Tuesday, July 25, 2017

FAREWELL TO BIKER CHICK GONE CRAZY

After calling myself Biker Chick for the last five yearsit seems a bit sad to tell you that I'm retiring my Biker Chick Gone Crazy blog.  And yet, at the same time, I'm very happy to introduce you to a new site under my real name -- Pam Perkins -- that is live on the World Wide Web.    

Like many things in life, Biker Chick Gone Crazy started in an embryonic fashion.   A few friends expressed interest in following my 2000 mile bicycle ride up the Mississippi River in May of 2012, so I created the Biker Chick Gone Crazy blog as a way to write about my ride, post pictures and share my experience.  However, fate was cruel.  After only four days of riding,  I aborted the trip in Natchez, Mississippi because of three very painful bulging discs in my neck.  I had no other choice but to fly home and seek treatment.  I was devastated!  A full recovery took almost a year.  After what seemed like the longest three months ever, I climbed back on my bicycle and went on short, flat rides.  I reconfigured the handlebars on my carbon-fiber bicycle, which enabled me to sit upright so as to reduce the pressure on my neck and shoulders.    During my recuperation, writing became effective therapy for me, and over time, Biker Chick Gone Crazy evolved into a blog that now has more than 57,000 page views and hundreds of followers and subscribers.  

My writing muse, and one of my dearest friends, is Helen Cassidy Page, a working writer, who has published many books and articles over the years. She also edits the work of others and consults with authors about the world of self publishing.  Helen read and critiqued some of my early work, and while her comments were mostly positive, her constructive criticism turned my writing around.  She made me see that if I was to put myself out on the Internet as a writer, I needed to take my craft seriously, polish my skills, and write good stuff.  

You are reading my last post writing as Biker Chick Gone Crazy.   I have gained a better sense of my writing self and have, as I said above, established a new website pamperkins.com.   This was not easy.  After acquiring my domain name from GoDaddy, a website that sells domain names, among other things,  I was not quite sure what to do next.  I fiddled around with this and played with that, talked to friends who said it was easy, bashed my head against the wall a few times, and finally decided that it would be far easier to learn Greek than build my own website.  I knew I needed help, so I enlisted Joyce Cimbalista,  a Virginia-based web designer, who created an impressive site for a poet friend of mine.  She and I worked together remotely for a month or so, and now I finally have my own website to showcase the same kinds of stories and photographs I have published in the past.  Now I will write as Pam Perkins and no longer confuse readers who think that biker chick smokes weed and rides Harley-Davidson motorcycles on the weekends.   

For the last couple of years I have been writing mostly about travel and personal experiences rather than escapades on my bicycle because travel has been my primary focus.  Since 2001 I have been to 73 countries and seven continents, and we are still going strong.  In addition to writing about travel, I'm apt to go in other directions when inspiration strikes, and write memoir-like stories about what it was like growing up in small-town New Hampshire and living a fish-bowl life in a motel that my immigrant parents owned. 

Some times my personal stories are funny, but more often they are insightful and cathartic, since writing has helped me shed guilt, recover from losses, and forgive those who have hurt me in the past.   I seldom have the courage to publish painful words, so I often hit the delete key and erase complete sentences until the entire page is blank again.  But some day I'll get up my courage and rewrite stories about circumstances long ago, when things were different, tougher, and life was more stressful.  These are the times that helped shape the person I am today.  

It took a few years of biking before I felt comfortable calling myself a cyclist,  but I eventually did because I was.  Now I call myself a writer, even if I'm just publishing stories on my own website, although recently one of my pieces on Antarctica was published on a website with international exposure.  My experiences in Antarctica will also be featured in the expedition company's annual catalog.   I am close to calling myself a photographer too, so I'm working hard and learning more than just clicking the shutter.  It's not fame that I'm looking for, just constructive or positive feedback from my readers. 

Yes, writing and photography are new passions of mine, but they don't burn the same calories as riding a bicycle 80 plus miles a week.   I hope, however, that these creative endeavors will help carve a new groove in my aging brain, so I can stay mentally sharp until I no longer am.  At the same time, I will continue to ride my bicycle, as fresh air and contact with nature buoy my spirits.   Pushing myself physically keeps me strong and energetic.  I tell people that riding a bicycle is an anti-oxidant for the heart, mind and the soul. 

