration for one of the brothers just returned from Ireland. One monk holds up two bottles of champagne, declaring, "This will never run out!"


I cycle across the high desert, heading west from Crestone toward Moffat. Ten miles one way. The few motorists along the road I travel wave. Friendly. I stop for hydration. Halfway, hawks dive-bomb, coming close to my helmet. Protecting their hatchlings, I later learn. Out on the prairie desert, antelope roam.


For more information on Crestone, contact the Crestone Eagle, the community’s weekly newspaper at www.crestoneeagle.com. For information on the Carmelite Monesary -- http://www.spirituallifeinstitute.org/Nada.html. For information on the Shamei Center -- http://www.shumeicrestone.org/home.html



© Russ Barnes, 2009, Bethesda Maryland. All rights reserved. Permissions: russ@bonmeasure.org