Dirtbag Travel

Arches National Park~ a weekend of hiking

2010-10-12T14:24:00.000-07:00

Two weekends in a row hanging out with Tony; it's a record. We met in Moab, ostensiby for Tony to bring me Nellie, now that we have a house that allows a dog. It just so happened to be perfect desert hiking weather. Tony always gets the short end of the stick when we "meet in the middle", but this weekend he had to be in in Salt Lake on Monday to fly to Atlanta for some sort of Robot Rodeo....(he assures me this event that requires his attendance sounds WAY more fun than it actually is), so driving to Moab was not so bad.

This photo is a good example of the fins that form from erosion.

Arches National Park is in eastern Utah a few miles north of Moab. It is known for preserving over 2000 natural stone arches, including the world-famous Delicate Arch ( of which I don't have a photo because we did not hike in that part of the park) in addition to a variety of unique geological formations. The park lies above a sub-terranian salt bed, which is the main cause of the formation of the arches, spires, balanced rocks, and sandstone fins. Over time, water seeped into the surface cracks, joints, and folds of these layers. Ice formed in the fissures, expanding and putting pressure on surrounding rock, breaking off bits and pieces. Winds later cleaned out the loose particles. A series of free-standing fins remained. Wind and water attacked these fins until, in some, the cementing material gave way and chunks of rock tumbled out. Many damaged fins collapsed. Others, with the right degree of hardness and balance, survived despite their missing sections. These became the famous arches. (wiki is my source)

This area was part of Edward Abbey's home turf and he was actually a park ranger there for one year in the late 60's. Thus was born the novel Desert Solitaire, a must~read for any quasi~environmentalist. It has reached biblical proportion among more than a few. It is such a quotable read. Such as: Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, and as vital to our lives as water and good bread. A civilization which destroys what little remains of the wild, the spare, the original, is cutting itself off from its origins and betraying the principle of civilization itself."

We passed by about 6 or 7 arches on this hike. We even passed a huge arch that had recently collapsed.

We could literally spend an entire week here hiking all day, every day and still only cover a small portion of the park. We entered through the main entrance, since we have a national parks membership pass, but it is also possible to enter for free along a long, winding and sandy back road. Your vehicle needs pretty high clearance to make it but it would be well worth the trouble just to avoid the throngs of tourists that rarely venture much farther than the parking lots closest to whatever arch they want to photograph.

Hope Lake hike

2010-09-19T20:33:00.000-07:00

Fall is upon us and the aspen are golding-up nicely. It's no spectacular New England display of colours, but the majestic mountains make up for much. Owen, Nellie and I decided to hike up to Hope Lake last weekend to eat a picnic lunch. It was only a 7 mile round trip, but was challenging enough because the trail head started at 10,000 ft and ended at 12,000 ft.

Indian summer was definitely upon us. When we arrived at the parking lot I was amazed at the number of cars. Just to get to the trail head was a bone-jarring 4 miles up a steep mountain "road". Well worth it, however.

Moah in late summer with my husband and boys.

2010-09-16T21:41:00.000-07:00

No he is not yet living with me, but I am sure seeing him more this year than last. But I won't complain and just be happy to be with him when I can.

We did our annual late summer pilgrimage to Moab, but it was not late enough. FREEKIN' HOT.
We did a great 15 mile mountain bike ride covering a technical part the Kokapeli Trail and the Porcupine Rim before dropping onto Sand Flats road. When we arrived back at camp, Owen was a wilted flower in need of rejuvenation after the almost 100 degree, 2 hr + ride. MOAB BREWERY and BEER CHEESE SOUP did the trick. He was back on his game and scrambling about the red rock under a starlit night sky. Ben opted not to ride and stay at camp and smoke Marlboros and drink beer instead. Yikes, life as a party animal sure seems dull to me.

Dirtbag Travel

2010-07-24T19:54:00.000-07:00

I will have to drop the "Idaho" from the blog title in about 5 weeks. Still have not upgraded beyond "dirtbag" style of travel, so I can keep that part. In fact, I believe the only time we have ever stayed in hotel for vacation is when we are out of the country or with my parents or other relatives. Oh yeah, and once this winter in Moab when Owen requested a hot tub and swimming pool for his birthday.

In fact, we have been doing a bit of of dirt bagging since I bought Tony the shiny, new, North Face 3~person tent he has wanted since Ben was about 8 yrs old. Often times it is just easier to not take the Vanagon. We have been doing quite a bit of mountain biking in Jackson, Kelly Canyon, Victor, IF foothills and tomorrow, Montana. It has been years since we have mountain biked so regularly together. I have been mostly remiss in taking photos to document these rides. I will try to remember the camera this weekend.

The beginning of the end

2010-07-01T18:22:00.000-07:00

This is our last summer in Idaho. I was all ready to come back and make the best of it but my husband has seen the light. He needed to decide for himself. So I am going to dedicate myself to loving Idaho and its surroundings and my friends more than ever for the next seven weeks before I head back to Telluride.

Owen's very best friends in the whole wide world have moved and he missed saying goodbye to them, so he is a bit sad and lonely here. I imagine this will mean we will be making the drive to Teton Valley often because that is where the rest of his friends live. That is fine with me.

Ben turned 21 today, so to that end, he spent the day chasing down all the free beer and shots offered by the bars in town to those turning 21. This seems wrong to me, on so many levels, but if I had been a drinking woman when I turned 21, I am sure I would have embraced the concept with gusto. We are celebrating tomorrow evening since Tony will be flying back today from a trip to Boston.

On speaking Spanish and eating pastries

2009-11-18T13:25:00.000-08:00

Every language teacher tries to come up with creative, authentic and fun ways to get their students speaking in the target language. After all, communication, not conjugating verbs in the past perfect tense of the subjunctive mood, is the point of learning a foreign language.

So where is it that you usually find the intrepid foreign travelers trying to hone their language skills? They are meeting in the coffee houses and pastry shops of the world, hunched over a thick, black mug of java and a croissant , rubbing elbows with the locals and parsing utterances that may or may not resemble speech.

The upper-school Spanish speakers at the Mountain School have taken this idea to Cindy Bread in the form of talleres de conversación, conversation workshops. There is only one rule at these gatherings: no English. The incentive of a home-made baked good in the middle of a school day makes adherence to this rule successful. Kids often call each other out, in Spanish mind you, if they hear someone breaking the rule.

What do we talk about? The possibilities are numerous: pick a topic from a hat on which to speak, student presentations , improvisation scenarios, chat about weekends past, present and future, friends and families, plan an upcoming experiential trip. Students get a little taste of what it is like to try to figure out how to say what they want really want to communicate but might not have the language skills to do so. A little bit of immersion right here in Telluride, Colorado.

Telluride knows how to party

2009-11-05T22:28:00.000-08:00

Telluride has over 30 parties and festival throughout the course of the year. They even have the Annual No Festival festival mid-July each year. Only t-shirts are sold, no events. Halloween is no exception to the must-party atmosphere. Everyone gets into it.

When I taught at Conval High in NH, about 20-30% of the faculty and students pulled it out on Halloween. Many thought it uncool to dress up and celebrate. Different states, different mentalities. Maybe it is the vestiges of the puritanical, have-no-fun history of New England. Colorado does not have that problem. Just living here is a reason to celebrate. Halloween is no exception. At the Mountain School we had a 99% dress-up rate. You just do it and enjoy the silliness of it all.

Then we left for the second half of the day to participate in the all-town Halloween Parade. Everyone comes out for it and it is usually snowing. This year the weather cooperated and it warmed up slightly by the time we were all outside.

The somewhat famous annual KOTO (local and only radio station) holds its annual Halloween Bash at the Sheridon Opera House. This year they celebrated their 33rd party. It has been voted the best party in Colorado by many a magazine. And I did not go. Owen would have severely disapproved of me foisting him off on a baby sitter on Halloween. Instead we trick or treated.

and then went to the Rock-n-Roll Academy Party at the Elks Lodge, a kid-oriented affair. A bunch of my students' bands were playing and we had a lot of fun. No alcohol, just bad coffee and plenty of sugary treats.

Walking through town on our way back home from the party we came across a few of Owen's friends playing outside a restaurant. I went in to say hello while Owen played and the parents practically dragged me into a seat at their table. It was immediately obvious that they HAD been to the KOTO party. Hey, free food. Who was I to argue? We closed the place down. We were the only ones there. Everyone else in town without kids was at the opera
house.

Socctoberfest excitement in New Mexico

2009-10-28T22:08:00.000-07:00

Since arriving in Telluride at the end of August this is only the fourth time I have gotten in my car to drive over 5 miles. This was the second tournament for Owen this season and we got to travel to a different climate zone. As we left Telluride early Saturday morning, I drove up Lizard Head Pass under less than optimal road conditions. Ice and snow. But three hours later we arrived in Farmington, NM and 68 degree temps. I wanted to camp but Owen begged to stay in a hotel so he could swim at a pool and hang with his teammates.

Although his team only won half their games, they had a blast and improved with each game. The final game went into two periods of overtime and ended in a shootout. They lost. But they got medals and that seemed to help the pain of losing.

Farmington is not much to look at, but it has all the amenities of a small city. We hit a Target store, a large grocery store, a mall, Taco Bell and went roller skating. These things do not exist in or around Telluride. We stocked up on groceries for a month, seriously. Prices were about 25% cheaper. Instead of $7/gallon for organic milk we paid $4.50. for example. It's crazy.

I really did not want to drive to this tournament but Owen said it was the best weekend he has had in a while, so it was well worth it.

And this is what we came home to...........

I'm back

2009-10-17T13:13:00.000-07:00

Ridiculously busy with this this teaching gig. I am often composing posting in my head when I am not thinking in Spanish or about Spanish. Loving Telluride, hating the separation from Husband and Dad. Loving job and hating having too much on my plate. Loving the mountains and hating that there is not yet enough snow to ski. Love living near fun aunt an uncle and miss my Idaho friends. We love parking the car for weeks on end and taking the Goose (free). We really miss the kid away at U of ID.

So, we hike a lot. Of course. Usually we are above 10,000 ft. It use to make us dizzy but now we have acclimated. We don't mountain bike as much as I hoped because much is too difficult for Owen due to the huge climbs involved.

We climb much more. The desert is a mere 100 miles or so down the hill so we can climb most of the winter. Moab is about 150 miles, so we can bike as well.

The Ride That Nearly Killed Me

2009-06-04T11:34:00.000-07:00

When someone in the valley says they road The Loop you should ask for a little clarification. "The Loop" is a pleasant 25 mile road ride that starts in Victor and goes north to Driggs and then loops back to Victor via Cedron Road along the Big Holes. I have done this loop many times and it is a beautiful, though not too challenging afternoon jaunt......... "THE LOOP" is different.

THE LOOP is a lot farther and hillier. Yeah, yeah, I realize that there are those who do this loop with regularity, but I am not cut from the same cloth as these super heroes. I am a mere mortal. This was the most difficult 110 miles I have EVER ridden. I have ridden lots of centuries in my life. Maybe it's age or the fact that I don't ride as much as I once did, but this one defined my limits.

I got a slightly later start than I had hoped. I was not at all sure how long it would take but I knew I needed time. Originally I was suppose to meet a friend, her kids and Owen in Jackson at the climbing gym and it was only going to be 85 miles. That morning she informed me that she had forgotten about a prior dinner engagement she had but could still take Owen for a play date after school if I still wanted to ride. Hmmm....that means an extra 25 miles. Well, okay.

Contrary to Tony's suggestion, I decided to do the ride counter clockwise so I did not have to deal with the often formidable wind that blows west along Swan Valley and Palisade Reservoir. Of course that means I would have to end the ride with Teton Pass. Yuck.

I started out at about 10 am and headed up Pine Creek Pass. It is soooooo much easier to ride the pass heading east, short uphill and long downhill into Swan Valley.

I fueled up on a BLT and fries at The Angus before heading out to what was to be the toughest section of the ride.

Swan Valley to Alpine is spectacular scenery. There were raptors soaring off the updrafts of every cliff and the reservoir was populated along the shores and islands with nesting pelicans. However, there was so much elevation gain I could not fully enjoy it.

When I arrived in Alpine, Wy it was apparent to me that Owen would be joining my friend for her dinner engagement. I was not feeling too guilty, since I had her to blame for the extra 25 miles I would have to ride.

The road quality greatly improved the moment I entered WY; goodbye to chip-n-seal and inch-wide road shoulder. Rte 189/191, along the Snake River, is heavenly. There is a 3 foot wide shoulder almost the entire way and silky, smooth asphalt. It is also the best scenery of the ride, with the snow melt engorged river to the right and beautiful cliffs interspersed with forests of cottonwood to the left. Based on the number of rafts I saw careen by, the crappy economy is not affecting tourism too much in Jackson. I even got to witness an entire raft full of unfortunates take a swim at Lunch Counter Rapid.

My arrival to Hoback Junction was greeted by a thunderstorm that lasted exactly the 13 miles it took to limped into Jackson very cold and hungry. I opted to wait until Wilson to buy wool socks, eat Mexican food and steel my mind and body against the climb I had been dreading for the past 50 miles or so. I lingered over a Sangria soda and torta sandwhich hoping the pass would just go away. I considered sticking out my thumb and calling it a day.

Let's just say it is a lot easier riding the pass on a mountain bike with 29 gears. Under powered AND under geared is not a good combo. But I did get this great photo:

I stopped to take a rest at some point and put my gloves back on when I heard a noise to my right and there was a yearling moose not five feet from me, browsing on some quakie shoots. He was completely unfazed by my presence and cooperated as a shot a few photos.

The last 12 or so miles into Victor were both glorious and painful. I was beyond happy to coast downhill but this feeling was tempered by the incredible cold that was seeping deep into my limbs. Mind you, at this point it was almost 8:30, in the low 40s and spitting rain.

Today I opted for a short run.

Lefty lets us down...so does Nellie...as does the weather

2009-06-02T12:39:00.000-07:00

Owen has been looking forward to the last week of school for some time now. Not just because it is Final Fun Week but because we get to spend the last week of school camping since we needed to be out of the condo for the painters. Owen dreams of a life as a true dirt bag. Its kinda his style. We have been offered many a bed under friends' roofs or even just a place to park overnight but Owen wanted to spend the first night in the woods. We checked out Mike Harris CG thinking it would still be deserted this time of year but there was already a camp host parked collected $10/night. We feel it should be free to sleep in the woods if you are surrounded by thousands of acres of national forest. We drove up Moose Creek and picked the first pull off over the bridge with a bear box. (We may be cooking meat, you know) It is a great spot adjacent to trails and the creek.

First let me explain that before Tony left me in charge of "his" van he gave me a long lecture on stewardship and how this van was built the year he graduated from high school and there were procedures and rules and blah, blah, blah..............

Upon parking I immediately opened the glove box to retrieve a trail map and found I could not close it. I tried for a good 15 minutes and even called Tony (he informed me that nothing like that ever happened when he had the van; he has owned it for 3 weeks, mind you) for suggestions but the damn thing was stuck.

After hiking and then dinner preparation, Owen closed the sliding door to the steady wind and rain that had started up. When I went to open it 5 minutes later to let the dog in it would not open. It was locked and would not unlock. Another call to Tony. Disbelief on his part.

So I had to let Nellie in the front door. She was mid-air in her jump onto the front seat when the smell of unholy putrescence hit out nostrils. She was covered from head to tail in cow shit and looking very pleased with herself. By this time in the evening the temperature had dropped to the low 40s and it was apparent that I was going to be wading in the torrenting, snow-melt-frigid creek with my dog and a bottle of dish washing liquid. After 3 washes she was almost sufferable and I felt like there were knives stabbing into my body where it was submerged in water. The parts that were not submerged in water were soaked from what had turned into a downpour. Nellie was no longer looking so smug.

The rest of the evening was fun. We ate a dinner unworthy of interest by bears: tortellini with fresh parmigiano, steamed broccoli with a hollandaise sauce and scrambled eggs. We played bat gammon and read some chapters of Lassie Come Home. Uneventful.
The next morning as we pull out onto Old Jackson Hwy I smell gasoline and stop to investigate only to discover gas pouring out from under the carriage of the vehicle. This is never a good sign. Another call and Tony decides he will be taking off work to drive to Victor to rescue me.

Thanks goodness I am married to someone who can not only fix robots but 1984 VW Vans!!

Summarization of Spring

2009-05-31T13:13:00.000-07:00

I have not been very diligent about blogging this spring so I will just highlight some events. The title of this post is actually a bit misleading because by any reasonable measure "spring" never really occurred. It went from winter to summer in a blink.

Once again we met my family in Tybee Island, of the coast of Savannah, GA for a week of sun and sand. We stayed in much more luxurious digs this year and I've got to say that I prefer the simple, (and less expensive) one story, traditional beach cottage of last year. This year there was a new baby to meet and some of my brother's in-laws joined us.
Not too far from much tonier Hilton Head, Tybee Island is beautiful, small and not over-built. Howeverm I was very disappointed when I went for a run on the beach one evening as the sun was setting and the tide was coming in and the entire beach was strewn with the refuse of that days beach-goers. These same pigs surely came to the beach for its beauty yet felt no responsibility of stewardship. I continue to be shocked by the cesspool of humanity that our culture has created. It made me want to retreat home, one of those few places left in the United States where the majority of people treat their environment with reverence.

