idaho — Page 10

A Pinch of the Wild West

July 26, 2010 by The Noisy Plume

I’m sure you’ll recall the fact that I had one of my best friends coming to visit me here in Idaho last week! She stayed a full seven days and we had many adventures together. One day, we left RW at home and while we were out driving up the wee highway that parallels the upper Portneuf River we came across a pair of covered wagons. I swerved a bit and exclaimed something like, “It’s still the Wild West in Idaho!!!”

I drove on down the highway and then slammed on my brakes and turned the truck around. I knew that if I didn’t stop to photograph those darn cowboys I would regret it. So back we went. I jumped out of my Tacoma with my camera in hand and those cowboys obliged me with a photo shoot on the side road where they were parked. Sweet fellas. They said they were just out for a jaunt up and over the mountains.

They also told me, “We dawnt usualleeee pose for picshuresss but the persons responseeeble for hawlding the camera in’t usually so easy on the eyes...”

GUFFAW!

Ho hum.

Just another day in Idaho.

Enjoy:

Filed Under: cowboys, horses, idaho

Summer is………….

July 25, 2010 by The Noisy Plume

1. Mosquitoes (there were plenty when I took this photo).

2. Watermelon juice sliding down my arm and into my elbow-pit.

3. Fishing Rainey Creek.

4. My favorite fishing cover up shirt buttoned to the neck to keep the aforementioned mosquitoes out!

5. Being at the lake, taking a dip in cold water, watching the pollens rise up off the conifers and take to the wind.

What is summer to you?

PS Did I mention fishing?????……….

Filed Under: fishing, idaho, summer

The Holy of Holies: Idaho Edition

July 12, 2010 by The Noisy Plume

Sometimes heaven is a place on earth.

Welcome to City of Rocks, Idaho, USA:

The thing is, The City is one of the most beautiful places I have ever climbed. It looks like Tolkien’s Middle Earth. Granitic forms rise up and out of the sage, juniper and aspen stands and tower there, hundreds of feet above the earth in unique and beautiful forms. It’s nearly too much to bear. I don’t know where to look so I take it all in at once and feel a bit dizzy, a bit tiny and a little bit justified beneath all of that magnificent and exposed igneous intrusion.

I consider The City to be one of the Holy of Holies in this state of mine. The rumble and fumble of creation is heard here in the whisker twitch of a jackrabbit and the soft, slow crumble of gorgeously formed granite; firm in crystal lattice: like prickly liquid under the softness of my hands. This is living rock.

When I’m on it, something that once slept in me becomes wild and alive.

I become a wedge of lichen clinging to its surface; a burly little fern pushing up and out of a fissure.

I feel small and mighty. All at once. I’m part of a greater whole.

My perspective grows wide.

God feels bigger than ever.

I was in good company with people who climb safely.

My partner, Sue, pushed me to do routes outside of my comfort zone. And each time I sent a route, I howled at the top like a wild thing and shook my mane in the wind before looking out at the vistas below me. We perched atop rocks like wise ravens, like stone mavens. We felt the burn of rock on skin, felt the rush of tenuous grips, watched the clouds roll in and roll back under the hand of the sun. We pushed through mental barriers. We never quit. Not even once. We hid in a cave when it rained. We sweated like men, called out encouragement to each other and pulled past pigeon rookeries on our way to the top.

We watched the sun sink, we ate, we laughed around a fire and then in the morning, we did it all over again. Skin under sun on rock in wind.

We made gravity mad; no matter how she tried,

she couldn’t keep us down.

And then we jumped in the truck and traveled home

through the sunset

through the twilight

past the fields with their irrigation ballet

into sleepy Pocatello

onto our street.

And we wondered:

Why don’t we go there more often?

Hope your weekend was rad.

PLUME

PS Gosh. I. Just. Really. Love. Idaho.
It makes my heart sing opera.

Filed Under: city or rocks, climbing, idaho

With The Lupins

July 5, 2010 by The Noisy Plume

To my American friends:

Happy Independence Day!

I hope your view was just as grand!

