Idaho Part 2 - The Mountains

Though backpacking is a recreational activity, it does involve a lot of work and preparation to do it well. We’ve been doing this almost every year for the last decade or so which makes it easier, but there are things that add a twist to the preparations. One is that the girls grow each year and we need to modify their gear accordingly. The other thing that has complicated the process from one year to the next has been tracking down our stuff. Given that we have a rental car each year that often doesn’t have sufficient space for all our backpacks and so forth, other members of my family have generously offered to help haul things. That can mean our stuff can end up in multiple locations. When we would prepare for the backpack trip, we would often not know what we had and what we didn’t. Now, with this storage in New Meadows, we hopefully have resolved this issue. 

okay, so it's not the most interesting photo, but it's satisfying

 

* * *

Deep Lake

This was our third trip to this particular lake. For a while I was trying to choose a different lake each year. It can make it complicated when you don’t know how difficult the access road is, what the potential campsites might be like, how busy it might be, etc. Given our competing priorities this year, we opted on the path of least resistance and go to a known destination.

I prepared the packs the day before so that we could get an early start. The easy access road makes it a no-brainer for a rental car. I look forward to the day when I will have a vehicle of my own in this part of the world but it doesn’t make sense at this point. For now, we make do with a modest rental vehicle.

ready to go

The trail is a relatively steep mile or so up to a ridge offering some nice views as you climb. As the trail crests, it levels out the blue of the lake eventually begins to appear through the trees. Because the girls know the trail well by now, they were off like jack rabbits, even with their heavier packs this year.

no brainer

Though we always open the invitation for other members of the family to join us, it’s often not realistic. It’s fun either way but this year it would be just the four of us.

While there are similarities from one year to the next, there are differences. Frequently there are forest fires in the region and that was the case this year. The amount of smoke in the air fluctuated throughout the two days but it never cleared completely.

the campsite

The weather is another variable. Last year we had a storm that came upon us the morning we were breaking camp. It ended up being less of a storm than we feared but you just never know. Moreover, you don’t have cell reception in order to get up-to-date weather information (as was the case back in the old days). On this trip, we ended up having quite a bit of rain, including heavy rain the first night. Thankfully, we had just bought a large trap and the prior evening, anticipating possible rain during the night, made it into a canopy using about a hundred miles of bungy cords and straps. Ended up working like a charm.

colder than it looks

Over the course of the two days, we spent our time relaxing, reading, swimming in the lake, etc. No matter what, camping involves hours of various projects (collecting wood, cooking, filtering water, etc.). It’s the sort of thing that I enjoy. I probably spent more time on that sort of thing than I do relaxing. It’s how I’m wired.

the campfire - no screens

Deep Lake in the evening sun

The smoke obscured the normally stunning night sky. We did have a nearly full moon, which was wonderful, but a crystal-clear sky with bright stars all the way to the horizon is something that most people rarely, if ever, see.

the buck stops here

Overall, it was a fantastic couple of days. I would be happy to stay much longer, but we had things to do. The morning we broke camp, two deer appeared through the trees. It seemed to be a couple stepping out for a Thursday morning breakfast by the lake. Deer are commonplace in some places but seeing them in the wild like this is special. We stopped and watched them probably longer than we should have since we needed to meet family at our storage in New Meadows at noon. Eventually we were packed up, said our farewells to our beloved lake, and began making our way down the mountain. Hard to say if we will return next year or try someplace new. We have a year to sort that out.

success!

* * *

Community Garden

My brother volunteers at a community garden. These exist in various forms across the US and in other countries, though I’ve never had any experience with one. When he pitched the idea for us to come and volunteer for a morning, I honestly wasn’t sure how helpful we would be. I’m very familiar with farming and gardening, I haven’t really had a garden as an adult given that I have mostly lived in apartments. We had briefly had a garden in Bujumbura but it didn’t do well. Everything seemed to be eaten by bugs.

This would be a new experience for the girls. It’s one of those blind spots that we need to rectify. They’ve had a rich childhood in many ways, but working the land hasn’t been a part of it. We frequently discuss getting a place that has a yard but that would inevitably take us farther from their school. The horrendous Nairobi traffic has kept us where we are, at least for now.

It was a beautiful summer morning and we all jumped right in and started helping pick and wash vegetables. The objective is to have enough to display on picnic tables for people to buy. It provides the community with inexpensive and healthy food. Proceeds go to maintaining the garden, equipment, etc.

In the end, the girls had a fantastic time. They’ve already been talking about volunteering next year.

Other Activities

hanging out at Payette Lake with the cousins

the crew

five on a paddle board

a dip in the hot springs

Idaho Part 1 - Magic Valley

As the month of August began, we made our way to Idaho. We had a full slate of activities and tasks ahead of us. The first event would be a family reunion.

Reunion

The impetus of the reunion was the 100th anniversary of my maternal grandparents’ wedding. From what I know, such a date is normally not a thing. People don’t commonly commemorate such a wedding anniversaries of people that are no longer living. For my family, it’s necessary to understand a bit about the near mythical legacy left behind by my grandparents. Though they were far from perfect, they did, for some reason, have a near unanimously positive impression on their descendants. Those that had the good fortune of knowing them would likely highlight a variety of attributes and/or experiences that, when put altogether, provides a collective memory that looms large even a quarter of century after their passing.