Last snow of the season.....we hope.
We returned from Georgia to rotten weather. At least the snow was off the bike path and we could resume biking to school. I grabbed my camera on the way out of the house in hopes that I would be photoing the last, winter's snowfall. So far so good.

Lefty Shenanigan the Vanagon
I am considering this Tony's mid-life crisis purchase.

As May winds down the sun is out in force and so are we. We have been spending most days after school riding into Driggs and hanging out at Pendl's Bakery and then the Skateboard Park. We are trying to built our mileage for our bike trip to Vermont. Weekends have been spent back in Idaho Falls so I can spend as much time as possible with Ben since he will be leaving to attend University of Idaho in Moscow while I am at The Middlebury College Language Program this summer.

Closing Weekend at Targhee

2009-04-15T08:34:00.000-07:00

We were so looking forward to spending the final weekend at Targhee skiing yet so sad the season has come to an end. However, after skiing Saturday on crummy snow.....it's spring for god's sake, what do you expect?...... the husband made the command decision (his words, not mine) that we would drive back to Idaho Falls on Sunday morning to partake in the spring-like weather.

In spite of the sub-optimal snow and taking my worst crash of the season, in which I attempted to slow down via virgin snow with an unseen layer of crust on top that brought my skis to a sudden halt but my personage continued according to Newton's Laws of Motion:

Every object (Wendy) persists in a state of rest or uniform motion (in this case extreme acceleration) in a straight line unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed upon it.,

we had fun........That was a long sentence, however, grammatically I believe it works. But I could be wrong.

You will notice that in Idaho Falls it is much warmer. Same weekend as above photos!!

I already look forward to the 2010 season. The question is: Where will we hold a season's pass? OR Will we not have a season's pass because we will be basking on an island shore?----- Permit me to dream a little!

Another Moab Trip

2009-04-07T15:15:00.000-07:00

I never get tired of going to Moab, but the drive gets worse each time. I want to live a car-free existence. That will be another post.

This time we picked up my dear friend and former colleague, Mizz Amy Schwarts, better known to the masses as Schwartzy, from the Salt Lake airport. It had been a while since we hung out. In fact our last trip together was four years ago during spring break when I picked her up in Salt Lake and we headed down to mountain bike in St. George and Zion. The weather turned on us after only a few days and we finally retreated to a youth hostel (don't laugh) in Salt Lake after having woken up to our tent straining under the weight of freshly fallen snow. At that time we were positive that we should have gone to Moab, since it would surely be warmer.

It was not warmer...............

Well, for the first few days it was seasonably mild and we got to ride some new trails we had never tried out before. The best ride was called the Klondike Cliffs Trail which was about 15 miles north of Moab. It was an out and back that was technical enough to be challenging for Owen and Amy. The out portion is a gradual grind that climbs about 800 feet in less than five miles. The trail starts out as a rough double track with some technical-ish rocky sections and followed by a 2 1/2 mile section of slick rock (Kayeta Sandstone) with dinosaur footprints fossilized along the way.

Before turning around and bombing back down hill there is a short section of single track that takes you to the edge of Arches National Park. The view at the end of the single track is the photo at the beginning of this post.

As soon as the really cold weather arrived so did our friends from Victor, Grace, Antonina and Sasha. Grace did not take my warning of possible cold weather to heart and arrived with two light weight sleeping bags for three people. She has absolutely no fat on her and thus very nearly froze to death. Upon my departure I gifted her two extra sleeping bags since I would not be needing them in Telluride and she would be staying in Moab for two more nights. What are friends for?

Blimey, He thinks he's Irish

2009-03-19T20:41:00.000-07:00

Teton Springs: The Antithesis of Smart Growth

2009-03-16T22:24:00.000-07:00

According to wikipedia................

Smart growth is an urban planning and transportation theory that concentrates growth in the center of a city to avoid urban sprawl; and advocates compact, transit-oriented, walkable, bicycle-friendly land use, including neighborhood schools, complete streets, mixed-use development with a range of housing choices.

Smart growth values long-range, regional considerations of sustainability over a short-term focus. Its goals are to achieve a unique sense of community and place; expand the range of transportation, employment, and housing choices; equitably distribute the costs and benefits of development; preserve and enhance natural and cultural resources; and promote public health.

Teton Springs, like Huntsman Springs, Rim Rock Estates and Teton Reserves, was brought to us courtesy of the sub-prime mortgage fiasco and the lack of due diligence by our very own City of Victor and Driggs Planning and Zoning. Responsible development this is not!

But I should let you be the judge. What follows is a photo journal of the houses (less than 10% are actual homes) I went past last week when I took my dog for a run around this pretentious development. I went there because I could be certain my dog was in no danger of being hit by a car if I ran with her off-leash.

Empty, construction incomplete.
Why do so many Americans feel they need and are entitled to a minimum of, say, 6,000sf for their family ? Especially if they can't afford it.

Vacant, sits on over an acre of former farmland and wildlife corridor.

Deserted AND ugly.

Not a single family living in this row of houses.

Yep, you guessed it.......Uninhabited. Every. Last. One.

Thank goodness each of the newly elected commissioners also happens to sit on the board of the non-profit Valley Advocates for Responsible Development. I imagine these eyesores will cease to pop up in every conceivable open space,

Way Too Many Miles Driven

2009-03-10T20:45:00.000-07:00

I have depleted all my green karma that was built up in St Louis. To live in Idaho is to drive a car. A lot. There is no other way around this fact unless you stay put and do nothing, because everywhere you may need/want to go is very far away. The sad fact seems to be that to live lightly it is necessary to live in a large city with a public transport system.

I imagine I put close to 800 miles on my car between Friday and Monday getting to Boise and back for Owen's climbing competition. Of course it was not necessary we go. But we went to this one and will go to others, in Bozeman, Salt Lake, Vail, Pocatello and Cody. If we had a team to go with we could carpool but Owen's team days he left back in the big city with the good public transportation system and lots of amenities, like a climbing team.

We did have fun. We always do. We got in our first night of camping for 2009 under clear, star-filled skies and single digits temperatures. We found the perfect, completely empty campground (not many people are crazy enough to camp in the cold...but we love it) less than 10 miles outside of downtown Boise. It is situated right next to Lucky Peak Resevoir on the road that heads to Sun Valley from Boise.

The competition was held close to downtown at Boise Peak Fitness. Owen agreed with me that it is the best indoor climbing facility that we have ever been to. There were lots of kids competing, with the biggest team coming from Monument Gym in Sandy, UT.

Owen rocked. He climbed as well as I have ever seen him. I know I am a bit biased, but even the coach of the kids who placed higher than he said he was an amazing climber. If he were just, say, 4 inches taller I don't think there was a route he would not have been able to complete. The drawback of indoor competitions is that you have to use only the designated holds. If a hold is out of reach you are out of luck. In outdoor climbing you can use any and everything to get to the top.

I did not get many good photos because I kept forgetting to use my camera.

After the competition was over we cooked up a hot lunch on a picnic table outside an office building downtown. I have to laugh because Ben was, from an early age, mortified that we could not just go eat lunch at a restaurant like "normal people". Owen, on the other hand, requested this lunch and even picked the location. Then we went and hung out for a while at my favorite coffee house at the corner of 5th and Idaho St. before heading back into the car for the long stretch back to Idaho Falls.

BTW, thanks to Tony for uploading the Harry Potter movie, REM and John Denver onto Owen's MP3 player. It made the drive bearable for Owen.

Owen Turns Nine Years Old

2009-03-04T21:31:00.000-08:00

Owen started planning his birthday party in September when we moved to Victor. His ideas for potential venues: Lava Hot Springs, Enclosure Climbing Gym, Jackson Rec. Center Pool, BYU Badger Creek Sled Hill, Targhee. He finally decided just to have it at home and make it a sledding party. Great. Simple.

He had to wait until the week after his actual birthday because his best friends would be out of town and it would not be a party without them. After two years in St Louis he was not going to tolerate another Lucy and Ethan-free celebration.

The whole B.D. weekend was almost derailed by sudden illness but he managed to condense what for every other kid in his class was a 3-4 day illness into 36 hours. We only had to postpone one day!

Pole Canyon: A Two Stroke HWY to Hell

2009-03-04T20:50:00.000-08:00

I naively thought I would spend some quality outdoor time snowshoeing up Pole Canyon and perhaps capture some wildlife photos and just enjoy the serenity of one of my favorite local trails. Nope.

Call me biased and judgmental but I just think people don't deserve to be out in the wilderness unless they come to be there under their own power. I wonder if these men think of themselves as lovers of nature. They obviously love being out in nature, but sn't their presence on those obnoxious machines detrimental the very existence of the natural world? In the case of Pole Canyon, they are passing right through the center of a major wildlife corridor. Believe me, no animals are going to be utilizing that area as a means for traversing north and south, even though it is a natural corridor for such travel by wildlife.

I was hoping for this:

But instead got this:

In my quest to make lemonade out of lemons, I came back the next day with my trail shoes and spikes and ran the damn snowy highway.

Don't Worry, Be Happy

2009-01-14T13:39:00.001-08:00

Mostly when Owen and Ben are together they torment each other incessantly. It gets a little tiring having to break up the bickering between a 19 yr and an 8 yr old. This past weekend the two brothers worked cooperatively on a project that Owen has been wanting to do for almost two years. I was reluctant, not wanting my kid to look like a punk. Tony believes that it is his hair and he gets to do with it as he pleases. Needless to say, Tony purchased the required product.

Later That Same Day: Darby Canyon

2009-01-12T11:14:00.000-08:00

Later that day while Tony, Ben and Owen went up the the mountain I went with my friends Heather, Nellie and Sam up Badger Creek Canyon. After about 3 miles we got to pretty fresh, un-skied snow and the going was much more fun and the scenery got better and better.

Enjoying the Cold with Gusto

2009-01-12T09:05:00.000-08:00

This is our first cold season since Winter 05/06. That's only two winters we missed but it seemed like forever, at the time. There is something positive to be said about being able to cycle all year around like we could in St. Louis but this white, cold, powdery stuff is more our style. It's good to change things up a bit so one never gets too tired of the same one or two activities. It's the same reason so many of us who grew up with a real spring and autumn so miss them. Change adds a little spice to life.

Owen is on the Nordic Race Team this year as well as Alpine. Nordic practice is mid-week and Alpine is on weekends. Ben often comes over with Tony to Victor to snowboard on the weekends. This is my first year to really embrace lift skiing but I still prefer to take to the trails where no pass is required.

This weekend was Owen's first Nordic race, the Teton Ridge Classic. Since he's been working on skate skiing up until this point he was a bit disappointed that he had to put wax on his skis and shuffle back and forth. He is a bit of a shuffler and does not really get the kick and glide concept. Nevertheless he has enough fun that he prefers Nordic races over downhill, which tend to fall on the same day. Fine with me because they are cheaper and more fun to watch.

20+ inches in the past 2 1/2 days

2009-01-07T20:50:00.000-08:00

I have nothing of value to say today but I took adorable photos while skiing today so I just have to share. Can I just tell you how much I love living here..... I love living here. Now if only i had a job, life would be perfect.

Back in the Saddle

2009-01-06T11:50:00.000-08:00

It has been a long while since I posted. My camera was broken** during our San Juan River trip this summer

**The Spanish language is very convenient for a case like this because I would use the reflexive form in order that no one is assigned blame for this unfortunate incident, as in: "Se me rompio la camera." Meaning the camera broke itself which affected me ( I am the d.o.)
Now, my husband would have me say: ".Yo rompi la camera." Now why would I do that? It was mine and it cost a lot of money. That would be silly.**

and I hate blogging without photos since most of my posts are about places seen and things done and these two categories require photos, right?

I will be back soon with photos and commentary. Thanks for checking in occasionally!

Telluride Academy

2008-06-26T17:00:00.000-07:00

That went by rather quickly. Owen finished up his final day at camp and was awarded the best reptile handler at the awards ceremony. That honorable recognition was due to having caught the most creatures during the past two weeks: 5 lizards, a snake and countless crawdads.

The name of his camp session was The Mighty Miguel and the theme was water. The San Miguel River rises out of the San Juan Mountains and is a major tributary of the Dolores River. The headwaters can be seen above Telluride to the west in the form of Bridal Veil Falls

Most of the weeks' activities took place in or near the river. The weeks' activities:

Monday: canoe Trout Lake and bouldering in Illium

Tuesday: meet w/ Nature Conservancy to learn about the watershed ecology, make slip-n-slides.

Wednesday: hike to Bridal Veil Falls and drive to overnight camp area in Miramonte

Thursday: crawdad fishing and ropes course

Monday: paint tubes and then float through town and play water relay games

Tuesday: white water rafting

Wedneday: drive to overnight area down river, water games, learn to make bow drillfires

Thursday: Rock climbing at Bilk Creek

But really, Telluride Academy is as much for us as for Owen. It is well worth the $400/week to have from 9-5 off-duty and hiking, riding and enjoying the mountains. Can't wait until next year.

Crack Canyon, Ophir

2008-06-25T15:09:00.001-07:00

This past Sunday Clay, Jenny, Owen and I went climbing in a popular canyon in Ophir, not too far from Telluride, that is know for its long crack lines and is appropriately named Cracked Canyon. There is something for every level here with routes ranging from 5.6- 5.12. There is a steep, scree approach that is a little sketchy but once you pick out your spot and settle in it is quite comfy.

This was Owen's first day-long, outdoor climbing experience so Clay wanted it to be some place fun that he (and I) would not get discourage by too difficult of routes. We were the first climbers at the area but within a couple of hours about 5 other parties showed up. I don't know the name of all the routes we climbed but we stayed on the west wall until the last climb. These routes were challenging, for me, but not impossible.

Right before we were about to leave Clay decided he wanted to do a more challenging route, Orange Peel 5.10a, on the east wall that a couple had just evacuated who were obviously seasoned climbers. The guy made it up no problem, but the girl struggled and finally gave up less than half way up. That did not bode well for any attempt by me and I figured Owen would not even make it too far off the ground. Well I was right about me and wrong about Owen. I did not make it past the crux and Owen sent it like he'd been crack climbing for years. All of us who were watching were slack-jawed. He was entirely nonchalant about the feat and now wants to know when he gets to go to Indian Creek to climb.

Life at Altitude

2008-06-25T14:31:00.001-07:00

I DNFed the ride today. I feel like a loser. Clay was so psyched to do an epic ride when Tony arrived and I thought I was too but my legs did not agree with me. After 45 minutes of climbing, most of which I was too pumped to stay on my bike for more than 100 yards at a time, I waved goodbye and headed to the Steaming Bean for a cup of french press.

I'm not always so lame. Last week I rode every day at least two hours and even did a four hour ride up in the clouds. Maybe my body is just saying, "Enough already".

The base elevation in Telluride is 8,750. Unless you want to ride the single track valley floor trail every day you are going to need to consign yourself to a big climb, or even many big climbs, if you want to experience the best trails the area has to offer. My favorite trails are on the north side of the valley. That's probably be because I know them without getting lost. You could be lost for a long freaking time by taking a wrong turn in these parts.

Here are some images from my long ride in which I took Sheep Creek to the Whip Line to Penelope's to Rudy's to the Water Line. I did not ride non-stop by any means. I stopped often to just catch my breathe and to take in the amazing scenery. The views of the valley on this ride are the best since much of the last two trails run along the edge of the canyon wall. It's a bit scary in a couple spots because a crash could result in a big tumble in which gravity would really take control.

Note all the tents in the field. A few hundred cyclist from the Tour of the Rockies were setting up camp all over town.

Camp Wendy

2008-06-18T10:27:00.000-07:00

I had the brilliant idea, if I do say so myself, that what Idaho Falls is really missing is a viable, outdoor based, adventure option for kids in the summer. There is not a single day camp in IF (that I am aware of) where kids are outside all day playing while their parents are working for a living. I'm not talking about contrived "outdoor experiences" for short durations each day either. It's really absurd because, god know, there are a LOT of children in Idaho Falls. I mean a lot. Families with 5 or more kids is not unusual in the part of the country!

How did I get this brilliant idea? Plagiarism. This will be Owen's second summer doing a 2 week day camp at Telluride Academy http://www.tellurideacademy.org/ , which happens to be the ultimate in outdoor fun and I got to thinking, "Why can't we do something cool with kids in Idaho?". We have the outdoor playgrounds necessary to make it work: mountains, rivers, national forests.

So I am starting small, out of necessity. Five weeks, five different themes and lots of fun. This is how Telluride Academy started, word of mouth, kids of friends. Now the academy has celebrated 25 yrs and has over 50 programs that offer epic outdoor adventures for kids both locally and abroad.

The Lowdown on our first week.....

Mountain Beaches: The weather did not really cooperate for us enough to truly enjoy immersing ourselves in water. That is not to say we remained dry. It rained on us plenty at pleasantly hypothermic-inducing temperatures of mid 40s-50s. Did that hinder our fun? You bet not. It just made for copious quantities of mud. (Just ask Hollis; sorry again Hollis). As we all know, there is no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing choices. That was my mantra for the week. Here are some photos of our fun.