In closing I want to thank you -- my family, friends, followers, and subscribers -- for your past support, helpful comments, and encouraging words.   It is my hope that you will continue to follow me on my new website, so that you can receive posts via email as you have before.  You can see my new design, read my first post and peruse my photo gallery, which I will update regularly.  I also hope you will give me honest feedback, which will serve to make me a better writer and photographer.   Please go to my new website by clicking on this link.  www.pamperkins.com .


Thursday, June 29, 2017

VIGNETTES FROM ENGLAND




NATURE RULES


SPRING BECKONS 





POETIC BEAUTY




HOME ALONE




FEELING FULL AND LAZY  




ANCIENT STONE, BRICK, AND A THATCHED ROOF


THE GATEWAY TO YORK





THE PRIDE OF YORK




MULTIPLE IMAGES OF CASTLE HOWARD 



FOUNTAINS ABBEY, A UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE SITE




THE HISTORY BEGAN IN 1132




WHEN 13 DISAFFECTED MONKS FROM YORK CAME TO THE VALLEY
IN SEARCH OF A MORE DEVOUT LIFE




400 YEARS OF MONASTIC LIFE ENDED UNDER THE RULE OF HENRY VIII




THE BLUE SIGN READS "GRAHAM GREEN LIVED HERE 1931-1933"
ROBIN HOOD'S BAY, A MAZE OF TINY STREETS, HAS A HISTORY OF SMUGGLING


THE PEOPLE 


HEADING FOR SUNDAY SERVICE AT YORK MINSTER


A SHOE MODEL OR SHOE MODA



ENGLAND'S  ICONIC SYMBOL



ARE VINYL RECORDS COMING BACK?



WE WENT FOR A LONG WALK WITH OUR HIKING STICKS





THE DOGS


THEY CALLED HIM FRANK

YOUNG AND INNOCENT



OLD AND WISE

THE FIERCE WATCH DOG




THE TIRED PHOTOGRAPHER

Sunday, June 11, 2017

THROUGH MY LENS - THE COTSWOLDS

I've often said that when I walk off a plane, I want to know I'm in a foreign country.  In other words I prefer traveling off the beaten path, in a place where English is not the first language, where the culture and aspects of life are different, unique, bordering on the exotic, and sometimes even chaotic.  Traveling to England certainly doesn't fit this image, but as someone who enjoys hearing stories from the locals, meeting unusual people, and photographing landscapes and the chance encounters on the street,  this destination was perfect for me.

Here's my story told through my lens.





                                         SPRING 



Spring in the Cotswolds = bluebells


Seven friends walking a well-traveled path


The benefit of the climb was being able to ...........

 Admire the view




See all the new families



And watch the changing colors under threatening skies




                              
                                   THE CHURCHES



Near Moreton-in-Marsh



Welcoming, but we went walking instead





Headstones well worn 




                         NATIONAL TRUST PROPERTIES




The same family lived in Chastleton House from 1607 until 1991




 A rare peek into a Jacobean Gentry House




 Reeking of class



Snowshill Manor filled with a lifetime collection of Charles Paget Wade






                                                         THE PEOPLE
                                                                    

Outdoor market in Moreton-in-Marsh



Relaxing at Tilley's Tea House




The pub for fish and chips and a pint of Guinness




Shopping for a new hair color, perhaps




A bookseller at Stroud's farmers market






THE TREES















Stay tuned for the Lake District, Yorkshire and Derbyshire

Friday, April 7, 2017

A MOMENT OF ZEN - ANTARCTICA FINAL CHAPTER

Antarctica seems to affect all visitors the same way.  You can't get  the experience of IT out of your head.  You dream about IT.  You think about IT.  You  smell IT.  And yet, while you are there, IT is difficult to comprehend, to grasp, and even more impossible to describe.  You just have to be there, and once you are there,  IT will be imprinted on your brain forever.   And IT wasn't just the wildlife, the scenery, or the snow and ice that impressed me.  When I set foot on my seventh continent,  I visualized where I was standing on the globe's map, and realized I was walking at the very bottom of our planet in the largest wilderness on earth.   I was so far away from civilization and so remote, I wondered if I should be scared.   I was also somewhere in an immense ocean chock full of ice that came in many sizes and shapes.  There was thin ice with raised edges called pancake ice, brash ice pieces that were much larger, and tabular icebergs standing tall like a high rise in Manhattan.  All of this natural beauty plus an abundance of exotic wildlife was so breathtaking that I had trouble getting my head around it.  Some times it felt like a dream.   In some ways it's like gazing at the nighttime sky and seeing billions, maybe trillions of stars, and thinking how small and inconsequential you, as a human being, are in the universe.   That's just one of many feelings you get when you are in Antarctica.  As a human living on this amazing planet, I am almost nothing, like a speck of dust, a grain of sand, and in this case, a five foot five woman from California wearing a bright yellow waterproof parka and carrying a camera.




