Episode I

Notes From the North IF - First report

Snapshot of the house - 5 bedroom. Big yard front and back. 2 bathrooms. Giant tool/utility room. Cupboards and closets and outlets for days! Lawn is so green my eyes drink the color like a smoothie. Idaho Falls is located on a vast slightly rolling bowl of a plain made of black rock and covered with trees. 5100 foot altitude. To the west is the crumpled mountainous skirt wearing a gown of trees which is currently on fire. Our next door neighbor told me the fires jumped the mountains in the pass to our part of the state but it is out now I think. (See Malad, Idaho for the pass we went through to get here. We only saw 1 plume of smoke in the distance and it was not very large.) borrowed a mower from our next door neighbors and Dustin is mowing right now - I feel like I must have a touch of altitude sickness - no energy at all today - yesterday was fine but I was running on adrenaline.

The neighbors also told us that Our "bitterly cold" winter will descend on us in October. It's blazingly hot here right now.

The drive here -

California – Everyone speeding. Border Patrol, Sheriffs, state police, highway patrol – the hunters were out in force and everywhere they found prey. Coming through the gap in the last mountain chain before we descended into the Mojave Natural Preserve, looming cloud-continent blackens the entire northern sky. We are struck by torrents of rain, overwhelming the windshield wipers and growing ever stronger. Finally the wind was stupendous and the rain horizontal. We are moving at 15, no 10, no 5 mph, blinkers on, crawling like bugs through the angry tempest. I relax into a profound calm, eyes wide open and noting every lash of wind and slap of rain – straining to see anything ahead of us, hoping no one runs into the back of us. We come into a relatively clear area and traffic speeds up to 30 mph. Then we hit the other side of this maelific storm and slow back to the veriest crawl. Finally we come to a stop – sky black as a bankers heart and the wind howling like demons. We realize there has been an accident ahead, and my imagination conjures a holocaust of twisted metal, shattered glass and looming over everything the monstrous downpour. Minutes pass as we assume the worst then police again – sliding past us in the battering gale. More minutes pass and we begin to inch forward again. Ahead is one truck – looking like a toy thrown by a giant, violent angry child. The driver, a young woman is talking to the police and although somewhat stunned otherwise unharmed.

Nevada – glitzy, lots of local police and then barren waste. Las Vegas – sprawling and spectacular, then more absolute waste.

Arizona – a small strip with various unfriendly signage, warning of this and forbidding that. Not much else here worth noting.

Utah – a sudden switch to orderly landscape, red mountain rocks and vivid green vegetation. The signage miraculously transformed into helpful, encouraging, even paternalistic advice for travelers. “Tired, exit at (the next exit) – no fatigued drivers!” Rest stops – closed or non-existent in California, Nevada and Arizona appear frequently, with mileage to the next rest stop! This is how I always remember highway travel to be – what happened to California, Nevada and Arizona that they became so unfriendly to traveling drivers? Utah has a spare, lean but fundamental beauty – cliffs carved by air and water into terraces, silhouettes and castle shapes. We have made a reservation at the Provo Travellers Inn – and called and confirmed it. We have been on the road 14 hours now and through a hellish deluge so we are ready to sleep. The Provo Travellers Inn has awnings across it's entrance so we take our fully laden truck in the back way. We ring the bell and arouse the desk clerk. “I have no rooms – there was no reservation on my computer”. We argue half-heartedly – but she holds the high trump card – there are no available rooms. We get back in the truck and find a Knights Inn. We munch our lukewarm food and drop into sleep. The next day we whisk with lighter hearts through Salt Lake City and into see a mob of parasailors above a cliff to the northeast of Salt Lake City. We impatiently traverse the rest of Utah and finally pass into

Idaho – where the landscape changes again. Much more intensively groomed, much greener, beautiful in a bucolic, pastoral way. Up we go and down then back up. When we whisk through the last gap we see one lone plume of smoke rising and drifting across a 10th of the sky. We soon leave it behind and in mounting excitement we pass into an area of black basaltic magma and the tenacious greenery invading it. The rock is dark black and resembles vasts piles of asphalt and sometimes obsidian. We pass an indian reservation, the shining green blue Snake River twisting through the black outcroppings. In Pocatello we suffer our first traffic related damage – a school bus throws a rock against our windshield, creating a raggedy star slightly to the right of Dustin's head. Thanking all the powers of good that this is the worst thing to happen we practically joyride to our house.

The neighborhood reminds me of nothing so much as the neighborhood I grew up in in Detroit. Lots of large trees – lots of well kept houses with yards, an elementary school made of the same brick, stone and concrete as my elementary school – and the exact same architecture. One of the friends I made online meets us and we unpack ¾ of the truck. We meet the across the street neighbors and come out for the first time to our neighbors. They take the news without a word or an expression. Dustin's father has gotten here before us and he let in the internet technicians. Life in this throw-back to 1966 will be impossible without internet. They get it working and we all relax. A lovely bottle of yellow wine welcomes us to our new house.

The next morning we meet the next door neighbors. They are interested in whether we have kids so we come out for the second time. Aside from the disappointment of the two small boys at not having new little playmates they seem quite unfazed. They loan us their lawnmower to take care of our incredibly lush lawn. We can only mow the front since the irrigation system has been on continuously since before we arrived. I turn it off. We discover that there is only one trash can – NO RECYCLING!!!!!!

A second friend I made online arrives today - he works at the same hospital as Dustin and with his help we unload the rest of the stuff from the truck.

We discover that there are no Seven Elevens in Idaho Falls!

Thus ends my first Notes From the North – stay tuned for the next installment!