Day 1: Packsaddle Lake, Driggs

Day 2: Upper and Lower Mesa Falls, Ashton/ St Anthony Sand Dunes

Day 3: Wolverine Canyon and Happy Birthday Carly

Day 4: Lower Palisades Lake

This was our hardest and muddiest day. Unfortunately my camera's batteries died. We successfully hiked 8 miles. Owen was disappointed not to be able to go on his favorite hike but he was paddling in snow flurries with the Jackson Hole Kayak Club this day. By the end of the day the only kid not dragging was Carly. That kid is amazing.

Here is a photo I took the morning of the hike.
Day 5: Falls River, Swan Valley

Saying Goodbye Saying Hello

2008-06-18T10:02:00.000-07:00

Two years ago I did not think it was possible; I fell in love with St Louis. It's the Midwest for god's sake, no mountains, crazy humid, lots-0-mosquitoes. We did not make many friends (we never do) but the ones we made are golden. I could not have asked for a better school for Owen. Anywhere else will be a real adjustment for Owen and will never compare more favorably. The house, the neighbors, the location within the city...I could not have asked for better.

Our final week included (in between packing boxes)......

....as much time as possible with my wonderful friend and commuting buddy, Lynnea.

.... a year-end school picnic at "the farm"

.... a trip to visit my cousin at the Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage in north eastern Missouri.

Yet I am SOOOO glad to be home. Because home means Idaho and our best friends and the Tetons and no mosquitos. We love mountain biking and hiking and traveling to other places out west. We even love being liberal in a conservative stronghold. Times are changing here in good ole Idaho Falls and I like being part of that change.

The Final Urban Week

2008-05-19T17:29:00.000-07:00

Once a month there is an assembly at Owen's school where the kids do some kind of performance related to what they are working on in school. Sometimes they play the recorders and violins, recite poetry with choreographed movement, sing or perform a short skit. Since they have had a guest Eurythmy http://eurythmy.org/abeurp1.htm instructor for the past few weeks the 2nd-4th grade showed us what they are learning. I brought my camera wanting to capture images for posterity but was shut down. Not before I got one angelic photo and a reprimand from the teacher.

This weekend we participated in a Trailnet.org sponsored group ride in St Jacob, IL. This one was called the Berry Bicycle Ride and Strawberry Festival. There were five mileage options between 11 and 54 miles and Owen chose the 28 miler since he wanted to ride his own bike and not the tandem. Illinois is the perfect kid location since the hills are undulating and never too steep. We could not have asked for better weather. After the ride we attended the Strawberry Festival.

On the way home we stopped by the Cahokia Indian Mounds. This is an historic sight, a World Heritage sight in fact, that contains the archaeological remnants of the most sophisticated prehistoric native civilization north of Mexico. This area was inhabited by the Cahokia Indians between A.D. 700-1400 and was populated by an estimated 20,000. This was North America's largest city until Philadelphia came along!

Mound top views
Mound top love

Another reason I miss Idaho

2008-05-17T09:25:00.000-07:00

There are not many places left that you can go out on a mountain bike ride and come across a scene such as this. I actually came upon a similar scene years ago on a bike ride to Bone, ID with my friend Heather. This time I was with her husband, David. This took place in Wolverine Canyon, south of Idaho Falls. A few years back Doug and I were riding further back in this same canyon and came upon about 600 sheep being herded back to their summer grazing area.

I was back in Idaho for a week for a job interview and to get my garden planted. It was a great visit. I got to spend every day with Ben. I had planned on including a photo of him that I had taken but I notice he was flipping the camera his IQ, so I won't be including that photo. At what age do teenage boys grow out of flipping off the camera? By and large, girls just don't do that. Come to think of it, plenty of boys don't do it either. I guess my kid is just a neanderthal.

This is the only bike ride I had the opportunity to take on this trip. Wolverine Canyon is my favorite area near Idaho Falls. It has trees, rushing streams, cliffs, caves and abundant wildlife. Very unlike mosts of the open space surrounding Idaho Falls. We were turned back from our final destination by snow pack on the rode.

May Festival

2008-05-15T08:45:00.000-07:00

Every first Saturday in May Waldorf Schools around the world celebrate May Day. With over 900 Waldorf school in just the U.S. and Europe that makes for a lot of celebrating.

Rudolf Steiner, the founder of the Waldorf philosophy and pedagogy, was an interesting and complex man. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Steiner

He founded a system of education based on a belief that the whole child needs to be educated, including the spiritual being. Some may find this a bit esoteric, but I believe it has merit. Some mistake this for a religious aspect to the education but nothing can be farther from the truth.

One of the things I love most about this spiritual education is the seasonal festivals that, in my mind, celebrate the bond of the soul to the earth. These festivals connect the kids with the cycles of nature (a knowledge that is all but lost on our modern children who eat strawberries in December), establish a rhythm to the academic year and strengthen the school community.

In September, as summer wanes and the nights begin to cool, we celebrate Michaelmas. The children participate in games of strength and friendly competition. The imagery of St Michael battling the fiery dragon is called upon as symbolism. We celebrate human will, inner strength and courage. In November we have the Martinmas Lantern Walk, a festival of inner light in the outer darkness of the approaching winter. As the winter nights approach their longest in December and we yearn for light, we celebrate the Spiral of Lights Festival. December also brings us St. Nicholas and Santa Lucia; both address the inner qualities of good vs. bad and spiritual fortitude. There is a bit of a drought in the schedule from January through April. Then we have May Festival, the solar festival, with the theme of renewal and the May pole representing the Tree of Life. Some see the pole as a phallus, the male principal of fertilization.

It is only fitting that we arrive at this spring celebration on bikes. With a forecast of quite lousy weather, I suspect my good friend Lynnea was hoping I would change my mind and swing by her house in the orange box. I had faith that the sun would eventually prevail and we all rode. I was so glad to have made that decision. No less than four families approached us about our daily biycle commute to school and expressed a sincere interest in giving it a try next school year. Lead by example, I say. My ministry on wheels takes root!!

Tree bark sit-upons

The bicycle-commuting queens

Action poem recitation

It can't be Waldorf without music.

Can't find Owen? Just look up.

The water balloon catapult

The Katy Trail: Part II

2008-05-05T08:56:00.000-07:00

This time I suckered my crazy friend, Karen Evely, into joining Owen and I on a Katy Trail adventure. Karen and I have a bit of cycling history to our friendship.

Way back in 1990, Ben was a wee-baby and I had just moved back to Ohio, as a single mom, to finish college. It was a necessary but unwanted move. I had left a tight knit, mountain bike crazed community with prime trail riding habitat in New Hampshire for pastoral, northeastern Ohio. How and where would I find a single friend? Boo hoo.

So...... it's late March and I am pulling Ben in the Burley Trailer back from a trip to a nearby town. When suddenly some crazed chick goes flying by me in her Toyota Tercel, blasting her horn and screeching off to the side of the rode about 100 yards in front of me. The short version of her story is that she recently landed in that neck of the woods (and was miserable about it) from Phoenix, AZ and could not believe someone else rode a bike pulling her kid. It just so happen that she lived right around the corner from me. Her name was Karen Evely.

We spent the next two years exploring every corner of our region by bike, dragging our kids behind. I recently came across a journal that detailed those years. Here is an excerpt:

6/11/90 Rode to Mespo. with Ben and Karen. 28 Round trip
6/12/90 To Troy. Hot. w/ Ben and Karen 18 R.T.
6/13/90 Burton to Chardon loop. 26 miles No Kids. Fast.
6/14/90 East Branch ride w/ Burley 15 mile. Alone.
6/15/90 Chagrin Falls with kids for lunch. 35 miles.
weekend: race, 3rd place expert. 3o miles. (no idea what race this was)

Man, did we have fun. It really was the best way to "do" single motherhood. Nowadays I am a veritable sloth by comparison.

Back to the Katy Trail tale. We took Amtrak approximately 90 miles beyond where Owen and I got off last time in Jefferson, Mo. The plan was to ride from Sedalia to Jefferson in 2 1/2 days. It was hot, mid 70s, and sunny when we packed for the trip and then boarded the train. Perfect riding weather.

We disembarked (de-trained?) at noon-ish and ducked inside a restaurant for lunch in order to avoid a passing rain shower. After a leisurely lunch during which the rain never arrived, we went outside to officially begin our trip. Surprise of all surprises, the temperature had plummeted 20 degrees and was to continue decreasing, with increasing wind, throughout the course of the afternoon. Inconceivable!

Luckily I had thrown in a pair of pants and gloves for Owen during the last minute of packing, upon Tony's suggestion. Karen and I were not so fortunate. We did have light tights and wind jackets at least.

We headed east that first day, riding until dark with a strong, cold wind mostly at our back. We arrived at the small town of Pine Grove with a digruntled eight year old and a big hunger. We took advantage of the only food option available, a small clean diner. The owner suggested we camp in the town park and we did. Our summer sleeping bags were little match for the 38 degrees it dropped to that night. Owen-the-furnace did not notice but Karen and Wendy certainly did.

The next morning we headed to the grocery store, the only thing open on Saturday morning, to purchase breakfast and ate it on a picnic table with Owen bundled up in his sleeping bag. I am happy to report that it got progressively warmer throughout the day, so hypothermia never had a chance to settle in.

That morning's section of trail was surrounded by, almost exclusively, rolling farmland that is in production. Corn seems to be king in this area. Monsanto's minions, to be sure. We passed through a couple of small, colourful towns. As we continuued through the afternoon our path began to align more closely with the Missouri River and we entered the bluffs portion of the trail. The bird sighting were numerous and varied. The landscape became increasingly more interesting the further east we got.

We had planned to ride 40 miles that day but our attention was permanently diverted after only 30 miles by the town of Rocheport and its vineyard restaurant and general store. Owen and I have come to know this town intimately during our time in Missouri. It is located right off route 70 and we stop and eat at Les Bourgeois Winery Bistro whenever we find ourselves driving on this section of the interstate. They serve a delicious homemade concord grape juice that is for purchase at $6/bottle. Since the food at the blufftop bistro is quite pricey, we decided to have a little snack there, for the view, and then go into town for dinner at the general store. This worked out well because there is live music with dinner every weekend at the store. We enjoyed a fantastic meal and entertainment that evening and only felt slightly guilty about cutting our day's mileage short. Owen felt no guilt; he was very supportive of the idea of not getting back on our bikes until the next day.

Our final day Owen made the command decision that he was in charge and we would have to be stopping more often to explore. That was okay until it started a non-stop drizzle that made us buckle down and ride. Tony would be meeting us at Shakespear Pizza in Columbia, MO so we would not have to wait around until the next day for a train back to St. Louis.

Busy, Busy, Busy.

2008-05-02T08:19:00.000-07:00

I am trying to fit it all in before I leave: the sights, tastes and experiences only found in a big city. St. Louis is a grand old city and to me, of humble origins, it seems down right cosmopolitan and refined. Folks from places like Chicago, Philadelphia and cities in California laugh at my naivete. They lament the lack of chic. Me thinketh that a bit precocious.

What we lack in urbane sophistication we make up in open space. Really, isn't that more important? Doesn't that make up for any and all shortcomings? I recently spent time in beautiful Lexington, Kentucky. Hardly a park to be found. Unacceptable, in my mind.

Tower Grove Park, in the south central portion of the city, is spectacular. I would have to say it is the crown jewel of St. Louis Park system. Forest Park gets a lot more press due to its sheer size and central location. Tower Grove Park easily surpasses it in beauty. Henry Shaw, the man who founded it back in 1868, imported more than 8,000 trees, shrubs and plants from around the world in his attempt to create an exemplary, wooded Victorian Park of national significance. I would have to say he succeeded.

Side Tracked

2008-04-24T08:11:00.000-07:00

I spend a lot of time thinking, reading and wondering about American culture. More specifically, about how it has drastically changed over my life time. I know you can't stop progress, but I'm not talking progress here. All 12 definitions for the word "progress" found on dictionary.com allude to some kind of forward motion. When we use this word there is an assumption that this forward motion results in an improvement upon the prior state. I take issue with this assumption.

I went out on my bike in search of new sights yesterday. I wanted to explore the famous Tower Groves Park region of south central St. Louis. It is know to be a hip,popular and progressive place to live for young urbanites. A lot of money has been spent to revitalize this historic district. However, I got a little side tracked on my way there.

On the way to my original destination I had to ride through an area known as The Hill. The Hill is mostly an Italian American neighborhood. Its name is due to its proximity to the the highest point in St. Louis. Italians from northern Italy immigrated and settled the area in the late 19th century. The heritage remains evident today. I read that approximately 3/4 of the residents are Italian American. As I was riding by a construction sight a couple of the men who were around my age were shouting at each other in Italian. From every street I could smell a mingling of garlic, prosciutto, bread and tomatoes.

The characteristic that struck me as most discernible about the area is its lack of outside influence from corporate America. There are numerous locally owned businesses of the kind that vanished from other communities decades ago: hardware and kitchen supply stores, pharmacy, bakeries, tailor, salami curing factory and numerous amazing eateries. Barely a franchise to be found. As well, there are neat, well maintained and modest brick, single story homes and duplexes, circa early 1900s, lining every street. No subdivisions. None, I searched.

How did they manage this? Was it a conscientious decision by the town council with support by its constituents? Luck? Divine intervention? Have they had to fight to maintain of way of life they cherish? These are all unanswered questions. I can only surmise. This place is a community, in every sense of the definition. If you have any doubts, show up at Adrianna's Restaurant at high noon and you will be convinced. It has a shared heritage and culture that is valued and maintained by its residents. Is that what it takes? Am I out of luck not being an Italian, doomed to a life of subdivisions and strip malls and progress?

The Count Down is On

2008-04-20T19:36:00.000-07:00

I can't believe the school year is winding down and the end is in sight. That means I only have a little over 1 month to see all of St. Louis I intend to. So I better get busy.

This past week I did a few long rides out in West County. I decided to ride my mountain bike. This was a good thing because there was a lot of curb hopping to be done due to the traffic and road construction. The sights are truly beautiful if you are willing to ride about 10 mile of horrendous city traffic before you get to the rolling hills.

I must qualify this last statement. To really see the beauty of the landscape one must have a well developed sense of imagination. One must also suspend one's belief in the wisdom of humanity. For me it is a coping mechanism. I can and I must imagine how breathtaking it was before the advent of The Subdivision. Truly, this category of development is the bane of the contemporary American landscape.
The street names are so trite and ubiquitous. Does any suburban area not have countless streets with such whimsical names as Ridge Crest Ave, Stony Pointe Drive, Aspen Bluff Blvd, Springwood Court, Lost Pines Lane? Do the masses understand the irony of those former bluffs, springs, ridges and crest having been bulldozed to make way for these idyllic little Pleasantvilles? No, I thought not.

But I did enjoy my many miles immensely, in spite of. And I found hidden pockets of treasure in the form of strongholds of un-pretentiousness. In one case, I was winding my way along a county road with a 6,000 sf house every acre or so and I noticed a sharp left that dropped precipitously down along a roaring stream. It was definitely the road less traveled and it felt like I was in an entirely different zip code. The homes were all the river-side cottage types and the inhabitants looked like your average blue collar, hard working folk who maintained their own lawns and kept their own gardens. It was so quaint I could not believe it had not been co-opted by developers. The reason surely being that this area is obviously in jeopardy of major flooding ever 50 years or so. The best part is that the road ended in a trail that took me back to the road from whence I came. Just like in New England.

And then the weather gods were smiling upon me. I left for 3 days to attend a Foreign Language Conference a the University of Kentucky in Lexington. It rained here in St. Louis the entire time while the sun shined on me in Kentucky. It stopped raining upon my return to St Louis.

At the conference I was lucky enough to attend talks on such topics as: The Argument/ Adjunct Distinction in Syntax and the Semantics of the Spanish Subjunctive, Transitivity and Subcategory Gustar in Spanish, Syllabic minimality in Spanish Truncation. Exciting stuff. Well, if not exciting at least interesting. I also attended a few workshops on language technology. It is amazing what some people are doing in the classroom with technology. Mostly at the university level since it requires an investment in technical infrastructure. Most public school do not possess funds for this kind of techie-bling . Unfortunate.

Owen's Gowen Goth?

2008-04-11T11:23:00.000-07:00

I had to zoom in on this photo for you to be able to truly appreciate the hilarity of it. No, he is not wearing lipstick. The only explanation I can come up with is that my camera adjusted his rosie, luscious, red lips (you know, the kind of lips that certain women pay for) with its auto red-eye eliminator.

Spring is here, wet and windy. I just rode my first 30 mile ride of the season in gale force wind that had me at a crawl on the way west and flying on the return trip east. There is no chance of mountain biking on trails anytime in the near future since the ground is like a sopping sponge and the mud is formidable.

