Sunday, October 16, 2016

Boise of Treasure Valley

I am sitting in Mini with Ms. Olivia on the Sacramento River's edge at a little campground/marina in West Sacramento, California where it hasn't rained in months.  The rain is pelting our little RV thanks to "remants" of Typhoon Songda.    Great time to stay indoors and do some writing because we are off and running tomorrow to Yosemite as the weather clears!  I will try to capture the charm of Boise in this blog.   It is a GREAT town full of art, outdoor activities, culture, friendly people and just a wonderful, uplifting overall vibe.  And we had a wonderful family visit. 

Marina and RV park (not a parking lot!) on the Sacramento River

We recently stopped over in Boise to visit family (my older sister and her kids and their kids) for a week and pick up our Sondors electric bikes (pictures below), regroup and make a plan/review our itinerary/check weather as we head out towards the west coast.  Most people know that Boise has been rated as one of the best retirement cities (Forbes) and although I never understood it before (hot in the desert summer heat and cold in the winter), I get it now.  Here's some of the things we enjoyed while in Boise of Treasure Valley.
Maiden rides on the new e-bikes!  Thanks so much to my nephew and great nephew for ALL the help!
Bikes on the new bike rack and road-ready
62-year old biker chick :P  And, as always, "safety first" helmet on my biker head! 
After settling in with family and parking Mini in the RV parking lot (conveniently located with respect to all city activities - right between Idaho State Highway 51 and Boise Airport...not so much of an ommmm here but definitely close to the city and family!)  I took a yoga class at a great yoga/health center in Boise (check it out at Yoga Tree Boise).  When you think yoga you don't naturally think Boise and yet Forbes listed Boise in their top 10 cities because of it's  lively yoga community.  And although, the gentle yoga class I took with my older sister was not the best yoga I have ever taken it suited me on that day because my ribs were still on the mend and I think it was the perfect yoga class for my sister who has fibromyalgia (hoping it inspired her to carry on in my absence!).  Yoga in Boise....who knew?

Then I took not one but two classes with Kay Seurat,  a local jewelry artist who has such an artsy house that it spooked my sister (check her out here http://www.kayseurat.com/).  When we drove up to her house/studio, not far from the airport and next to the train tracks (so, very near our noisy RV parking lot), I was intrigued with her metal work outside the house.  She used metal ironing boards, attached to the roof to give a "sculpting" edge to the front of her house where you would normally find the gutters and a red car hood installed as a "porch" cover as well as old license plates to frame her entry (unfortunately, I can't find those pictures as I fumble around with my camera and iCloud via iPhone on my iMac right now).....But, in any event, her home is one-of-a-kind unique!  She remarked when I asked about the license plates framing her front door, "The license plates I got at the DMV.  People think you are supposed to bring your old ones in but that's not true so the DMV takes them and sets them aside.  Don't you think it's weird that I had to pay 50 cents each for them when the DMV got them for free?"  Yes, I do! 

With Kay, on that fist visit, I made a pair of blue and lime green enameled earrings.  I have enameled and cut metal with a saw before but it's never been my favorite activity so this was good practice and easy for Kay; she could work away while I spent an hour and a half sawing!  For me sawing is kind of like knitting.  It's like a projective test where your behavior reflects your mood, think of those ambiguous ink blots that psychologists use to see into your mind based on the image you see......oh that's a bat, no a sumo wrestler.  I digress...in this case, if I was tense while knitting  (without even noticing it) I would notice when I looked back at my handywork that I had made itty bitty stitches so that the "material" I had made was as strong as steel and yet when I was relaxed I stitched big loosey goosey stitches so open you could stick your finger through and between the stitches with ease.  With sawing, it's the same kind of thing.  You have to hold the saw gently and just let your wrist do the sawing in an easy up and down fashion and let it all happen with ease vs. clutching the saw white-knuckled like it weights 50 pounds and is on the verge of dropping to the ground.  And,  so to compensate you use your entire right arm to saw.  Using your whole tense arm is not only tiring, but completely effective in cutting through metal (and your saw breaks a lot).  And, so it was great practice to saw a pair of lime green and blue enamel colored copper earrings that required lots of turns!

I have a lime green pair of earrings.
I have a lime green and blue pair of earrings!


