How to Visit Idaho

My dream this past spring semester at uni was to visit Idaho. My soul craved Idaho. Who visits Idaho? Very few people which therefore meant that I had to go. That was the first reason. The second reason was that I've never been there. Third, it's really far West which seems like reason enough. And forth, finally, and most importantly, the girl who made college survivable for me is an Idaho native and loves the state heart and soul.



The Snake River, the Green, the Desert, and the Sky

So before hopping off to build peace half way around the world (though ironically I'll be closer to Idaho then New York), I had to hop out to Idaho and see it for myself, learn about the big wide west, and give my friend Sarah a huge East Coast hug. I went to Southern Idaho, which is different from Eastern Idaho (and the potatoes) and Northern Idaho (massive Rockies). Southern Idaho is desert; beautiful, flat, dry, treeless and often cloud free. The region is marked by the Snake River which provides the only water available in the area. I didn't expect that, but I was fascinated.

 

1) Visit Ketchum and the Sawtooths. I loved Idaho. I loved everything about the flatness and sunshine and big blue sky. But I'm a East Coaster (or my experience of the United States centers along the East Coast), so the flat shrubby landscape of Idaho hurt my soul just a little bit. But up in the Sawtooth Mountains range of the Idaho Rockies is the adorable touristy get-away town of Ketchum. The Sawtooths are massive, to die for...and really really big.

Desert and Farming: Two-Faced Southern Idaho



2) Visit Bruneo Canyon: Deep into the crevices of the earth, far below where sane men should travel (and can't for technical reasons), there exists, a river, Bruneo River...at the bottom of Bruneo Canyon. Actually, it's completely amazing but the only thing more amazing is that it's at the end of civilization. You literally drive for 45 minutes without seeing another car, or house, or person, or sign, except for the bombing range. And I truly despise when other tourists end up in my pictures which is far from an issue at as far as Bruneo.



3) Visit the Bruneo Sand Dunes: How many landlocked states have massive sand dunes? Not that many and rarities deserve the attention of global nomads. But sit on top of the Idaho's sand dunes and stargaze, feel the sunshine, and well....it's just awesome. Geologists believe that the area was once covered by a giant lake extending beyond the Salt Lakes of Utah, often called Lake Bonneville. The sand remains, even if Bonneville was just a myth.



4) Visit a farm: Sarah is a farm girl. I got to pick veggies, back Seasonal Baskets for her brother's Community Sponsored Agriculture project, dry corn, can tomatoes, and make ketchup. I went to Idaho to see Sarah, and so I had to love her Stoneybrook Farm. (I did really feel like a global nomad though. I'm pretty urban.)



Beautiful food, beautiful farms, beautiful state

5) Walk on the Oregon Trail: I may have grown up overseas, but as a child in Mainland China I played Oregon Trail. It's a computer game simulating what it was like to traverse from Missouri to Oregon, walking for between four and seven months over 2000 miles, all your life in a covered wagon, trying not to die in the 1850s. People did that, half a million people did that...continental nomads! You can still see the trail if you look for it, deep ruts carved into the soil...and marvel.



6) See a good friend: Hols are fun with friends, beautiful, gifted, golden-hearted friends. They know the lay of the land best, and they are the natives to your global nomad. If you visit Idaho, visit a friend...or make one.

This post is for my Computer

With distress and undying grief, I bid adieu to the former love of my life. My beloved computer...known lovingly as Ordi...has died. The screen no longer lights up...and it doesn't remember my settings either which is the equivalent to technological Alzheimer's, or just ignoring me. I find myself rather distraught, more so then when my first computer died. It was part of my life and I loved it, took care of it...and it forgot me. (And I'm not being dramatic.)

My beloved deceased computer

My beloved laptop was a symbol of my overseas life. It went to France, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Pakistan, New York, Virginia, South Carolina, and Washington DC...and if we're counting layovers (which totally count in my book) we'd add extended periods of time in South Africa, Netherlands, Tanzania, and the UAE). It traveled further then many people which only made it a more significant part of my increasingly strange life.