We just got back from a long weekend in warmer latitudes. It was not a whole lot warmer than St Louis but there were palm trees, sandy beaches, and an ocean. That kind of backdrop really changes one's outlook. Life is just a little better for a while. Although I certainly would not go as far as Tony and proclaim it to be the most wonderful place on earth. Or something to that effect. It's the south; which means it is a dandy place to visit and then go home.

Our wealthier relations, my brother Brian and his wife Chari, rented a house for 5 days on Tybee Island across from Savannah, GA and invited my parents and us. Not being the types to pass up free AND really liking my family, we graciously accepted the invitation. Chari is 8 months pregnant and was looking forward to having Owen around to play with their 2 1/2 year old daughter, Alaina. There is a mutual worship that goes on between Owen and Alaina. Very cute.

We were only 3 blocks from the ocean so that, of course, was the theme of the trip. We cycled the beaches, swam, built sand castles, fished and ate a LOT of seafood. The first evening we went to an over-priced seafood restaurant and had mediocre food so we decided to cut our losses and eat in the rest of the trip. The boys, both young and old, successfully caught our dinner a couple times. My dad went down to where the boats come in and bought a bushel of oysters for $30.00!!! Tony and Brian were determined to finish eating every last oyster long after they were full.

Spring has Sprung.

2008-04-02T18:40:00.000-07:00

This photo was actually taken over three weeks ago. Trees are starting to leaf out and the cacophony of birdsong is ever increasing in decibel level in the wee hours of the morn. Man, do I love spring!!!!!!!

Let's see......since we last spoke, time is flying and soon we will be back in our beloved home state.

We skipped school and headed to Russia (pronounced Roosee), Ohio to visit Tony's family. Tony headed to Idaho for INL obligations. Owen and I hung out with Sharon and Fitz during the worst snowstorm the area had seen all winter. Our visit happened to coincide with a climbing competition in nearby Dayton, Ohio.

The competition was at Urban Crag and the format was an on sight comp. This format was new to us. On sight means that the kids are sequestered until a few minutes before they climb, get a few minutes to visually review the route and then have to climb. While most kids seemed to be consulting one another on the possibilities, Owen had no one to talk to so he gave it a glance and returned to climbing in the bouldering cave. This comp had more kids than I have ever seen. Owen got a third place! As always, he was stymied by the long reaches but did manage to flash the crux of his final climb before being stopped. The two kids ahead of him were a good 4-6 inches taller and both were 10 years old.

Then I was off to my Wilderness First Responder course in Salt Lake held at the University of Utah Medical School. This program is put on by the Wilderness Medicine of Utah (WMof U) http://www.wmutah.org/home.html I highly recommend it for anyone who spends a lot of time in the wilderness or works in the field of outdoor education. It is the least expensive program out there since WMof U is a non-profit organization. Most of the instructors are serious outdoor athletes who also happen to be medical students at the university. Salt Lake is a fantastic city to be stuck in for a week. Great food and awesome mountain views. Dare I ask for anything more?

A dawn view from the east of the city

Upon return our very favorite family, the Bruemmer Clan, came from Idaho came for a spring break visit. Owen was beside himself with joy and happiness during their stay and sunk into a deep depression (that lasted a full half hour) when they left us. I neglected to pull out the camera to record the festivities, but let it be known that fun was had by all. We biked, partook in cultural offerings, dined sumptuously and cavorted.... as would be expected with this lot. Owen dreamed of stowing away in their luggage but in the end decided to wait the eight weeks until our return to Idaho.

Now we are off to Tybee Island, off the coast of Savannah, Georgia for an extended weekend with the my family.

75F and Sunny. Easy Come Easy Go

2008-03-03T07:53:00.000-08:00

We began our week's commute thus: Slowly and gradually things warmed up. This weekend the glass was half full here in the heartland. Whereas Monday I was wondering how I was going to make it a whole 3 more months until I got to go home, by Sunday I was glad to be here. It is amazing how a little thing like weather can so affect one's outlook on life.

Saturday morning we left at 8:30 am on our bikes with a promise of temps in the upper 50s and did not get home until 8:30 at night. We spent the day participating in very urbane sorts of activities. After a parent/teacher conference at Owen's school we rode around town doing errands: art store for b-day party gift, REI, Whole Foods for lunch. After dropping our booty off at the house we rode the length of Forest Park, something Tony had never done before, and then took the train from the Central West End into down town to check out the Home and Garden Show. Very anti-climatic. It was more a consumerism nightmare than anything else. I figured it would be all earthy and crunchy, a real tree-hugger's destination. Instead it was Ginzu knives and earth movers and 40K terrariums. It was held at the indoor football arena and was packed with vendors and buyers. Yikes. With all the walking, we did manage to work up an appetite and ate at the best Japanese restaurant I've experienced to date.

Sunday was a day of hot weather and riding around while Owen attended a birthday party. I was hoping it would last. Alas, all good things must come to an end.

Forecast for Monday and rest of week? Winter snow mix with chance of 6 inch accumulation over night. Now the cup is back to half empty.

Forest Park

2008-02-28T08:08:00.000-08:00

Last year I refused to run in Forest Park, opting to drive many miles 4 or 5 days a week to run on real trails. This year, with a slightly new perspective on life, Forest Park does not look so bad. The trails are truly bloody boring, no rocks, roots, downed trees and such, but it beats running along roads and on sidewalks. There are a wealth of options as far as lengths of run. Everyone is out getting ready for the St Louis Marathon in April. I am starting line coordinator for the second year in a row and I may actually recognize a few of the people who will be toeing the start line.

Forest Park is one of the largest urban parks in the United States. With 1,298 acres, it is 500 acres larger than Central Park in NYC. It is home to most of the city's cultural institutions. Forest Park hosted the 1904 World's Fair Louisiana Purchase Exposition as well as some events in the 1904 Summer Olympics. How St. Louis got to host both events is an interesting story. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1904_Summer_Olympics Two things the park has in spades are beautiful architecture and lots of grand old trees that make for great views as I run by. Not quite the same as running through a mountain meadow of the Cache Creek Trail or along a mountain stream like in Bozeman but I will take what I can get.

What follows is a series of photos of the sights along a 7 mile loop that starts from my house. To arrive at the park I try to go down different street each time since the neighborhoods between home and the park are kind of interesting. Mind you this is only a small part of the western portion of the park. My mileage is not up to making it to the eastern regions as of yet.

Washington University. In a few years this snapshot will be impossible because there are plans to build dorms or something where those cars are parked. I am told that not long ago that parking lot was green space. Ah, progress at its finest.
The Natural History Museum. Free Admission.
Nellie breaking the law off leash.

A bridge over one of the waterways in the park. As recent as 300,000 years ago the Mississipi River flowed through the eastern region of the park due to a glaciar that diverted water from the main flow of the river. When settlers arrived, this region was swampy, with a few small lakes. The area was subsequently drained and the water was tamed into polite, confined waterways. Although a majority of the River Des Peres flows underground, thanks to the good folks at the Metropolitan Sewer District, the section runnning through Forest Park has recently been restored to flow above ground and link the existing lakes.
A tree inside a tree along a trail just west of the Fine Art Museum.

The World's Fair Pavilion just got a face lift in 2007. When I first arrived in St. Louis and ran by here all the concrete on the stairs and fountains were crumbling and in an unfortunate state of disrepair. The entire hillside was torn up this past summer and remodeling began just about the time we returned. The building is used as an events and banquet center and goes for $1,400 for a weekend wedding reception.

The trail ahead winding along side the River Des Peres.

St Louis Art Museum. Free Admission. Front, west view. Note the desperate children on the hill trying to sled on 3/4 inch of snow. You can't help feeling a bit sorry for them.

This is one of the nation's leading comprehensive art museums with pieces representing almost every culture and time period. As well, at any one time there are usually 6-8 traveling exhibitions. My current favorite is the Frank Breuer Photographic Collection of Industrial Spaces of Holland, Germany and Belgium.

A view of the Art Museum from the east.

Fountains in the Grand Basin Lake lie at the foot of the hill leading up to the Art Museum. Both the museum and the basin were constructed for the 1904 World's Fair.

These trails run through stands of oak that are home to some urban wildlife. Since St. Louis is right smack dab in the middle of a migratory bird superhighway, sightings of an array of birds is the norm. You must click on this link I found of bird photos taken by a local. Each photo was taken at the park. From Kingfishers to Egrets to Kestrel, the variety is amazing. http://webster.edu/~corbetre/birds/park-bird-photos.html

OBFR turns 8 yrs. old!!!!

2008-02-27T10:42:00.000-08:00

On February 21, 2008 at approximately 11:15 am we celebrated the anniversary of Owen's 8th year of life. As luck would have it his entire school was commemorating this event by taking the the entire week off. So Owen invited his good buddy Tate for a day of playing in the mud/snow, wrestling in the house and generally driving me batty. Since I was not about to bake a cake for both the actual day and for his party on Sunday, Owen opted that we go to the Cheesecake Factory, a least favorite of mine, for a post special birthday dinner treat.

The day before the party Owen and I baked his chosen cake. I was determined to attempt a pretty cake and not just settle for tasty. The pastry gods were with me. In my opinion. Owen did not allow me to put as much frosting as it needed to make it look like the Gourmet Magazine cover, but I don't care for lots of frosting either.

In spite of the weather prediction of a continuing warming trend for the party day, we woke to a fresh blanket (more like a sheet) of snow and colder temps than the previous day. Since the plans were a rain or shine hike on the Chubb Trail, all the kids showed up at 10 am dressed for a polar expedition: snow boots, face masks, snow pants, thick mittens and hats. It was obvious that these kid's parents do not hike and are clueless to the concept of layering and the BTUs generating by walking uphill. Within the first 1/16th of a mile Tony and I were loaded down with all categories of winter clothing.

There was some definite whining and complaining by some about being tired but good times were had by all. We came back to the house and the kids went wild while I rolled out the dough for calzones and each kid built their own from a table full of ingredients. Then cake, presents and due to the volume that 8 kids can generate I sent them up to the park to play until parents arrive at 4 pm. Upon arrival at the park Tate immediately fell into the icy pond up to his neck even though the water is only 2 1/2 feet or so. Owen valiantly jumped in after him and got wet 2 1/2 feet up his body. True friendship.

Aw, how sweet

2008-02-27T07:44:00.000-08:00

My husband took a moment out of his 10 + hours per day sitting at his computer, rushing to classes, seminars, meeting or colloquials to send me (by email, of course) this poetic little ditty. Sigh.....

I asked him to post it on his site but he declined.

Grad School
Grind Stone, keyboard, coffee, me
Computers, sensors, robots, dream....
Mountains, valleys, meadows, trees
running, cycling, floating free.

Before and After

2008-02-26T10:36:00.000-08:00

It never fails. Every year around February I look at Nellie and think, "Is she getting a little chubby under all that fluff?" I decrease her food a little figuring that if she is, that will take care of it. Inevitably when I get her shaved for the warm weather, I experience guilt and self recrimination because, in fact, it is only I who has gained winter weight. I wish someone would starve me and make it easy. But no......

Wait. Back up a few lines. "...shaved for warm weather..." Yes, it is a little premature. Even in St. Louis. But since I have to run with Nellie on roads to get to Forest Park, all the road sludge gets deeply embedded in her long fur. I was having to bath her too often. So she suffers to make my life easier. Very selfish of me, I admit.
But she truly does not seem to mind. She is just sooo happy to be back to running on a regular basis.

We have been driving once a week to do our longer run/frolic on trails. The east end of the Chubb Trail that includes a loop around Castlewood State Park is my second favorite trail destination. It is an easy 6-8 mile run with little elevation gain but great bluff and river views. I usually have a chance to see some wildlife and in the past have seen deer, coyote, turkey, eagles and always many hawks. It is a verdant, lush landscape starting in spring and stark and bare this time of year. Come April I will begin referring to it as the Tick Run because Nellie has picked up as many as 15 of those nasty, creepy crawlies in a single run.

I tried to get a photo of the bluffs without the offensive houses but it was impossible. This, of course, gave me something to obsess about as I ran. Will someone please tell me why masses of people feel the need to ruin any and all god-given, spectacular views by plopping their ugly, gigantic friggin houses right smack dab in the epicenter of the breathtaking scenery. Don't they realize that it is beautiful and awe-inspiring right up until that moment that they bulldoze the shit out of it to erect their odious symbols of self-congratulatory, self-grandeur? Have some humility people. Why is every one out to trump god's gift of beauty? ("Because we can", I hear as a not-too-distant echo.) What ever happened to tucking away one's abode in a discreet and organic manner? Christ, surely I can't be the only freak who feels affronted by this crap?

Okay, I'm finished. Sorry.

The Feminist Controvesy

2008-02-14T10:34:00.000-08:00

Our local newspaper has been stirring things up in its readers' opinion section. I love small town newspapers. People get all fired up and step on each other's toes with their opinions. With the Mormon Factor at play in this region of the country, the role of women is bound to be controversial.

I certainly don't believe that deciding to stay home instead of working precludes one from wearing the feminist mantle. Feminism has evolved way beyond the old defining question of whether or not to enter the work force. I contend that a true feminist can, and in many cases does, stay home with her kids.

Thanks to the hard work of the founders of the movement, these days, a feminist lifestyle is a multi-faceted endeavor. An obvious way to fight the entrenched patriarchal system is from within. By raising my sons in a family system that has a strong matriarchal figure, I am nurturing their formative conceptions on the role of a strong woman.

I see the Battle of Equality as having two fronts: the professional front and the home front. Not all women have the desire to "do battle" in the work force and have the luxury to choose not to. Does this mean they abdicate their feminist duties? I think not.

It is not by chance that the feminist concept gained rapid ground among educated, college campus women. These are NOT the women who tend to be running our nation's daycares. And these ARE the daycares that are raising our nation's future men and feminist women. By putting our kids in these daycares we miss an important opportunity to mold them.

My stay-at-home lifestyle has allowed me to take my sons to peace rallies and political events, travel with them to third world countries, bike 6 miles round trip to school daily, teach them to grow their own food in a garden, play soccer and climb trees with them after school. These are things we surely would not have time for if both my husband and I worked.

Since current studies seem to show that both a working and stay-home woman's role in the family is essentially the same as it was before the Feminist Movement, in that she still does a majority of the housework and child rearing, I suggest that perhaps the woman's role in family life warrents closer scrutiny and is also a meritable indicator of feminism.

Save the World. Ride a Bike.

2008-02-07T18:07:00.000-08:00

(This is a post I did for the Idaho Drinking Liberally Website http://idahofalls.drinkingliberally.org/ )

This blog entry title may sound trite but it is something I honestly believe. Hear my case please. There are a few issues that most progressive liberals care deeply about. We pay attention to the candidates' stands and voting records on these issues: energy independence (that would negate the need to declare war on oil-rich nations), health care, the environment.

Energy independence First some facts. All gas stations in America have Middle East oil as a significant proportion of their source crude. According to the Dept. of Transporation, the average fuel efficiency of our US automotive fleet is 22.9 MPG for a passenger car and 16.2 for a 4X4. A barrel of oil contains 42 gallons and makes about 19.5 gallons of gasoline. US gasoline consumption of 320,500,000 PER DAY, which works out to be 3,700 gallons per second 24/7. Every year America's oil consumption increases. US has 5% of world population yet we consume approximtely 45% of the world's gasoline. Most amazing of all is that in spite of all these readily available statistics and the ever-increasing price per gallon (which, by the way, adjusted for inflation is dirt cheap, so quit complaining) US demand increases every year. These statistics are a bit dated (2005) and were found on http://www.gravmag.com/oil.html

Save the world, you say? Yes. Every time you ride your bike or walk in leiu of driving you deprive Exxon of a portion of your portion of its $1,300 per second profit. As well, you relieve the US of the need to purchase approximately one barrel of oil for every 20 miles you ride. This is no small hill of beans, so to speak. If every able person in the US walked or rode his/her bike once per week instead of drive it would be a substinative effort and the effects would be apparent in the oil industry's bottom line.

Health Care An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure is an appropriate metaphorical adage when talking about America's health in light of the fact that obesity is at an all time high. The dire health issues related to being over weight are constantly in the news and there is no denying them. It is also a fact that a higher percentage of people without health care are over weight. This is related to poverty and lack of education, of course. 1 out of 4 adults and 1 out of 5 children in the US are obese. We diet, swear-off, give-up, binge and purge, make resolutions, fast, obsess, lipo-suck our colletcive thighs, join gyms and are still miserably fat. Hmmm. How can this be? I could not find any statistics that can directly supports my notion that riding a bike instead of driving will absolutely, positively keep you thinner. BUT on my recent trip to Belgium where about 75% of the population walk, ride bikes and don't own cars I saw nary an obese person. Even plump was scarce. Go figure.
.
Environment This should be a no-brainer, yet people, even liberals, are not changing their habits en masse when it comes to driving. Sorry, more facts. I see a lot of Honda Accords on the road so I will pick on this car. A 2006 Accord gets about 26 MPG and produces about 6.5 tons of CO2, based on 12,000 miles per year. We Idahoans tend to drive a lot more than that; no light rail lines or bike paths to speak of, everything is far away. Another environmental disaster that does not get nearly as much press is the hundreds of thousands of miles of petroleum based pavement laid down each year for the infrastructure needed to support our auto habit. Not to mention the accompanying habitat destruction inherant in the process. Hey, bike paths don't even need pavement, crushed stone will suffice. AND one of the many environmental bonuses of riding your bike is that you will buy ( i.e. consume) less stuff (since it is more difficult to carry and it is likely miles out of the way) , thus you will produce less garbage, thus you will be more environmentally sound.