I have a pair of blue earrings!
I also signed up for a glass blowing class at Boise Art Glass.  I have only watched glass blowing at the the Toledo Art Museum (where we bought the fabulous orange vase that the glass blower made as a demonstration), and once in Quechee, Vermont at Simon Pierce Mill Glassblowing where we walked scaffolds and looked down on a huge space full of furnaces and glass blowers.  I have art friends who blow glass beads and have always been intrigued.

Austin was our instructor for 1/2 hour.  My sister readily came to this activity and we made round globes; 2 in about 25 minutes.  At $13 each this was a bargain and part of the Boise Open Studios weekend that we were lucky to be around for.  The space was HOT and dangerous which is what I loved about it.  It's what I love about metals work....you can easily get hurt (acid, saws, fire) ....danger and art.  What could be better?  We assisted Austin by holding the metal rod while the molten glass was in the furnace...I was surprised to learn the glass would only droop, but never drop off the metal rod.  You turn it so it evenly warms while in the fire.  Then we helped while we dropped this clear glass and very hot glob into colored glass pieces (rolling it around to cover fully) then returned it to the furnace and repeated this process one more time.  Then there was some rolling on metal and dropping the glass glob into a mold to shape it and then finally setting it into in silica type material bin where Austin snipped it off the hot rod.   He then took a small blob of clear molten glass and dropped it into the little hole created by snipping it off the rod...forming that colorless glob into the hanger.  It was a marvelous experience! 

With a glob of clear very hot glass on a hot rod, you roll it in colored glass
After adding 2 layers of colored glass, you literally blow into a tube to expand the glass...awesome!
My glass globe, cooling in some metal (forgot what he said this was) before annealing in a kiln for 12 hours
I think Austin is hiding from these inquisitive little women!
But, I was quite in awe (being a nature girl at heart, I think...I remember years ago when my husband took me up to Rangeley, Maine where he was doing a soils test and we stayed at this cabin on a lake in the middle of nowhere and I was at home washing the dishes in the lake and using the outhouse that had a water view and he said, "Who knew you were such a nature girl?"...raised in the woods I think I always have been).  Anyway, as my husband and I took our our new electric bikes on our maiden voyage - I was unsure how these would work but my husband was convinced we needed these on this trip (and he was right!) and put great effort into getting them road-ready - he had "The Greenbelt" in mind for this first trip out.  This is an extraordinary area in Boise, bordering the Boise River on both sides full of activities (fishing, surfing, whitewater rafting practice, paddle boarding, running, weight lifting outdoors) with restaurants and miles of running/walking/biking lanes.  We both jumped on our bikes and he was so grateful they were electric (he later told me) because he didn't have to pedal (his ankle with several bone spurs only bends with great pain and his knee is difficult to bend making peddling kind of challenging to say the least).  But I did pedal and at the same time tried to focus on staying on the bike, how to work the electronics (push a button and 3 lights greet you as and you hear the motor move you along like in a regular vs. standard car...no shifting needed!).  I was also trying to make sure the brakes worked as I watched the people walking and running and bike riding around me (and that crazy kid riding his bike while texting!) and as we rode along the next thing we knew we were on this marvelous, I mean completely beautiful nature path right that runs right along the Boise river, under the main roads and made for bikes and pedestrians! 
Cool bike path right under the main roads of Boise!
Boiseans surfing!  The day before they were practicing whitewater rafting :)
So, Boise, I get why you are rated highly as a wonderful city -  indeed it is a treasure of the valley. 



Friday, October 14, 2016

3750 Miles




Mile 3,750!
Here's a selfie I snapped of Olivia and I  (this is Olivia's MO most of the trip...asleep on her pillow in the back seat next to the cooler) when Ken announced we had traveled a total of 3,750 miles so far! We have been completely across the United States and are now in Sacramento waiting out a storm so we can continue our travels.  It is literally the quiet before the storm so I have a little time to catch up on posting  (I now know I should have taken that course on travel blogging!).  It's been tricky keeping up with posting, writing, and managing pictures online with all our dry camping (where you have no water but we have a tank full, and no power but we have a generator and TWO batteries, and no sewer but we have a holding tank).  I love dry camping because of where you can go (and this place is not an RV parking lot where you can reach out and touch your trailer neighbor), although frequently we have neither phone nor internet connection so managing pictures and writing and posting is just not possible...which is probably why I love it! 