Freshman year, freshman day, August 2007, sitting in the Catholic Relief Services Regional Southern Africa Office in Lusaka Zambia, across from my dad who was the deputy regional director at the time, I started my first online uni classes with Ordi. And it went all the way through college with me. I dragged it to many CRS offices when the Internet was sucky or nonexistent at home and I needed to take exams. I watched eight seasons of Gilmore Girls on that computer when it wasn't safe to leave our home in Pakistan. I wrote every college paper on that computer from August 2007 to July 2010. I skyped my family from uni in the States. And I blogged (albeit irregularly) with Ordi.

It lived such a rich computer life and with a severe overhaul, it could live on. But technology is only useful when it works so my treasured Ordi will be retired and a new, faster, smaller computer (which will go by Ordi II) will take it's place. And it will have big shoes to fill...my desceased had a 15 inch screen.

How to Move Overseas

I've spent a lot of time the past few weeks thinking about my upcoming move to Southeast Asia. Two check-on bags and one carry-on for my upcoming new life! Problem is, I might have been thinking about it too much. Worries can take hold and I scare myself contemplating all the things that could go wrong and all the things that will change while I'm gone. What if it's too hot there? What if my allergies kill me in a smoggy Asian city? What if I get hit by a motorcycle? What if my friends get married in the States while I'm gone? What if I'm under-prepared for my job? What if I hate Khmer or it's too hard to learn? What if my family and friends forget about me, or let me fade to the periphery? What if I'm crazy for thinking I could do that? I just finished uni...and I'm moving 12 time zones around the world.

That's why you don't think. Don't overthink I mean.

I want to do this. It's a combination of many things. I love being overseas. I'm home in the strangeness where everything is just a little off and your constantly scratching your head, even though I've grown accustom to life in America where everything is clean, organized and put together. I was raised to believe service is essential to a selfless life. I was exposed to Catholic Social Teachings (the infallible "CST") with instructs adherents to caring for the poor and oppressed. I was educated on Mennonite ideals of bringing peace where it's scarce. And I believe that in giving of yourself, paradoxically you find internal joy.

The biggest struggle moving overseas is trust; trust it's going to be okay, trust that forces beyond your control are not out to get you, and trust that it's part of a plan greater then your small mind. So death by motorcycle, weddings, funerals, and my overblown OCD fears will have to be overcome, recatagorized and dismissed. It will be awesome. The rational part of my brain doesn't doubt that for a moment.

How to Visit the Adirondacks

My family likes taking holiday. Normally our holidays are insanely...well...insane. However, we're in the States on home leave which limits walking off cliffs in the Himalayans and scuba diving in the Indian Ocean. Instead, after visiting Baltimore, Washington DC, NYC for a morning and driving everywhere in between, we spent the week in the Adirondacks. I'm a New Yorker (because that's the State I've lived in the longest) but I'd never been to the Adirondacks. It's a state park, it's a region of Upstate New York, and it's also a holiday destination in the Northeast.

In the winter, the Adirondacks are for snowmobiling and snow sports. In the summer, vacationers lay in swimsuits around one of the thousands of lakes in the region, soaking up the sun and a good brai. The region survives because of tourism which has been thriving for centuries and lives on despite the recent economic downturn. It's beautiful, so beautiful, and so people drive up for weekends or recent cabins for weeks at a time, and have family reunions in a place preserved for it's natural beauty.

We rented a cabin for a week up at Old Forge which is famous for the "Enchanted Forest" water theme part, fudge shops, woodsy/nature themed decor shops, and the closest IGA grocery shop in the area. It's really adorable. We stayed on Big Moose Lake, went tubing on the lake, went on a seven mile kayak run down Big Moose River, went hiking around nearby Big Moss Lake, and had lots of brais and roasted marshmallows. It was so non-urban...no cappuccinos or Longchamps bags. But I really found myself loving the fresh pine needles and my new red Keens.

That's what overseas dwellers and global nomads do, we try new things and try whatever adventures are nearby to be experienced. It makes us happy. Sometimes you love it and sometimes you don't but you always leave thinking it was interesting...or at least different.