It just so happens that these are all what I would deem quality-of-life-issues. What could improve the peace and harmony of the world more than the cessation of the constant whine of the combustion engine? I suggest that the time is now to make other arrangements for the future of our transportation needs and that the humble bicycle should play a crucial role. I am attaching the link of a video that shows that it is not a far-fetched, unrealistic dream I have. There is a bicycle culture alive and thriving in other parts of the world. They've got a good thing going and so can we. http://www.vimeo.com/472819

(Disclaimer: I vouch for none of my statistics. I simply googled the subject and picked what looked like the most objective sources. In other words I ignored the "green facts" presented on General Motors and Exxon sponsored websites. Call me paranoid, but they seemed like dubious sources.)

Ways to Minimize Trash

2008-01-23T11:52:00.000-08:00

We have our kitchen trash bag use down to once per week, due in no small part to the variety of items that can be recycled in our area. But less trash is better than recycled trash so I have been finding ways to minimize overall.

Food packaging is the biggest category of trash in many families, mine included. The more prepared, processed food I buy, the more trash I produce. Pretty simple. Almost all the cooking I do is from scratch , so to speak. After taking a look at my "from scratch" I decided to see what ingredients I commonly purchased that would be simple for me to prepare myself, thus saving on packaging. (Is it really THAT obvious I don't have a job and thus have plenty of time for these ruminations?)

All the summergarden canned items will have to wait for a few months. But what about things like croutons, bread crumbs, granola cereal, pasta, ice cream, dried fruit, cookies, frozen pretzels dough, all varieties of canned beans, salsa, yoghurt, soft cheese, sour cream...... ad infinitum. So many, so little time. Many of these aforementioned items are things that were not even available for purchase at a grocers two generations ago or less. Self sufficiency in the kitchen is almost a lost art, you might say. I've been working on this quite diligently of late. I will blog about the results at some later point but for now I am just having fun with it and spending an awful lot of time in my kitchen.

.....................days later................................

I was going to write about how bloody cold it has been since our return from Idaho and about the trials and tribulations of keepings one's feet warm while riding a bike with a wind chill factor of minus 10. But I waited too long and now it is in the low 60s and I have almost forget the pain; so whats the point? I complain bitterly about missing out on all the fantastic, fluffy, snow-white bounty going on in I-dee-ho but running in shirt-sleeves in January ain't so bad either. I am one of those grass is always greener gals. Can you tell? It's one of my many character defects. My husband will tell you all about it.

PETA: Big Hearts with Urban Perspective

2008-01-19T09:19:00.000-08:00

After some thought and an evening of inspecting its website , I changed my original title accusing PETA of being small minded: PETA: Big hearts, small minds. This is unfair. But I would be willing to bet that a vast majority of its card carrying members have yet to step foot in actual cow manure, let alone spend time on a real farm. Petting farms don't count.

I was sent a link for a video clip entitled "Meet your Meat" that was produced by the good but sometimes misguided folks at PETA. I can't find the link again but I went to their website and found the video clip. http://www.peta.org/ It is alarming to watch, to say the least. Their message is, of course "Don't eat meat. It is immoral." I just don't buy it.

I love animals. I grew up on a small dairy goat farm in north east Ohio. I am more inclined to put my favorite, old, beloved pet down rather than pay for hip replacement surgery or some other such absurdity. It is my humble opinion that the farm animal's purpose on earth is for farmy sorts of objectives: food and work.

Big agriculture has bastardized this concept in the name of profit. Thus the animals in this video suffer unspeakable and unimaginable cruelty. Animals raised using sustainable farming practices lead peaceful, happy lives and then they die. It is NOT a subtle difference.

On our continuing journey to live lives that require only one earth to sustain us (refer to previous article entitled On a Quest http://idahodirtbagtravel.blogspot.com/2007/10/on-quest.html ) we have changed our eating habits and food-shopping habits considerably. In particular we have decided to only purchase meat and dairy that is not raised in Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO) and limit our meat consumption to twice per week. When we are back in Idaho I am hoping to convince a couple of families to split a locally raised cow and pig with us. This will save on the exorbitant price per pound that is charged at grocers for this type of meat.

Cooking without meat takes a little more time and forethought for me. It is just so quick and easy to whip up a steak, hamburger or chicken breast. It is easy to replace a lot of meat-based recipes with cheese-based recipes but that sort of defeats the purpose, eh? Here is a sample of last week's menu. In each recipe that calls for cheese I use about 1/3 of amount called for and increase the veg items. All dinners include something from my mad, new bread-making skills since meals without meat just aren't as satiating.

Margherita Pizza and salad
Quiche Lorraine (using prosciutto) and Goat cz/tomato quiche, salad
Mexican Migas (egg dish) with beans and rice, tomato and avocado salad
Lentils and sesame sauteed vegetables
Whole wheat pasta with vegetables and organic chicken and mushroom sausage, salad
Black eye pea and collard greens soup, salad
Huevos Rancheros, garbanzo bean salad and a sweet, whole wheat walnut bread(a yeast bread)......this is tonight and so I have no idea how this new bread will turn out.

All of these were quick meals except the quiche, which required extra time for the crust.

Milestones

2008-01-17T08:13:00.000-08:00

#1 I hit 2,000 miles of bicycle commuting in St Louis on my odometer earlier this week. It is fitting that this occurred on the same day that Owen and I nearly got hit (once again) by an inattentive driver. I slammed on my brakes and Owen ran into the back of me and fell over in the road.

Fact: "No Turn on Red" stoplights create a dangerous situation at pedestrian crossings.

Why? Think like a driver: You are at a red light, in a hurry (that goes without saying actually), and there is no reason you should not be able to turn right on red at this intersection (according to your pea-brain) because a hundred opportunities to safely do so have presented themselves so far. "When is this stupid light going to turn green?", you say to yourself.

Unfortunately for anyone not encased in metal who is trying to cross same said intersection, the much anticipated moment of green light relief coincides with the flashing pedestrian-crossing- permitted sign. Near-disaster ensues in many instances.

Now I must be perfectly honest. I have become quite adept at recognizing the blank, empty look of non-recognition that is present on 80% of motorists I come across. By the way, that is a generous estimate. I am feeling charitable. I definitely recognized that look in aforementioned case. I warned Owen to stay directly behind me. I slammed on the brakes with much drama well out of the way of the turning motorist. But I scared the hell out of him and I was glad for it. Passive aggressive? Maybe a little.

#2 Warm, delicious, loafy perfection. I have been baking a loaf of bread every other day or so for the past 2 months on a quest to attain the perfect loaf of bread. It had eluded me thus far. Yesterday was my day. Uniform carmel color, crisp yet flaky crust, slightly chewy inside and aesthetically, it could easily have graced the cover of any cookbook and I would not have blushed. Ahhh yes, life's little pleasures.

Been a While

2008-01-14T10:49:00.000-08:00

I am always writing posts in my head as I obsess on various issues. Sometimes they have a negative or sarcastic quality as I look around me and get frustrated, depressed, annoyed and/or angry at the political, economic and social culture here in the good 'ole US of A. Sometimes I am overwhelmed by the beauty and goodness of life and my mental musings reflect this outlook. Currently I am neutral. For the moment.

I missed writing for the entire month of December. I meant to write about the awesome trail race I did at Pere Marquette State Park and about my realization that there is a hole in my psyche that is the result of not running...which is a result of the stand I have taken on not driving unless truly necessary. So I am running again, but not on trails. Boo hoo.

Much of December was spent at home in Idaho Falls. It is a veritable bastion of progressiveness these days. I jest, of course. But progress is being made. Of late there is a Drinking Liberally chapter, the first ever Peace Rally/War Protest, food co-op in the works, Community Pathways Organization(pedestrian advocacy) and a decent selection of organic food at Fred Myers. These offerings are in stark contrast to what was available in 2003, when we arrived in the state. Warms the cockles of my heart.

I just finished Edward Abbey's The Fools Progress. In it his main character makes his way back home to West Virginia to die and on his way passes through the heart of Missouri. He are some of his impressions (written in 1980):

"We roll through the towns, the franchise strips, the Sonic Happy Eating and Radio Shacks and Pizza Huts and Serve-Ur-Self Gas and Good Will Pre-used Cars and the candidly usurious glass-boxy banks with no pretense at anything but money. As usual the most stately dignified house in town has become the "Funeral Home."....Everything that is beautiful decays from neglect; the cheap, false, synthetic transitory structures inspired by greed spread along the highways like mustard weed, like poisin ivy, like the creeping kudzu vine. The vampires of real estate, the leeches of finance, the tapeworms of profit, have fastened themselves to the body of my nation like a host from Hell. No wonder the land, the towns and villages, the old homes and farms and so many of the people wear the worn-out used-up blood-sucked bled-white look. Ill fairs the land. The aliens are here. The body snatchers have arrived."

And this refers to twenty five plus years ago. He should see it today.

Book Review and off on a tangent

2007-11-29T09:05:00.000-08:00

I am always amazed that not everybody reads as a form of entertainment. Books are where I get much of my inspiration. They open my eyes to different cultures, history, unheard of philosophies on life, adventures and new ideas.

My latest read, Animal,Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver
http://www.animalvegetablemiracle.com/ is her most recent book. She is one of my favorite contemporary authors. She is a novelist and I believe this is her first foray into non-fiction.

In a nut shell this book documents a year in her family's life as they leave behind the industrial food supply in search of a better, healthier way to eat. She and her family move to their farm in Virginia to grow, raise and purchase locally (within a 100 miles or so) all the food they will eat for an entire year. Along the way she exposes for her readers the real health, environmental and economic hazards that are inherent in our current industrial food system.

I thought it would be a dry read, but oh was I wrong. Chapter after chapter I laughed out loud. Her experience is especially relevant to any one who has ever lived rural, grown a garden or given serious thought as to how to feed him/herself or family in a healthier manner than is standard in America.

She had chosen to try on a lifestyle that for our great grandparents would have been routine. Nowadays it is a unique enough lifestyle to warrant a book. In many ways it was the lifestyle of my best childhood friend's family. We lived in a small, rural town in northeastern Ohio and her family lived a mile up the road from mine. Theirs was a lifestyle of necessity whereas Barbara Kingsolver's was an experiment, of sorts.

Of course I did not know it at the time but my friend's family did not have a lot of money. What I did know was that I wanted to spend every waking moment at her house with her family. Even back then her mom, Mrs.Began, was somewhat of an anomaly in her generation....remember, this was the 1970s and frozen dinners were all the rage, having evolved from glorified cardboard to barely palatable... She had THE HUGEST GARDEN and would can, pickle, and preserve the excess. She sewed her children's clothes, baked and cooked from scratch and made homemade hard candy for Christmas gifts. As a child, I considered that the stars were perfectly aligned in my favor if I had the good, great fortune to be invited to dinner for homemade perogies. I did not take this invitation lightly either. I knew that if perogies were on the menu then all female members of the family had spent the entire day preparing; it was an event!

I harbor secret dreams of striking it rich someday and buying the Began homestead, if they ever sell it. ( I say "strike it rich" because real estate prices have gone up a tad since my days in Chardon, Ohio. This backwaters, rural town was "discovered" well over a decade ago by masses of Cleveland suburbanites looking to get away from it all. In the intervening years they have managed to turn it into the same insipid community as those from which they fled, replete with big box stores and banal franchises du jour.) The house is the perfect size for a family of four, although modest by today's super size 'em standards, and has enough land for kids to run wild and explore. And for me it is chalked full of great, childhood memories. (Unfortunately it is located in Ohio and although this area is blessed with copious amounts of snow there is not a mountain in sight on which to take advantage of this bounty.) Funny enough, while both our families were experiencing their respective disfunctionality during these years, this house was a haven for me.

Hmm...but I digress. Back to the book and its reverberations. It has been years and years since processed foods have been a staple in my household. Due, in no small part, to seeing the ease with which a particular friend conjures up memorable meal after memorable meal in no time with modest, fresh ingredients. (Don't get me wrong. If she wants to contrive five-star, haute cuisine for a dinner party she is quite capable, given an extra hour or so. ) So Barbara Kingsolver is singing to the choir in much of her book. But I am also enlightened and inspired in such a manner that it is time for me to up the ante on living consciously.

Submission to Healthy Planet Magazine

2007-11-27T12:02:00.000-08:00

Walking the Talk
It's likely that if you are bothering to peruse a periodical called Healthy Planet you consider yourself an environmentally minded citizen. The truth of the matter is that if you have not seriously reconsidered the matter of your own personal transportation and its consequential carbon footprint, then you are more talk than walk. But the good news is that you are the perfect candidate for my Ministry on Two Wheels (or feet or even public transportation, if you must).

The solution, or at least part of it, is called a bicycle. You probably have a couple wasting away in the garage. It's not as hard as you think. It will save you a ton of money and your body will thank you with amazing results. Start small. If a trip is less than a mile or so, I beg you, try riding. It's fast, fun and easy. If you are diligent about it, you may become a convert .

Look, if any of us has been awake or even half conscious, we know, via every possible news outlet, except of course Fox, that we are swimming in carbon emissions. The USA's love affair with the culprit internal combustion engine on four wheel MUST change. Many people seem to know this intellectually but I see very few of us actually doing anything about it. Is it because, god forbid, it puts us out of our comfort and convenience zone?

Having come here from eastern Idaho, I see St. Louis as a bastion of progressiveness. Hey, everything is relative you know. We have an extensive metropolitan public transportation system that includes light rail lines, some bike lanes and an educated, politically aware populous. Why aren't we taking full advantage?

Think you can't do it because of the kids? Think again. They are the generation that will be left cleaning up the mess their predecessors have made of the environment. The least we could do is point them in the right direction. We could open their eyes to a different way to live; one that is more attuned to human's relationship with the natural world. Besides, I can't think of an easier way to combat childhood obesity.

There is a need for a paradigm shift in the way we think about getting around town on a daily basis. At first a change will feel foreign and uncomfortable. Then it will feel empowering and healthy. Let the change begin with me.

BIO: Wendy Russell
Wendy and family are temporary residents of St Louis, returning for their 2nd academic school year. She has logged 1,350 miles of commuting on her bike since September and has given up her membership to Ballys. Her 7 yr old son is closing in on 600 miles. She maintains a blog on issues of sustainability at www.idahodirtbagtravel.blogspot.com

A Cycling Advocate's Nirvana

2007-11-23T11:53:00.000-08:00

In Belgium they truly "get" it. They understand how how to live without the car. It certainly doesn't look like they are suffering deprivation as a result. Bikes and more bikes everywhere. Gaggles of teenage girls, older, stately looking gentlemen, well-heeled movers and shakers cruising to and fro on two wheels . By golly I even passed a convoy of aged 60+ white haired ole gals out for a country spin together. I kid you not. I could not make this stuff up in my wildest imagination.

So allow me to describe for you some of this life style's manifestations.... I would say there are 200 bikes for every car on the road, but it could be 300. People don't just refrain from driving their cars, they don't own them. Morning rush hour does exist and it is dangerous but the danger involves bikes and buses and not a helmet in sight. Overflowing, double-length buses rush back and forth around town dodging cyclists as they merge, cross, cut-off, and pass on roads that were originally built to a width that would accommodate horse and carriage. Yet road rage seems not to exist. Bike lanes inside the city are a matter of course, and come with their very own bike stop lights and cycle-exclusive, round-abouts. Bike headlights, tail lights and bells are legislated and enforced.

Bike rental is cheap, 17 euro for three days. So off I went to explore the countryside. I bought a bike-by-number map of the region that laid out all of the bike paths that connect all small towns and cities. Most paths are not alongside roads but their own independent entities cutting through scenic pasture lands. My map contained over 600 kilometers of bike path and this map was just 1 of 6or 7 for the country. It was impossible to get lost with the map because the numbers on the map corresponded to the numbers on the paths, very well marked. I managed to spend two days, from late morning until the sun went down, leisurely (as in less than 10 mph) tooling around, drinking it in. This is the perfect place to take kids on multi-day tours. It is safe and there is a village to stop at every 10 k or so, a farm animal to stop and pet every few hundred meters, WWII bunkers to explore.

We attended a series C1 cyclo-cross race. This event was well attended by young and old alike, most sporting their obligatory galoshes. The fans were as fervent as any respectable crowd at a futbol match in England, minus the bad manners.

The highlight of Tony's trip surely occurred at a pub in which he was drinking (too much) deliciously hoppy (his words), Belgium beer and engaging in a passionate conversation with a local about this race and cycling in general. The local was so impressed that an American knew so much about Belgium's national sport that he insisted on buying him a sampling of Belgium's best beer. It was at this point that I excused myself and returned to my hotel to read my book in peaceful, non-smokey solitude and allow Tony a night out on the town with the boys.

