Words and Works: June 2005

Friday, June 17, 2005

But must they also insult us?

A little west of Boise lies a small (for the time being) town by the name of Star. I think the population on the sign is something like 1700, though I suspect it might be a bit more now than it was at the time of the census. As one comes into town from the east, there is a large ranch running along the left side of the road, its fields stretching several hundred yards down to the tall cottonwoods of the river. Of course it's quite beautiful. I haven't been out there for several months now, but I drove by the other day on my way to somewhere...or maybe it was on my way to Nampa. Either way, near the road now, just inside the fence that marks the boundary of the ranch is a series of signs. "Get ready...", "for better...", "living." "Naturally.", in yellow letters against a blue background.

I know they are going to completely destroy that lovely ranch and replace it with yet another ghastly subdivision. I know the subdivision won't have any creativity, or style, or substance, or personality, that it will simply attempt to allow for the building of as many homes as possible. I don't necessarily want this to happen, but I don't have a whole lot of room to complain about it. The owner of the ranch sold his or her land to the person or persons who wants to build the repulsive subdivision, they'll call it Rolling Rapids Cotton Heron Grove, and there are hundreds of people in the world (I blame you for this, California) who are willing to trade style and personality of the neighborhood for money. So capitalism marches on, which is fine. It's the best we've got.

But please, please don't insult us by imposing additional inane and misleading messages upon us. We all know that living in your over sized cubicle farm isn't going to make our lives better. In fact, we fairly strongly believe that you'll make them worse. We know there isn't much we can or should do about this, but it would be awfully kind of you if you would just quietly ruin beauty, or maybe put some messages up that indicated your acknowledgement of what you're doing. "Enjoy this now...", "because it's almost...", "gone." "Money."

Sunday, June 05, 2005

There was a lot of this on the two day ride from Petersburg to Bellingham.

Petersburg, AM.

We had a lot of time to kill before the ferry left at 3 AM from Petersburg, so we shot some stick in the Harbor Bar.

Checking out the Petersburg fishing derby. The leader at time of departure weighed in at 44 lbs. (King Salmon)

Some artistry along the way...

Hitchhiking back to town to catch the ferry.

We spent an entire day at the Blind River Rapids just watching wildlife. Very beautiful and interesting slough.

The faces sum it up.

This is the "trailhead" for the Upper Twin Creek ski trail. Again, note the absence of any trail, and the sign in the upper right hand corner indicating the hope for a trail in the distance. It's a lie.

This is the view from the top of the Upper Twin Creek ski trail. Notice the distinct lack of a trail. That's the Coastal Range in the background. For you "Into the Wild" fans, The Devil's Thumb is just to the left of the visible peaks.