PLUME

Filed Under: idaho, independence day, lupins, sunset, wildflowers

You, Me & The Wildflowers

June 27, 2010 by The Noisy Plume

The Wildflower Festival,

last night,

on the side of a mountain.

Liquid sun delicious wind friends of sweet mountain view green valley rumpled earth tender wine barking dogs dancing kids flower power smell those flowers bucking around wild things of the West.

I met some fellow from the East Coast (a lovely little narcissist) up on the side of this hill who told me all about his life and his dysfunction and about his dislike for Pocatello because no one was friendly (NOT FRIENDLY??!!! Um. Were you in a different Pocatello, Idaho???) and it wasn’t at all like what the West should be. He said he hated it so much that he drove to Jackson and Yellowstone (!!!) where he felt so much more at ease — probably because he was with his own kind. Those places are some of the trophies of the West but they aren’t who WE are.

I listened with open ears.
I listened deeply with an open heart and heard what he really had to say and saw his brokenness for what it really was and when a friend finally came along to safely drag me away from his ranting he reached out and gave me a hug like we were old friends. Like we had connected in a real way as two human beings in hip high wildflowers on the side of a mountain. I said, as I walked away:

You know, I don’t know where his notion of what the West should be like came from but he’s got it all wrong. This is the West. We make it the way it is. And if you come from somewhere else and are blind to our true spirit, or if you come here expecting something else, then you make yourself blind to the beautiful reality of this space and you shouldn’t stay because you’re just cramping a horizon that would otherwise be wide open.

This is all to say, if you come West from someplace that isn’t West, keep your eyes and your heart wide open. Not everyone is a soft spoken cowboy or punchy cowgirl, there’s a blend out here, like there is everywhere, a steady blend of mountain, plains, river rock, stout hearts and crumbling facades. It’s where old meets new and new meets old. If you can’t see that, you’re missing the possibility of it all and the view from the vista is going to seem tarnished.

The entire experience directed my thinking to the actual true definition of the West. What makes West West??? Is it the people, the land, the space, the elk or a combination of everything wild and free out here? I’ve got a libertarian/independent streak a mile wide in my heart. I like to make my own decisions, I like to work hard, I like to range free and have as little meddling as possible in my life from outside organizations. I don’t like to be told what I can and can’t do. I don’t like to conform. I like to have space to buck around in. I like to put my head down and kick my heels until there’s nothing on my back and I’m light as a feather. RW does too. We know the difference between right and wrong, we believe in Love and laying it down as a foundation for our relationships with all things (humans, animals, land, The Holy), we believe in space. It’s why we live where we live and how we live. This isn’t a political statement. This is how I am. This is how we are. Give me the choice and I’ll gladly choose for myself. Tell me what to think and what to do and I’ll balk, dig in my heels and not go gently.

Not at all.

You could probably label this as a rebellious spirit but I like to think

I simply have an overdeveloped sense of free will.

Does any of this ranting define the West?

And furthermore, if I was living in the East, would I seem Western to the Easterners…would I carry this vastness with me and wear it on my sleeve like a steady down valley draft for everyone to feel?

If you aren’t from here, this chunk of:

pasture, lake, river, mountain, foothill, prairie, grasslands, slough, stone and wind…

how have you always dreamed this place would be?

And if you are from the West,

what is it to you?

And how does your existence help define it?

Are your heartstrings made of barbed wire?

Do you know that song that makes the tall grasses bend down at the knee?

Does your soul meander like a spring fed creek down the side of a mountain?

Does the wind know you by name?

Do you drink the sunlight and tame the bees?

Mine do. Yes I know it. It does. Yes. I do.

If you come West, come see me, we’ll sing the sun down together and breathe that wide open breeze into our bodies and rest on our sides in the grass like rocky ranges rising up. We won’t do as we’re told, not always, but we’ll always do what’s right.

In the sun, under the shadow of the West edge of the Rockies,

we’ll warm our bones with music, spun gold and tall grasses.

When the moon rises, full and bright

we’ll whirl wildly about the night.

Filed Under: idaho, mountains, music festival, pebble creek, pocatello, rocky mountains