Letter to the Editor

2007-11-12T11:04:00.001-08:00

I moved to Idaho Falls in 2003 and it only took me a matter of weeks to discover Taylor Mountain and its extensive network of trails and wilderness solitude. Since then I have gone there regularly to escape the suburban sprawl that defines the landscape of the greater Idaho Falls area. I have logged hundreds of miles running those trails. The first few years I would see either moose, mule deers, badger, bear scat, or what looked like bobcat prints on almost every outing. Then the area seemed to be "discovered" by ATVers and the regular sightings dwindled. I am imagining that with a proposed 700 ( or 200) homes going in at the base of the mountain the opportunities to see wildlife will be slim to none.

What we need here is some good old fashioned outrage. Not for potential sewer problems or cost of support, maintenance and schools. Can't we just muster a little popular cry of indignation for the sake of lost habitat, open space, wildlife corridors? Once it is gone, there is no getting it back. Why doesn't that ever seem to matter in this part of the world. Edward Abbey once said, "The idea of wilderness needs no defense. It only needs defenders." What, never heard of Edward Abbey? Ah yes, perhaps therein lies part of the problem.

110 miles of the Katy Trail

2007-11-07T16:43:00.000-08:00

The Katy Trail is the longest contiguous rails to trails conversion in the U.S. It runs from Kansas City to St. Charles, Mo (about 25 miles west of St Louis). Last week Owen and I rode the section from Jefferson City to St Charles. We took Amtrak from St Louis to our starting point and only got there 2 hours behind schedule due to a freight train stopped in the middle of the tracks about 30 miles east of our destination.

As the train pulled away I realized I left an important piece of luggage on the train, the one with our lunch and all the snacks for the trip. A very nice boy scout leader and his son insisted on driving us to our starting point, as to avoid the dangerous ride across the bridge over the Missouri River that has no bike lane . That was all very well and good but upon being dropped off at the Katy Trailhead it quickly became apparent that all the amenities of Jefferson City, for example places to purchase food, were back on the other side of the river. It was almost 2 p.m., we had not eaten lunch and the nearest food was 12 miles away. Owen was not pleased. But he did not complain, he just rode fast.

I had estimated we needed to do about 35 miles per day to finish by Tuesday and we were starting a bit behind the eight ball, having gotten such a late start. We did managed 28 miles the first day and ended up riding in the dark to find our camping spot. The Katy passes through extremely rural areas and the only places to eat are a few smokey taverns that specialize mostly in fry-o-lator food and burgers. I quickly realized the food mistake was a big one. The only admonition I got from Owen was, "I don't really like the idea of having to always ride to get our food". I saved a piece of the frozen pizza we ate for dinner that first night for Owen's breakfast because we would not arrive at any possible eateries the next day for at least 10 miles. Since it was late in the season, many of the few businesses that cater to the passing cyclists were not open, making pickings even slimmer.

This was also the day of the Great Stickbug Migration. Apparently there had just been a hatching of stickbugs and the mothers were carrying their babies on their backs across the trail, hundreds of them on a few sections of the trail. At first Owen came to a screeching halt and manually helped each bug across, so as not to get squished by other non-bug loving cyclists. After the third episode he suggested we get off our bikes, pick them up and carry them around the area. So we did.

Day two greeted us with perfect fall weather and postcard views of the Missouri River. We rode the 10 miles to the tiny town of Rhineland and were pleasantly surprised to find Trailside Bar and Grille serving up a yummy breakfast (horrible coffee), and a selection of about 10 freshly bakes pies. Owen had pancakes followed by fresh coconut cream pie. I had eggs and half his pie. A few of the taverns are open for breakfast since they do a brisk early business feeding the hunters before they set off into the killing fields. An interesting side note about the town of Rhineland: After the 1993 flood that inundated the lowlands with 6 feet of water, the entire town was moved, house by house, up the hill to higher ground.

This was the day of the flat tire, having somewhere rolled through a bunch of goat-head thorns (also known as Puncturevine) http://www.plantsci.missouri.edu/deltaweeds/images/sandbur%20control.pdf I had 4 flats, two on my trailer and one in each tire.

We also explored a "ghost farm." Evidently the people just left or died (many, many years ago) and their heirs did not want to deal. The house was filled with furniture and cabinets full of meticulously maintained ledgers of the owners' auto business, circa 1950s.

We ended the day, after 38 miles, in the dark just east of the small enclave of Peers. That night it got below freezing, so naturally I was freezing in my summer sleeping bag. Owen woke saying he had the best sleep ever. The child is like a furnace.

On our third and last day it was quite a bit colder and in the morning we had to get creative to keep Owen's feet from feeling like Popsicles. We alternately rode and walked for the first few miles and then I hit upon the idea of putting my warmy-shwarmy, extra mittens over the toes of his boots and that did the trick. It was a cloudless day with a coldish wind out the west that was both our friend and foe. It helped blow us to our final destination but it kept us in our coats for the day.

We rode 7 miles before breakfasting at the smokey Dutzow Deli. We sat in the "non-smoking section", a table length from the "smoking section" with nothing in between but smoke filled air. Missouri really needs to get up to speed with the rest of America in this respect. Afterwards we rode non-stop for 15 miles to Dave and Jackie's Bar in Defiance, MO. I am including a link that explains how the town got its name and it is pretty funny. http://www.defiancemissouri.com/history.htm On our last stretch of 22 miles Owen was on a mission to be finished and did not want to stop for anything except a few drinks of water. As we approached St. Charles the houses turned from modest, quaint farm houses to urban uglies of massive proportion. In St. Charles Tony met us and we all ate dinner together at a fantastic Italian diner.

The scenery along the Katy Trail is lovely, quintessential americana. It does not get much more bucolic that this. Yet it made me more than just a little sad and contemplative as I realized that we were traveling through a vanishing landscape. This is an area that was platted and settled in the days of Daniel Boone...beginning of the 1800s for those of you that skipped that day in school. The region is steeped in history and a tradition that barely still exists, family farming. I imagine that 50 years hence the visual experience for cyclists will be quite different than mine. All those many barns that I saw in varying states of disrepair, neglect and abandonment will have fallen down and much of the former farmland I passed by will be engulfed in the suburban sprawl-type developments that are the showcase of "progress". People probably won't even realize that they should feel sad and outraged.

A Few Words from Hollis

2007-10-31T09:01:00.000-07:00

The Connection Between the Iraq War and NOT Living Green

My family and I joined about 750 fellow peaceniks this past weekend in Salt Lake City, Utah to rally against the U.S. war and occupation of Iraq. Almost one fifth of the protesters came from Idaho Falls, Boise, and Hailey. The Idaho Falls group was primarily composed of our local Drinking Liberally chapter and the Snake River Freedom Coalition, who, I am proud to say, got behind this movement in a big way. I am so proud of my fellow Idahoans for showing up and taking a stand for peace!

We gathered at the Utah State Capitol building and from there joined other lively and loud marchers down Salt Lake City's State Street to the rally at City Hall where various speakers (including war veterans), passionately and powerfully affirmed their patriotism in stark opposition to the unconstitutional aggressive war policies of the Bush administration. Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson gave the concluding speech: an indictment of news media dereliction, presidential malfeasance, and public apathy.

Speaking of public apathy, I've been asking myself the question (actually for 4 years!) "So, what is this war really about? Is it coincidence that this particular area of our planet has one of the largest crude oil reserves? Former Federal Reserve Board chief Alan Greenspan hit the nail on the head, me thinks, in his new book, The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World: "I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil."

So what does this have to do with public apathy you ask? A lot! How does my lifestyle and yours contribute to war? The energy gluttony of the American people and the corporate greed of the oil companies who provide the oil to quench our never-ending thirst for the black stuff, are largely responsible for the invasion of Iraq.

Most American are waiting for the magic bullet, the right hybrid car, or bio fuel – any technological solution that will save us from ourselves and our own over-consumption. Maybe we should, instead, look at ways we can offset the oil we get from the Middle East. Perhaps if everyone would slow down and ride a bike whenever possible, turn down our heat and air-conditioning, recycle, air-dry our laundry, stop eating meat, etc. we could offset the oil we get from the Middle East. New bio-fuels and technologies get most of the press, but the fact that individuals can make a difference doesn't get much.

And while the Bush administration would have us believe that the war was/is about weapons of mass destruction, liberating the Iraqi people, fighting terror in defense of our way of life and promoting democracy, most of us -- at least in hindsight -- can see that those are excuses at best and outright lies at worst.

As Americans, taking a stand to make ourselves energy efficient and independent should be our top priority. And not only because of the real threat of global warming, but because, if we value peace, we are duty-bound to do so.

Isn't it interesting that conservatives ridicule energy efficiency and independence as something only liberals, tree-huggers and sissies believe is necessary and possible?. My response is this: living green is not some weak-minded, new age way of being on the planet. And it is definitely NOT for sissies! It is a tough-minded and patriotic thing to do. And if you do it right it isn't easy, either. I, for one, have had enough of this Bush-Cheney nonsense that conservation, energy efficiency and environmentalism are some "hobby" we can't afford. And I'm not going to take it any longer!

If we as Americans are not outraged by this war, we are not thinking. I can't think of anything more cowardly or un-American than to continue to support this war and disregard our own personal responsibility for living a greener life. Real patriots, real activists and real advocates of spreading democracy around the world live green!

Oh, and one last thing. Having been raised in a very devout, Mormon household (I no longer practice that religion) my favorite peace sign this weekend was: "If you support Bush's war, you are NO disciple of Christ!" Perhaps something the Bush administration and the Christian right, who continue to support this immoral war, should take to heart!
Salt Lake City Peace March (YouTube)

Pictorial Vignettes: Backwards through time.

2007-10-27T16:06:00.000-07:00

It is difficult to get to passionate about life in St. Louis. It is always interesting but never stirs any deeper emotion. It does not have the sort of landscape that motivates me to wax poetic nor go off on a detailed narrative of any one event or place. It has the capacity to overload the senses (and the pocketbook) w/ its abundance or urban offerings. I do not complain (too often), mind you. There are much worse alternatives to "interesting".

I tend to derive a certain sense of self from my geographic surroundings. Landscape is ever-so-important to me. In New Hampshire I was never happier than on those solitary Sunday mornings in January that I would set fresh tracks on century old carriage roads. In Idaho my favorite place to be is heading south up Taylor Creek trail at either dusk or dawn. More likely to happen upon a moose or mountain lion.. hee hee..at those hours.

Try as I may, I am unable to compose a respectable blog-length piece on any one St Louis event thus far. So what follows is a series of descriptive photos on a handful of the exploits that have occupied our time since arriving in the Show Me State.

These are the Arch Rival Roller Girls flying by my camera. This is St. Louis' All Female Flat Track Roller Derby and yes, we attended a "bout". These events attract an eclectic crowd w/ a decided goth overtone. Owen did not enjoy it so much. The humor was adult (e.g. spanking booth for charity) and went over his head...oh the innocence.

Nellie in a state of repose.

Tony finds a handy new use for his rack.

Owen competing in the Halloween Pull Down in Kansas City. It is hard to tell in the close-up photo, but he is coming out from under an overhang. He placed 3rd in the recreational division beating out most of a field who was 2 or more yrs older. The kid is a sight to behold....if I do say so myself.

Red River Gorge, Kentucky. This is the best place I've been so far. It is truly a geologic wonder with over 100 natural land arches. It was the venue location for the Petzl RocTrip Climbing Festival. My parents and brother's family met us there. We had a blast! Owen won a lot of climbing shwag and rubbed elbows with some of his sporting heroes.

Who said you can't bring a baby camping?
Owen's favorite climb of the weekend? Up the pole of the big top tent. Hey, there were no signs saying "no climbing".
Hanging around at the Loop.

Sushi Festival downtown. The featured event was a sushi eating contest. Winner ate about 70 pieces in 10 minutes. Think you can eat more? So did they. Most predicted eating over 100 pieces.

An afternoon at the beloved CITY MUSEUM!! .....for Tony, Owen and friends. An afternoon of Harry Potter for Wendy!!! Thanks Tony.

Views from a bike ride home from Illinois.

Dining at our favorite restaurant. Perched along the bluffs of the Missouri River and with an ever- changing menu, each dining experience is unique from the previous. This time I ordered sauteed trout topped with a root vegetable lyonnaise served on a bed of italian parsley puree and crispy cabbage au gratin. Tony had a grilled strip steak with crayfish lobster butter, rosemary grits, beer-braised greens and smoked paparika dusted fried leeks. How do they come up with these culinary combinations?

Although Nellie definitely preferred last year's daily runs along the Chubb Trail, a 12 mile drive away, this year she is making-do with the off-leash dog park just a short walk from our back door. The Puppy Pool Party, held the final day of the season at University City public pool is a fund raiser that benefits the park.

On a Quest

2007-10-18T11:32:00.000-07:00

I emailed out a nifty little link I had heard about on NPR whereby you answer lifestyle questions, in the format of a game, and find out how many earths it would take to support your lifestyle if everyone lived like you.http://sustainability.publicradio.org/consumerconsequences/ It is a test of one's "green-ness" and I flunked...big time. How the hell can that be? I obsess over recycling, not using my car except when necessary, reducing my consumptive habits, keeping the heat so low in winter my friends bring jackets to dinner, replacing w/ fluorescent light bulbs, air drying laundry...yet it is not enough. Needless to say I am now perseverating (thanks Emily) on how to better my "score". Everyone being equal, just how many earths will it take to support our collective fat ass in the lap of luxury to which I am so shamelessly accustomed? 3.5!!! You read right. Three point five earths.

So lets talk about this game (that has ruined my smug self perception) and how one is measured. My friend pointed out that the game is biased against people living in the country (or suburbs). I speculate that sustainability is biased against those living in the country or suburbs. When I was playing the game I had to decide which of my lives (I have two, you know) I was going to examine. At first I was cherry picking for the best results. Then I got honest. My life in Idaho is dismally unsustainable. It is darn near impossible to live without using my car, glass and most plastics are not recyclable, no public transport system, little moral support of like-minded individuals, nary an organic option at my local grocer of choice (Winco), big freaking house (4,200 sq/ft) and I could go on. There are two glaring green positives in Idaho Falls. Our electric power comes from hydro and wind and the shopping options, franchises and more franchises, are such that who would want to spend any money.

I have a sneaking suspicion that those impoverished, uneducated Americans, of which there is an abundance here in St Louis,(disproportionately African American, of course) who have likely never even contemplated the idea of sustainability, would score way better than I or any of my accordant allies. They live without the bells and whistles of a middle class life style because they have no other choice. I should strive to be more like them.

So where did I go wrong? 1. The air travel I do yearly, about 15 hrs, negates all my hard-earned miles on the bike. Solution: take Amtrak if possible. 2. I rarely drive here in MO, but in Idaho I am beholden to my car. Solution: car-pool on Teton trips, when possible. Check out the Greyhound situation. Just say no if it is under 5 miles and then hook up the Burley trailer to my bike. 3. Food. We eat out too often, eat too much meat, drink too much coffee and don't buy enough organic or locally produced. Solution: This is the category on which I am currently concentrating. I claim progress, not perfection. I will save it for another post.

It's All About the Bike

2007-10-05T10:43:00.000-07:00

As a child of the 70s I, of course, had the mandatory Schwinn single speed ( purple) purchased at the Schwinn Bicycle Store. It was used to get to and from my best friend's house a mile away and to go down to the Aquilla State Park store for candy. Besides that it languished in the garage.

Bicycles have been an integral part of my life since the late 80s when I first saw a "mountain bike". I was working as a crew member for Alvei http://www.alvei.com/, a 100 ft. sailing vessel that was being brought down to Portugal from where it was purchased in Norway. The captain owned a mountain bike that he kept in the hold. It would be pulled out when we arrived at various ports and made available to crew members for the purpose of tooling around town and running errands. It had 15 gears and big knobby tires that were perfect for jumping curbs. When I got back to the states I immediately started saving my money.

My first mountain bike was a used $200 Cycle Pro but I quickly upgraded to a $400 Nishiki Colorado. I was living in a cabin in the woods of New Hampshire and did not own a car so I needed a good bike for going up steep hills and over rough trails.

I vividly remember my first trail ride with my girlfriend and roommate who had recently scored a job at the local bike shop. After poring over the local topo map we discovered a network of trails that would take us into town in a circuitous fashion. Perfect. It had just rained. The trail was extremely slippery and technical. The ride resulted in a spectacular crash that left us both laying mid-trail in a bloody heap laughing our asses off. I was hooked.

Within months I had again upgraded, this time to a $1,150 hand-built Fat Chance http://www.firstflightbikes.com/1990_Fat_Chance_CC.htm. You must click on this link and admire this bike. It was the bomb! It was a work of artistic craftsmanship. Unfortunately Fat City Cycles is no more, having gone the way of too many hand-built, frame makers and small, locally owned bike shops; it gave way to the corporate giants of the industry. That same year I took my first bike tour, riding from Oslo to Trondheim Norway, a distance of 250 kilometers, by myself and loaded down with enough gear to keep on peddling to the Arctic Circle and perhaps beyond.