Here are some basic facts:  Antarctica's cold temperature and its dry, windy conditions prevent the formation of mature soils which, not surprisingly, makes it unsuitable for plants or animals.  However, animal life abounds in the seas surrounding the continent, like migratory seabirds and marine mammals, which are able to exist for several reasons.   Because the sea water is so cold,  it contains higher quantities of carbon dioxide and oxygen; storm-tossed seas create upwellings of essential nutrients like phytoplankton; and the long hours of daylight during the summer months promote almost continuous photosynthesis which enables an algae bloom that is the basis for the Antarctic food chain.  




We moved through the sea ice in inflatable rubber zodiacs, which accommodated ten passengers plus an experienced driver-guide.   The speed of the zodiac was determined by the ocean's swells, but often it was based on whether we were searching for specific sea life or just sitting still and observing spectacular sights like crabeater seals and a pod of whales lunch-feeding on an abundance of krill.  Spotting a whale off in the distance gave us reason to rev up the throttle, hoping we'd move fast enough to catch a humpback breach or find a pod of orcas.  But most of the time we motored slowly, looking for lazy weddell and leopard seals basking on ice floe, or reveling in the graceful aviation of the terns and albatross that flew overhead.  With some envy we watched a few of our fellow adventurers dressed in dry suits and standing on paddle boards, which gave them an entirely different perspective or at least bragging rights. But the people who really had something to brag about were the brave souls who did the polar plunge. Some travelers chose to kayak rather than take a zodiac, but that required an additional effort that wasn't going to necessarily give me better photo opportunities. Occasionally, a family of gentoo penguins would swim next to our zodiac as if asking to hitch a ride, but most of the time we visited their smelly habitat and admired their antics on land.   Here in Antarctica the gentoo and chinstrap penguins seemed aloof, a behavior that was  far different from the bold and curious king penguins we spent time with in South Georgia.











On one of our outings in the zodiac we picked up a piece of sea ice and found it surprisingly unsalty.  That's because sea water freezes at about 28.8 degrees (F), depending upon its salinity.  The greater the salt concentration, the lower the temperature at which water freezes.  Our guide explained that ice, which forms slowly on the sea surface under calm conditions, is generally not salty to the taste.  We hauled the big chunk of glistening ice back to the ship, which was then broken up into smaller pieces so we could enjoy our favorite cocktail on the "glacial" rocks.



Late one afternoon Mette, our zodiac driver and guide extraordinaire, shut off the motor in the midst of a floating garden of ice chunks and asked if we could take a few minutes to sit quietly in the zodiac and not move.   Her instructions were simple.  "Please, stay still, do not speak, and don't adjust those noisy velcro straps.  I want you to experience Antarctica in a different way."  Immediately all eleven of us fell silent, and a few minutes after closing my eyes,  I tuned everything and everyone out and went deep inside myself to feel, to absorb and, as Mette said, to experience Antarctica.  So, what did you hear? someone might ask.   I heard nothing.  I would answer.  Antarctica is silent.  Well, almost nothing, almost silent, because what I did hear was the glacial ice pack breaking and breathing around us, sounds we wouldn't hear with the zodiac running.  Meditating in the silence of Antarctica triggered so many emotions within me that I could feel the tears.  What is it about nature that evokes out-of-the-blue emotion?  This is not the first time this has happened.  I experienced the same emotional response in Yosemite Valley last year.  Although I am not a religious person, I felt as if God reached down and touched my shoulder.  When I finally opened my eyes,  I realized this was not God.  Instead I was touched by the magic of nature.   I was experiencing the last paradise on earth. 





Please click on the link below to watch a two minute video entitled 
A MOMENT OF ZEN