My Own Private Idaho

Alright, alright, I didn't go off to Idaho and disappear forever. Maybe I wanted to, but I didn't. People keep asking me "So, how was Idaho?" and all I have really been able to come up with in reply is an exasperated sigh. How do you even describe anything so vast? So awe inspiring? So... full of emptiness? See? It makes no sense. All the cliches are true, life moves at a different pace out there, the locals are very weary of outsiders and possibly a bit crazy, but in a good way. It is easy to see how people go out there and never return to their past lives. And the stars? Seriously? Who knew how many layers there are? And we could watch satellites in orbit, satellites people!

Someone very close to me once said, "You feel like you have fallen through a crack in the world out there, and you discover things that have also fallen through the cracks". I wrote it down at the time as something that I just had to find out for myself, and I have to say that nothing could be more true.

So, what did we actually do out there? Well, have a look see...

(Be sure to hover over the "Notes" button with your mouse for my comments, and once again, if you are using a blog reader you will have to click through for the pictures to show up)





Activities not pictured... lots of shopping in nearby Sun Valley (ritzy ski town, see there is civilization, even annoying Starbucks), lots of knitting and sewing, a whole afternoon driving through the most amazing mountains looking for moose, dinner with two local couples that live down the road (these people do things that I wouldn't know how to even begin, like kicking the guts out of a moose they just shot or continuing to hunt and camp after being rolled over by a horse falling down a mountain. I think I spent that whole dinner with my mouth gaping open and eyes as big as saucers), a lot of good eats, and more drives to see the local sights.

The book I was reading out there, Kafka On The Shore by Haruki Murakami, had a paragraph in it that fit my experience out there perfectly:

"I turn to look one last time. Up till a minute ago it felt so real, but now it seems imaginary. Just a few steps is all it takes for everything associated with it to lose all sense of reality. And me- the person who was there until a moment ago - now I seem imaginary too."

I love the day-to-day me and my day-to-day life, but I will yearn for the me that stomps around on the wide open plain and chats with cows and mule deer until I return.