Bicycles have figured prominently in my relationship with my husband. In 1991 Tony had just moved to town and showed up for the Wednesday night group ride of the shop at which I was employed. He was impressed with my bike. I was impressed that he had a real job and a brand new Subaru wagon in spite of his almost prepubescent appearance. Our first date was to the Bike Nashbar factory outlet. Our first vacation together was riding our bikes from Ohio to New Hampshire. We got married at Elk River Touring Center http://www.ertc.com/ , a mountain bike touring center in West Virginia owned by some friends. The post-nuptial ceremony activities included a mountain bike polo match and a 3 hour group ride through some of the sweetest single track WV has to offer. We were teammates for 11 consecutive years at the 24 Hours of Canaan/Snowshoe in West Virginia until we finally moved too far away to be able to drive to the race.

Bikes and bicycling have been an important part of our child rearing philosophy. Ben was off training wheels at 3 1/2 yrs old, rode his first 20 miler at 5 1/2, went to more mountain bike races than I can remember and on his 10th birthday was somewhere in the hills of central Pennsylvania, having agree to accompany me by bike halfway to New Hampshire from Ohio. He no longer rides but I imagine he will as an adult. Owen was on his own bike at 4 1/2. Our anti-car rhetoric has really taken root in him. He usually prefers to ride places in order to NOT use the car. He has really embraced the party line, as opposed to Ben who thought it was stupid to ride our bikes when we had a perfectly good car sitting in the driveway.

It is only natural that, as we reluctantly settle into the aging process, our recreational passion is evolving into a form of advocacy. I know that someday bicycles will be an important component of the global solution to the mess we have made of our natural environment due to our addiction to the automobile, petroleum and all its byproducts. It will not always be just a fringe group, represented by the likes of our family, friends and relatives, who takes up cycling as a way of life. It will take a seismic shift in what we deem acceptable in the geography of transportation but I am beginning to feel the tremors of change in the most unlikely of places. Idaho Falls, a place where the word "progressive" is never used in the same sentence as the town's name (unless it is preceded by the words "not even remotely"), actually has a nascent organization devoted to promoting non-motorized transportation. WOW. Way cool.

Shame on Yew, Dougie Few!

2007-09-29T05:08:00.000-07:00

We are lucky enough to have a grocery store right behind our neighborhood. There are two ways we can arrive there from our house. Get in the car an go right on Yale Ave (0.30 mile), right on Delmar (0.33 mile) , right on Midland Blvd (0.43 mile), right on Vernon Ave and into the supermarket parking lot and locate a parking space (0.42 mile). ...for a total of 1.48 miles.

OR

We can get on our bikes (or walk) and take the path right next to our house (0.07 mile) to the neighborhood behind ours, take a right down Pennsylvania Ave (0.17 mile), cross Vernon Ave and arrive at the bike rack in front of of the supermarket (0.08 mile)....for a total of 0.32 mile

On Friday morning I realized I did not have enough change for train fare so Tony volunteered to go to the grocery store to get milk and money. A half gallon of milk cost about the same as the fee the bank charges us for not getting an account here in MO so we always get cash at the grocery store. Well he grabbed the keys and started to go so I volunteered to go on my bike (hint, hint) if he wanted to take over lunch-making duties. He declined.

Owen came downstairs and wanted to know where dad was and I told on him. "HE DROVE? That's stupid" Yeah, well.....

So when Tony returned I asked him if he felt dirty. Our car wouldn't have budged in over a week if it weren't for him. He looked sheepish and mumbled something about it seeming so cold outside and being a wimp. But then he came around and said it WAS stupid and that he did, in fact, feel dirty.

Now, if only the rest of America could be cowed so easily progress could be realized. It IS shameful to get in one's car to drive less than a mile. Everyone should feel it. This global warming thing ain't a hoax people. It's not some ploy of the liberal media to dupe you republicans just for kicks. If everyone changes their habits just a little it may start to make a difference. Please.

The not so Savvy Family

2007-09-27T11:35:00.000-07:00

This post is, in fact, tangentially related to sustainability but I will get to that in a roundabout way.

I picked up a magazine left behind by the owners of the house we are renting called Savvy Family. I wonder if there are qualifications to be allowed monthly delivery of this periodical. The word "savvy" implies, in my mind, a sophisticated shrewdness that neither I, nor any other member of my family, possess.

So it was with interest and curiosity that I perused this periodical, paying particular attention to the paid advertisements. It is a local St. Louis, family-issues oriented rag that likely attracts the upwardly mobile. Included are ads for Kindermusik, pricey private schools, baby boutiques, COCA: the Center for Creative Arts, stuff like that. You know, for the enlightened parents of today. There was a self- affirming article by a mother who no longer wears a size two ( boo-hoo) and is working to instill in her offspring positive body images, invoking the mantra "muscle weighs more than fat". Another piece was about the many challenges faced by kids and parents as they anticipate the start of another school year. Then there was the one about trading in the Wonderbread sandwich and Cheetos school lunch for more healthful choices. Thanks, wow, how novel. I truly never considered the possibility. I hope Owen doesn't freak.

They saved the best for last. It was entitled, "Growing up....Painfully". And indeed it was was painful to read. Sadly enough, the author is a very educated woman, a pediatrician who decided to stay home to raise her brood. The premise of the article is that kids these days are just growing up way too fast and we adults have no control over it. By way of example she tells us about her 8 year old daughter who is embarrassed that her legs are hairy and sneaks off with mom's razor to remedy the problem. She laments the fact that her daughter, at only 8 yrs old, already has body-image issues. She blames it on the likes of Hannah Montana, High School Musical, movies and other such delicacies offer up by the ever present media source known as television. She then posits that she is smart enough to figure this situation out on her own and does not need any outside help.

Of course she is wrong. If she wasn't I would have nothing to write about.

It amazes me how the OBVIOUS eludes. And this elusion is an equal opportunity afflicter. It matters not a parent's race, gender, education, sexual orientation...s/he just dudn't get it. So here is the solution. Listen carefully lady, I am only going to say it once and I am going to say it using an indoor voice. Throw the fucking T.V. out the second story window! Don't bother opening it first. The shattering glass will have much more of an impact ( get it, impact...pun) on your family. It will make a great family story in years to come. Think of it, your children will be sitting around at the dinner table telling their kids (2nd generation non-t.v. watchers) about the time their kooky grandma threw the t.v. ("Mom, what is a t.v.?") out the window. Lady, you invited that floozy, Hannah Montana, and her minions into your house. Now, just ask them to leave. Problem solved.

"So what does this have to do with sustainability?" I am so glad you asked. I have a beef with media, in most forms, but mostly t.v. advertising. Yes, television programing, in and of itself, is a mindless waste of time, degrading to women, celebrates violence, blah, blah, blah. But I believe its greatest trespass is more insidious, not nearly so obvious. Its commercials perpetuate a voracious consumer culture that brainwashes at an early age. You must own this to fit in with your peers. This tastes delicious. You are not quite thin enough to look good in this outfit; get that finger back down that throat. Always low prices. Always. ....add nauseum.

A little anecdote on one of the benefits of a television free life: One of my proudest moments this summer was when my girlfriend called from McDonalds to tell me my child was a freak. He had no idea what a happy meal was. So he ate a happy meal that afternoon. Later that summer another friend's mother took him to McDs. He declined lunch and went without food for the afternoon. No one had repeatedly told him how delicious McNugget are, so he got to decide all for himself that they were not so tasty.

The not so savvy parents, their not so savvy kids and definitely not so savvy dog.

Allow me to digress.

2007-09-21T18:15:00.000-07:00

A lot of people ask about Ben. You do remember him? My 18 yr old son. Yes, he is still alive and living in Idaho Falls while we are spending another school year in St. Louis. Funny, but he did not want to return for a second year at the all-boys, Catholic school. Go figure. The truth is, they did not want him to return either, but that is another story.

When people query as to Ben's whereabouts I am fond of saying that he gave us, his family, up for an extended Lent. His life is all about his friends and his independence. The moment we stepped back into the state of Idaho it was, "Adios familia, hasta entonces!"

"Don't you worry about him?", so many ask. Most are parent of young children. They have a few years before they realize what a silly question that is.

He seems to be happy in his abject poverty. Perhaps "happy" is not the correct word. Maybe he is just relieved to not be subject to parental tyranny anymore. And I believe that is how he truly views it. I wanted him to learn from my MANY mistakes but it just does not work like that.

So he is doing his senior year on his own. He has a job still, I think. He is a very successful couch surfer, so he has yet to feel the need to fork over the cash needed for a real apartment. People feed him. I buy him gift certificates at fast food joints. Good thing he is a cutey. Research says that good looking kids get away with a lot more than their less aesthetically gifted brethren.

He will be happy to share with you all of my parental transgressions but I think he is forgiving me for being me. He seems to miss me and calls me often. His dad is not so lucky. Tony is much more the level headed authority figure, yet Ben judges him much more harshly and forgives him at a glacial pace.

Next time you are at the Mall, stop by his work (booth outside of bookstore) and say hello. If you don't live in IF then give him a call and let him know you have not forgotten he exists. He will come around someday and not view us all as aliens. I promise.

Committed, as it pertains to commuting.

2007-09-20T07:28:00.000-07:00

Commit, according to http://www.dictionary.com/: #4. to bind or obligate, as by pledge or assurance As in, "I am a committed cycling commuter and I feel good."

or is it....
#8. to place in a mental institution or hospital by or as if by legal authority As in, "She ought to be committed, dragging her kid around like that in this downpour!"

When we came back to St Louis we decided that we would commit ourselves to weekday travel via any means other than our car; our options being mt. bike, scooter, feet, tandem, train. So far, being committed does not feel too challenging. It is only September, which feels like July in Idaho, except for the humidity and possibility of copious quantities of rain. Our daily commute to school is a minimum of 6 miles on bike per day for Owen and 20 for me. I ride home from his school and save myself the $2 train ticket. With all the other places I went, last week I managed 135 miles on my mountain bike...and we played hooky from school one day since cousin Alaina was in town.....and I picked Owen up in the car one afternoon because I was babysitting baby Lilly. This week I had to go out of town 2 days so I won't be breaking my record and will be lucky to get much over 100 miles.

The thing is, it does not feel like a big deal. In fact it greatly reduces a number of stresses in my life. I am a nut case in traffic jams and the drive to Owen's school is the worst, due to construction. I don't have to stress about not getting exercise because it is exercise; although it lacks the drudgery of exercise. It gives my day a rhythm it is sorely lacking without employment. Plus I spend a lot less money. Train tickets to school are running us about $30/wk. This is equivalent to what I would spend on gas if I ONLY drove to and from school. But when I am behind the wheel of a car I am likely to get distracted and pull into a coffee shop, Wild Oats, the bookstore or any other place that wants to separate me from my cash.

Will we continue through the winter? I say yes and Owen says no. "There is no bad weather, just bad clothing choices.", I tell him. It remains to be seen, I suppose.
Commuting to the climbing gym

Nellie's Maiden Voyage.

2007-09-16T14:04:00.000-07:00

Nellie is an active member of our family and as such is invited on most of our outdoor adventures. She is very athletic and dedicated to being in the front of the pack on all group rides or runs. She prefers to be part of the break away rather than hang with the peleton. Very few, if any, mortals can drop her.

Needless to say she was less than thrilled when we took up kayaking. She has no thumbs so she just can't hold onto the paddle. She goes to great lengths to sneak out of the house and into the car if she suspects we are going to go somewhere without her. She quickly learned that when Owen's yellow boat makes it into the pile of gear going to the car, she is not invited. She was determined not to be left looking out the window from on top the couch when the car drove away this day.

This day we were going to paddle a section of the Illinois River, near the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. It was going to take under four hours and involve no skill, just muscle. There is quite a bit of river traffic, barges, ferries and such, but besides the wakes that these create it would be smooth sailing.

"Why can't she go?", I want to know. "There is room in the cockpit of my boat and I want her to come. She will have a blast and she loves to swim."

"I just don't think it is a good idea.", responds the curmudgeonly husband who is trying to put the kibosh on our fun. Its always just me and the boys. Sometimes its good to have another female around.

Well, I got my way.

I wish I had not.

Living a Sustainable Lifestyle: dichotomy in action

2007-09-12T08:38:00.000-07:00

So, my best friend in Idaho went and got herself a Prius. Man is it sexy. I have wanted one for years. I am wondering if all covetous feelings register on the sin-scale or just those of a husbandly nature?

The first year the Prius came to market we could have gotten one since we were in the market for a car. The technology was pretty new and we deemed it risky. We tend to drive our cars until their last gasp and hybrids were still such a novel concept. Instead we got the orange box, a.k.a. Honda Element, a.k.a tent on wheels. The fuel efficiency for this small car is pathetic, largely due to the complete absence of any aerodynamics.

So here I am, this eco-chic, not driving an eco-car. I love the term Heather (aforementioned Prius owner) gave this state of affairs: eco-inconsistency. And in fact, we ARE all guilty. Don't EVEN try to deny it. You know it is true.

And it is pretty ironic that Heather brought up this subject of sustainability on her blog http://living-idaho.blogspot.com/ when she did because I had just that very day been dumped by a friend of 20 years for my eco-inconsistency. This friend can "no longer respect me". Her words , paraphrased. My transgression, you ask. Being seen in a Walmart parking lot? McDonald's ketchup packets in my car? No!.......My penchant for Whole Foods Market! It would be laughable if it weren't so tragic.

Now she does have a valid viewpoint in not liking Whole Foods , don't get me wrong. Whole Foods has become a corporate giant, of the type it use to love to hate. She is herself a small scale organic farmer and Whole Foods does affect her as a small business owner and grower of that which is deliciously organic. Whole Foods is formidable competition with an unfair advantage. And this is just one of their many offenses. There are blogs and websites that devote much cyber space to the subject of hating Whole Foods. This is one of my favorite:
http://veganfreaks.org/index.php?id=159

Knowing all this and yet I still partake. Why? Well, I don't really know. I still like it. I love the variety. I love the cheeses and preserves and coffee. Things I surely can't get in Idaho. So farI have found no locally owned business that has all this in a one-stop-shop experience.

Or perhaps I am nostalgic for the years I lived in Austin and shopped at the ORIGINAL, VERY FIRST Whole Foods. It was sooooo Austin-tatious. Many of you probably thought Whole Foods is a California thing when in fact it is a Texas thing.

Fast forward two decades. Same store, yet so very different. The snob factor is way high. No freaking bike rack out front. I bet I am the ONLY patron in St Louis to fight 6 miles of horrendous traffic on my bike to shop there. I have a very non-altruistic motive for arriving on bike. You see my Burley trailer limits how much I can spend at this over-priced Walmart of "organic" supermarkets. ( I put organic in quotes because of course we really don't know if this stuff is truly organic) I have very little self control and I can't really afford to shop there to begin with, you know. I suppose step 1 is admitting I have a problem, eh?

Being a human being, especially an American human being, and living a sustainable lifestyle is a dichotomy. The more cynical of you would refer to it as an oxymoron, an impossibility, a logical fallacy. Each person born is a mega consumer of the earth's natural resources. It is with this knowledge that my sister greets the news of a friend or relative's pregnancy with a plastered smiled and a comment such as, "Oh, wow.". Those of us who know her well realize that this smile is, in fact, a grimace. Good thing my kids, all two of them, are cute or she may not allow them in her house.

So my point is, we are all hypocrites to a certain extent. How can I advocate sustainability yet bear two children, choose to live in a place like Idaho where a car-free existence in nearly impossible, drive a Honda Element AND shop at Whole Foods? Yet how can my friend (oh yeah, ex-friend) get all high, mighty and self righteous and proclaim that she can not respect me when she is the very same person who for 5 years collected every Made in China, Happy Meal toy to give to my son and would not think twice about getting in her car to drive a couple miles to a convenient store for a pack of smokes? Hello?! Smells a lot like the ultimate hypocrisy, don't ya think.

It is sad though. Sad that someone has such a narrow parameter for friendship that it can neither accommodate intellectual debate on such matters nor tolerate divergence of opinion. She can drive, smoke and visit China all she wants and I can still respect her. But alas, she has taken her toys and gone home. It is her way or the highway.

Now...... if only I owned a Prius I could smugly drive that highway off into the sunset of our friendship while maximizing fuel efficiency.

St. Charles, MO

2007-09-11T11:19:00.000-07:00

A short drive west of St Louis, the town of St Charles has the distinction of being Missouri's first state capitol. Located on the Missouri River, it was founded in the late 1700s by a French Canadian fur trader and became an important center of commerce. The famous frontiersman, Daniel Boone became one of St. Charles first settlers and was later appointed magistrate of the county. In May of 1804 Lewis and Clark stopped here to purchase the last of their supplies before continuing on their epic journey. In fact, St. Charles is the home base for the replica boats of the Discovery Expedition.

The historic downtown retains its colonial charm with its brick buildings, sidewalks and narrow streets. However some of the charm is lost with the crush of tourist traffic. This area would benefit from a designation as a car-free zone. There is a nearly empty, huge parking lot devoted to Katy Trail users where the crowds could park and become pedestrians.