Anyway, as we await the remnants of Typhoon Songda to descend tomorrow and Sunday, here are some skyscapes I have been taking on this trip.  I am in awe of the vastness and ever-changing sky and have been snapping away throughout the trip as I sit in the passenger seat while my wonderful husband does all the work driving, keeping us on course and safe!



Somewhere, USA! 
Spectacularly Blue, Crater Lake and Wispy Magical Clouds!
Approaching Bend, Oregon

On the Way to Bend, Oregon
Clouds Floating Along, Missouri River
Always a Cloud Over the Grand Tetons
Coming Into Boise, Idaho


Again, Boise, Idaho



Coming from Grants Pass, Oregon into Sacramento, California




Foreboding Skies Over Olive Trees in California, North of Sacramento

Thursday, October 6, 2016

New Stuff Brings New Issues


Ririe Reservoir, Idaho at sunset....right about the time the coyotes started to howl!
So, I have learned some fabulous life lessons on this big adventure across the U.S.  First, new things bring new issues.  Let's take the fact that my closet and most of our storage is in the back of a Titan truck.  To gain access to those things (clothes, electric blanket, toilet paper) requires that Ms. Flexible Yoga Joy climbs onto the hitch, up over the tailgate and the table (that rests up against the tailgate), and then pushes around and pulls on boxes and bins until I find the correct box or bin to then prop open so I can dig out that warm wool sweater or get some more dog food or grab a clean pair of socks for my husband.  Laying full body,  so all of my a little over 100 pounds on my right side, directly on my ribs to get the camper stove (I told myself when I heard that strange sound as I lay in this awkward position, "That's going to hurt.") led to nearly 4 weeks of pain.  Pain that made me wince when I took a breath, laughed, coughed, slept on the wrong side.  Ribs are on the mend but new things bring new issues.  Having a closet in a truck is a new thing and so I need to move in a different way with thoughtfulness.  Got it.   Yes, it's a bit of a mess back there...with ice makers and laundry soap propped up against lawn chairs!  Organizing and living small...that's a whole other post! 

Our on-the-road "closet and storage"
I love taking photos and am a very visual person.  With my iPhone full to capacity with photos/videos (and my struggle to save them somewhere, iCloud? DropBox?), and on recommendation from a friend/photographer I bought a really cool wifi capable camera, ELPH 190 IS (odd name but GREAT camera).  I love the quality of pictures and video but all of that beauty sits quietly on my new blue camera.  With a new camera comes a whole new download of drivers, manuals and complications to get the fancy wifi working (tricky when you are dry camping in a National forest overlooking a dam and your only wifi is a Verizon hotspot on your husband's iPhone).  This new toy, of course with it's own specific set of issues, and requires some focused time and energy so I can pull off photos to share and enjoy.  I have a giant memory card so for now will continue to click away!

My beautiful new camera!  Thanks for the recommendation, Larry.
So, I have come to expect anything new (which is nearly daily on this trip) will have it's challenge and I no longer just think, "Yeah, yippee, something new!"  I think, "OK, I am excited but what will go wrong or what will we need to adjust/fix/replace?"  Case in point, we finally got our new Sondors e-bikes (check this out for more info http://gosondors.com/) yesterday (so fun...fat tire and very yellow!).  My handy and bright great nephew helped assemble the first one with my McGyver-like husband.  "Hop on and give it a spin!" they happily directed me after it was all assembled.  As I took off on a maiden voyage (what fun!) round the cul-du-sac all I could hear was a scraping each time I peddled...brakes not fully adjusted and that will require a Thursday trip to the bike shop.  And, bike #2 is still boxed up.  And, then the question becomes, so how do we get the bikes to the RV park where we are staying  (next to the freeway with trucks downshifting and cars zooming by and under the airport flight path where we hear helicopters and jets day and night while the train rattles the trailer...whole different story!) I digress, anyway, the trailer park is some 10 minutes away and how do we transport the bikes when we are once again on the road?   They most certainly aren't going to fit in that very full truck cab :P  New things bring new issues.  Husband is on it with research into bike racks, locks, covers. 

Sondors e-bikes we are so excited for!  



So, I have learned one important principal in life on the adventure (actually I have learned many...future posts!); new things bring new issues and it's not "if" something will happen but "what" will happen or maybe "when."  Got it and won't forget it and, am happy to write, I now embrace it!  Good life lesson!