St. Charles is the current eastern terminus of the Katy Trail, America's longest Rails-to-Trails path. I say current because according to my guidebook, published in 1996, it is set to continue on to Machens, Mo and from there meet up with a network of trails coming from St Louis. I can confirm that in the past 11 years no progress has been realized. Much to Owen's chagrin we discovered this while attempting to make our way to Machens without benefit of a crushed gravel path.

One meltdown (literally, as it was in the mid-90s and extremely humid) and 4 or so miles later we turned around to try our luck in the westerly direction. But not before discovering a fantastic network of trails hidden in the riparion region astride the southern banks of the Misssouri River. Subsequent to another 15 miles and a couple buckets worth of sweat we called it quits and headed to the Trails End Brewery for some cool beverages and cheesecake.

Leaving Home: St Louis, MO bound, 1,400ish miles

2007-09-03T12:40:00.000-07:00

23 -26, August, 2007
There was a while there that I considered staying with Owen in Idaho and sending Tony on his merry way as a solo agent. But then I reconsidered. Yes I do love Idaho and out west. Yes I will miss yet another ski season and snow in general. But I also love my husband and, dang, we actually had a great time last year. Plus, there is something that feels very homey about the mid-west. Oh yeah, I am FROM the mid-west. That explains it. But I do hate the traffic and the crowds and the bugs and the heat and no mountains or snow. And I do love the ethnic food and the neighbors and the school and Whole Foods and the diversity and culture. I am NOT a city girl but all in all I love St. Louis. Besides, I have always told myself I could live anywhere for a few years....except D.C and New Jersey. I have to draw the line somewhere.

Our trip over was a good omen, lot-o-fun. We stopped to check out the Big Kahuna and Lunch Counter rapids along the Snake River, a kayaking goal for next summer.....

Checked out the trains in Laramie........

Stop at Doug's favorite brewery in Fort Collins, where he not-so-secretly wants to work upon completion of his PhD program......

We got to see the Guinness Book of World Record's Largest ball of twine and sleep under a full
moon along the shore of a beautiful lake in Kansas.........

And visited the quaint, historic town town of Rocheport, MO and breakfasted at its General Store....

Our final night marked my 30th night of camping this summer and Owen and Nellie's 28th. But now that I am back in the mid-west I imagine we will be spending more nights in our beds and less out of doors. Too bad.

So now what am I going to write about? Anywhere in the midwest the adventurous stuff tends to be a bit more tame and urbane but not all together impossible to find. It just takes a little more effort to uncover.

I guess I will concentrate on the sustainability aspect of our lives. Actually it is easier to live a sustainable lifestyle here since there is a culture that supports this way of thinking. Yeah, I have still managed to relocate to another red state but it is only red due to the large rural component. The urban areas of Missouri are decidedly blue, thank the lord. Here in University City we have mandatory recycling, two depots for the light rail system, a great bus system, a 3 day weekly farmer's market, an independent film tivoli, no big box stores and very few franchises, a thriving and vibrant historic district filled with locally-owned businesses and of course the Washington University contribution of a liberal student populous.

Not bad, but it does not make up for the lack of moose-sighting potential or elevation differential.

Last But Not Least: Hut to Hut: part II

2007-09-01T16:25:00.000-07:00

August 18 and 19, 2007

This was our final trip of the summer so we were amped to have a good time. With two dogs and an Owen in tow be headed to Sun Valley to check out things on the west end of the proposed hut to hut route.

I had originally thought I would have part of the route and a hut located in the Sawtooths, but that will mean more bureaucratic red tape since this area is under the jurisdiction of a different forest service entity than the rest of the route. One good idea posed by none other than my husband is to offer an additional option of an epic day of single track in the Sawtooths to those intrepid few who want even more gratuitous torture. Perhaps I can cut a deal with a local inn or B&B in Sun Valley whereby for a set additional price, clients could stay and ride from there one day without having to carry any gear and have their meals catered. It would not be for the faint of heart mind you, since I could put together some 25-40 mile options that would blow the mind and the quads. There is even the possibility of a naked hot springs stop. Now, how much more is THAT worth?

S0 we started our mileage check in downtown Sun Valley. The climb out of the valley to the north is a great warm up for what is in store for the remainder of the trip. It is a nine mile climb but is not too difficult if you are in climbing shape and are use to the altitude. When we got to the top of the pass I discovered I had managed to shred a rear tire, not just get a flat, in my vehicle. The delay in realization was due to the roughness of the road, which was not quite as rough as I had supposed. Later the next day we would come across a group of kids further down this road who had done the exact same thing. After changing the tire, we headed straight to camp at the trail head of a section we wanted to hike to see if it would be a viable option on bike. And it was. Rideable but more difficult than the forest service roads. It follows little Falls Creek for a few miles to a steep climb over a ridge before hooking up with another trail off a tributary creek of the North Fork of the Big Lost River. Plenty of bathing options on hot summer days.

After finishing the route this is what I have: 205 miles starting and ending in Sun Valley, 4 major passes to climb, approximately 30 miles in between each cabin, single track options for additional mileage every day. Once Owen is back in school I will get the formal proposal written up and submitted to the Forest Service. From there, who knows how long it will take to shake out. Best case scenario would be summer 2009, I imagine. Next summer my dad and a friend from NH are coming out to ride it with me. Maybe my sister and Clay will come out as well, since they have both done hut to huts before and there feedback would be useful.

This was a great last night of camping in Idaho before heading to the BIG CITY, clear skies, shooting stars, great views of the constellations. Tony and I stayed up late taking it all in and regretting the end of summer. It would be fantastic to just spend a week based right there is riding and running trails in every direction....... Can't wait for 2008.

Daytrip: Swan Valley

2007-08-30T07:19:00.000-07:00

August 11, 2007

Swan Valley is a great day trip from Idaho Falls since it is not too far and has an abundance of outdoor options and terrific scenery. It is one of those don't-blink towns and is located along the banks of the south fork of the Snake River. Much of the year you will see anglers in hip boots trying their luck along the stretch of river leading into town. This section of the river is actually renown throughout the country for its world-class fly fishing. The Big Hole Mountains that lead to the Tetons are located north of the valley and the Caribou Mountain are to the south.

A couple of our favorite activities include mountain biking the abundant singletrack off Fall Creek Road or hiking up to the Palisades Lakes, neither of which we did this summer. Tony and I did do a 50 mile back roads mountain bike to Swan Valley a few weeks prior to meet up with David and the kids. David had taken the kids and dogs on an epic 5 hr. hike up Baldy Mt. I think that perhaps our 50 mile ride was easier than what those kids did.

This day we arrived with boats to try out Owen's mad, new kayak skills. We put in at Fall Creek boat ramp and paddle the short distance to the Conant boat ramp just of few miles west, as a sort of test run before heading up to Palisdades Dam to do the longer run. Good thing. It was a learning experience. We learn just how swiftly the Snake runs, how quickly one can go from vertical to horizontal in said, swift river and how doing a planned wet exit in a calm lake differs from doing it quite unexpectedly in a running river. All turned out well but Owen was rattled. We ended the day at Ririe Reservoir. That was fun too.

McCall, ID

2007-08-28T13:19:00.000-07:00

August 6-10, 2007

This was Owen's favorite trip, he said. We drove to McCall, ID for a some kayaking clinics with Devon Barker, 2006 world champion whitewater kayaker http://www.hughesriver.com/devon-barker.htm and sponsored Jackson Kayak team member. http://www.jacksonkayak.com/teamjk/teammember.cfm?member=devon Owen was psyched enough to choose this clinic over a week long climbing camp he had wanted to attend that fell on the same week. Idaho is a big state and this was on the far west side of the state from where we live. Great, a part of Idaho I had never explored.

We left the afternoon before the women's clinic to give us plenty of time to get there and still be able to stop and see the sights along the way. We took the interstate to Boise instead of the more scenic route through Sun Valley. It is actually considerably shorter, time wise, even though the mileage is much longer. Those mountains of south central Idaho really get in the way and slow you down, you know. Along the way we stopped at a couple places I had meant to visit when I drove to Boise a few times in 2004.

Massacre Rock State Park

Twin Falls

Twin Falls is a picturesque little town that is at the center of the fertile farming region of the Snake River Plains. Compared to Idaho Falls, it wins out in charm, largely due to its geographical location alongside a deep gorge cut by the Snake River with a pair of waterfalls as the crowning centerpiece (thus the name). A Twin Falls website claims that the average home price is currently $71,500. Hmm....could this be possible? Kinda unbelievable. We camped that first night a little west of Twin Falls on the north side of the river.

Our next stop was McCall, fantastic town. Along the length of highway 55 from Boise rages the north fork of the Payette River. http://www.paddling.net/idaho/payette.html Paddlers and rafters come in droves to test their mettle on this river. On our drive up we picked up a 17 year old kayaker who was hitching a ride to his car in order to do another run of one of the more difficult sections on that stretch of the river. Route 55 runs alongside part the length of the Payette River from Boise and takes a 90 degree turn upon reaching the southern end of Payette Lake. Right at this turn is nestled the historic commercial district of McCall. I completely forgot to take a snapshot of downtown, which is quite unfortunate since it is very much a picture-worthy destination.

We headed up the west side of the lake to North Beach Boat Ramp. This is where we would spend the next three days for our kayaking clinics. While Owen was working on paddle strokes, wet-exits and hip snaps, I was venturing into a maze of boundary waters on the north side of the lake. The waters were serene and crystal clear and I was able to see to the bottom in sections that were surely over 10 feet deep. This ecosystem was teeming with wildlife and I was the sole human inhabitant as far as I could see. This was the life. I was in love.

The second evening, after 4 hours of paddling for Owen, we took a 20 mile bike ride around the lake and into town for dinner at a great little bistro that featured boccie ball in the front gardens. We arrived back at our car in the dark and the kid still had the energy to play on the moonlit shore for quite a while before we headed to our campsite.

Alas, all good things must come to an end and we headed back home via the scenic route through the mountains. We camped just outside Stanley, a town I had wanted to visit since arriving in Idaho, having heard rave reviews of it from a former New Hampshire neighbor who use to visit it every summer. With a dirt road downtown and a reputation for being the jumping off point for epic back country adventure, it exceeded my expectations. Not a single, visible housing development, one bakery/coffeehouse/restaurant, a watering hole or two and not much else. Note to self, check real estate prices upon return home.

On to antithetical Sun Valley. Ironically enough, while there I saw an historic photo of Sun Valley circa early 1900s and it looked a heck of a lot like present-day Stanley. We stopped for coffee and a book on tape and had to get out of there. The Mercedes SUV quota is ski high in Sun Valley. It was making me nervous.

One last stop in Arco for fried pickles and then we were home.

Hut to Hut Route Scout: part 1

2007-08-28T06:36:00.000-07:00

August 3 & 4, 2007
The plan is to have a 7 day mountain bike tour through the back roads of the Salmon-Challis Nat'l Forest http://www.fs.fed.us/r4/sc/ with the cyclists spending the nights in huts that provide food and shelter, thus enabling relatively unencumbered travel. No re-inventing the wheel here. I want to do it just like the San Juan Huts in Colorado, cheap and basic.

I had no idea what I have been missing for the past 4 1/2 years we have been Idaho residents. This previously unexplored, by me, area of southeastern Idaho is largely overlooked by the hordes who are destined for the Tetons. That is a mistake for them, a bonus for those of us looking to avoid the masses. AS BEAUTIFUL AS the Tetons without the ski resort to expose the secret, not to mention inflate the real estate prices.

There are several significant mountain ranges contained within the Samon Challis National Forest: portions of the Beaverhead and Bitterroot Ranges near the Montana border, the Lemhi, Lost River, White Knob and Pioneer Ranges further south, to name just a few. Loosely, the boundaries to this vast expanse of wilderness are route 93 running northeast, route 26 to the south, route 75 going up through Sun Valley and through to Stanley and ending somewhere north to including lower portions of the Frank Church Wilderness of No Return. The relatively small chunk this proposed bike route addresses is located between Sun Valley, Mackey and Arco.

We (Tony, Owen, Nellie, Sammo and I) scouted this route in two sections, east and west, over the course of two weekends. This first weekend we tackled the eastern portion. Although the actual bike trip will begin and end in Sun Valley, for the purposes of route-finding we began our trip in Arco, a sad and dusty town. Within 12 miles we had left sad and dusty and had entered beautiful and interesting. Remnants of history remain all along the road, Champagne Creek Rd, leading into the nat'l forest in the forms of an old cabin, water dam, mining shafts and the like. The area is riddled with rivers, streams, lakes and majestic mountain peaks with colorful names like The Devils Bedstead at 11,865 ft. and Smiley Mountain at 11,508 ft. The highest visible peak on the ride is Hyndman Peak, 12,009 ft., northeast of Sun Valley. The highest pass we climbed, 8,934 ft., was Antelope Pass along Cherry Creek Summit Rd.

The purpose of these first trips was twofold, figure out the exact route and locate potential hut sites. The route location was easy since I have been poring over maps for a while. The locations of the huts is a bit more tricky since I have to take into consideration daily mileage, nat'l forest boundaries and asthetic, flat locations, preferably hidden by trees. Each of these locations will have to be assessed by a national forest employee for environmental impact.

Weekend Trip: Driggs/Victor, ID

2007-08-21T08:40:00.000-07:00

July 13-16, 2007
This is a standard destination for my family and I on the weekend. This was my third time this summer in the Teton Valley. Once to Driggs on my road bike. Once to Jackson ,WY to Mountain bike the Cache Creek Trail with the family and intern. Out west any trip under 100 miles is a treat. When I was living in New Hampshire, an 80 mile drive would get us well into Vermont or Massachusetts and to the Maine state line. Often, I would opt for a closer destination because I would consider that an was awfully far drive. Its all relative, eh?

The drive via Swan Valley and Pine Creek pass is the most scenic way to arrive in the Teton Valley. Much of the way is along the Snake River or Pine Creek and Targhee National Forest. Victor is the last town before enter Wyoming and is situated at the base of Teton Pass. It and Driggs are currently being ruined by short-sighted developed with seemingly no other purpose that to put as many mini-mansion as possible on every acre of land. The development is certainly keeping up with the pace of greed. Since this is "progress", I have recently decided that when we do ever manage to live IN the mountains I will choose a non-progressive locale if we are going to stay in Idaho.

We met some friends to camp for a couple of nights and go to the Music Festival at Targhee Resort. We camped off Ski Hill Rd. We did some climbing and playing in the creek building dams.

Afters Sunday's venue at the music festival we spent the night at a friend's house in Driggs. The next morning Tony rode his mountain bike back to Idaho Falls via the Big Hole Mounatains, something he has wanted to do for years. I took Owen over to Jackson Hole to play in the Snake River with his kayak before heading back home.

Roadtrip: Bozeman, MT

2007-08-20T13:31:00.000-07:00

Independence Day Celebration: No loud bangs, no crowds
July 4-8, 2007

One of my favorite summer rituals is our annual camping trip to Bozeman. It's not real rugged camping, since we actually stay at a campground and make frequent trip to the Co-op for its organic offerings and refuge from the intense Montana summer sun. We actually managed to talk our friends into forgoing Luxuristan (i.e. the Marriott) for a taste of the plebeian, tree-hugging life. I think they had fun and weren't just faking it. Right, Heather? I know all the kids loved it. How can any man-made, pay-to-participate activity trump hours of dam building in the campside creek? Besides, we did not make them mount their bikes for any of those multi-hour treks that we have talked ouselves into believing that they enjoy as much as we do. We also took along our summer intern, Topher. He also seemed to enjoyed it but regretted the lack of cell phone reception in the canyon. The girlfriend thing, you know. Hmmmm.

We rode our mountain bikes, ran single track trails, ate good food, and slept in the cool mountain air. What better way is there to celebrate American Independence? Certainly not sitting on a blanket surrounded by a cesspool of humanity oohing and aahing over ridiculous fireworks. A little judgemental, eh?

This is the third summer I have rendezvoused in Bozeman with my good friend and former NH neighbor, Emily a.k.a. Emmo. Emily was enrolled in a Masters of Science Education program through the university in Bozeman that required her to spend consecutive summers in residence living the college life after so many years. She has graduated. Congratulations Emily. Now she gets a big fatty raise compliments of Conval school District! Try not to spend it all in one place Emily. Maybe spend a little on a ticket to Moab during winter break to meet up with your former neighbors? Just an idea. http://www.expedia.com/

Tony and Owen headed back to Idaho Falls with Topher and the Bruemmers and I stayed an extra 1 1/2 days to go ride with Emily on her weekend off.

Our first ride was sweet. We went up Hyalite Canyon past the reservoir to the Emerald Lake Trailhead. This trail was perfectly rideable singletrack that switchbacked up to an alpine basin. We did not tarry long at the lake due to the carniverous nature of the mosqitoes. The description on my map of this ride says it will make you "giggle like a school girl". Yep. Upon arrival back at the truck the heavens opened and it hailed to beat the band. Good timing. See photo.

Our second ride was less technical but equally as beautiful and longer. Across from our campground in the Hyalite Canyon is a is the Moser Creek Trailhead. We connected this short loop to the Bozeman Creek Road (the lower portion of the Mystic Lake trail).