The event was simple. There were a few photos on display. A slide show had been prepared consisting of old photos (as well as a few of the descendants). The two surviving children, my mom and uncle, told a few stories. I’m not sure how many were there but it was a pretty good turnout. I hadn’t seen these people in decades, others I had never met. Not a bad idea for families to do this on occasion, though I don’t see this happening again anytime soon.

mom & the kids

* * *

Cleaning

While we were in the Magic Valley, we stayed with my parents. The first task at hand was to take on the challenge of the garage. In addition to the need to clean and organize, there was the issue of my personal belongings taking up space in the middle. When I left the US in 1988, I had no intention of it being a 30-year career abroad. When I returned to the US for grad school and returned again in the early 2000s to work in California, each departure resulted in a few more things being left behind. And when you add to that the possessions we use while we are on vacation (summer/winter), it adds up to a lot of boxes and bags that need to be stored.

before

My sister graciously made her trailer available and I was able to load it up for transport to the storage that we built last summer on our property in New Meadows. Once that was done, it was time to clean and organize.

after

My job doesn’t offer me the same type of satisfaction you get from cleaning a garage or doing yardwork. Generally humanitarian contexts are messy when you arrive and (hopefully) less messy when you leave but will never be “clean”. And the process of making it less messy is messy. It took me years to be okay with that.

* * *

beautiful Shoshone Falls

The remainder of the time in the Magic Valley was spent balancing work and play. I don’t always get the balance right but, generally speaking, it was a fruitful visit. 

girls handling power tools...

rodeo time

* * *

We then headed north to spend a week in the mountains. This would involve a continued balancing act between work and play. We would begin with play – our annual backpack trip.

 

North Carolina

Our plan to go to Chapel Hill was hatched as a result of several motivations. It had been on our list for quite some time simply because Priya had gone to grad school at UNC and one of her close friends still lives there. But a couple of additional motivations had arisen. One was that she had mentioned years ago that, at some point in her life, she would like to celebrate her birthday among some of her closest friends, most of whom are scattered about the world. Her August birthday happens to fall at a time when we are normally traveling and the day doesn’t often get the attention it deserves. Now, with the milestone fiftieth on the horizon, I wanted it to be something special. Initially, I thought about some sort of destination birthday. But the cost and logistics soon appeared to be prohibitive. After a number of ideas were vetted and rejected, it began to appear that a good and more practical option would be to celebrate the event by taking the “party” closer to where they are. There are two main locations: North Carolina and Washington DC. So we decided that, as a family, we would make the trek to Chapel Hill from southern Indiana, about a ten-hour drive. Then, at the tail end of our holiday, she would travel to DC a few days ahead of the rest of us to hang out with the friends there, we would then meet up in Amsterdam and travel back to Nairobi together. In the end, it all worked out.

* * *

We left fairly early in the morning from Scottsburg. I entered Chapel Hill into Google Maps and off we went. I miss some things about pulling out the maps and plotting routes, but Google’s ability not only to plot the fastest route but avoid road construction and other delays makes a huge difference.

We worked our way down through Louisville, across Kentucky, some of West Virginia, Virginia and into North Carolina. It’s a reasonably varied and interesting drive over the Appalachian Mountains. But it’s long and I think everyone was more than ready to get out of the car when we arrived at our friends’ house.

I had met them when we were married but I didn’t know them well. And that was about seventeen years ago. But after getting settled in and hanging out a bit, it made me wish we had done this a long time ago. Such a cool family.

* * *

There were other motivations for the visit that I alluded to earlier. One was to make a trek to the Duke University library to see the journals of Priya’s Japanese grandfather. It’s a long story as to how they ended up there. But the main thing is that the family (or at last I) was interested in knowing what was in them. Her grandfather was a Christian immigrant to the US in the early 1900s. He had a very interesting life and it was apparently intriguing enough for the library to want them as a part of their valuable documents and manuscripts collection. In addition to being a missionary, he and his family (including Priya’s dad) were interred during WWII in a camp in Arizona. Afterwards, her dad was able to make his way through medical school and became a medical missionary in India for thirty years.

Access to this collection required an advanced reservation. Once inside, we were allocated a room in which we could view the documents. We would spend a couple of hours photographing pages and dong our best to capture the essential of what was in them.

Her grandfather was a very meticulous man. He had kept a daily journal of the exact same brand and size from 1938 to 1979. Prior to his internment, he was apparently arrested by the FBI and questioned to find out if he was some sort of security risk related to his Japanese heritage. Two journals were missing from the collection: 1941 and 1942. My theory is that it was because they were confiscated by the FBI, but we don’t know that for sure. He nonetheless carried on maintaining the journals during interment and in the years after. 

 The main challenge in determining what content was valuable was the fact that they are almost entirely in Japanese. A modest attempt at using a character recognition app resulted in gibberish so there will need to be more work in sorting out what is in them. There are some words here and there that are in English including, for example, professional baseball scores. He had apparently become a sports fan (Cleveland Indians) over the years and for some reason chose to enter this “valuable” information in his journal.

I also found out that he has more documents archived at Case Western University. It will be interesting to begin to pull all this stuff together and generate some sort of narrative. Anyway, more to come on this.

* * *

There was also an essential visit to Priya’s alma mater. UNC is an interesting place. It’s a public university that is challenging to get into, particularly if you’re not from the state. It plays the non-elite card compared to its rival Duke, but it seems to me that it’s rather elite by state school standards.

We walked around the campus. It was a warm day, but not as humid as I expected. It has many things to see but our group spent most of its time in the bookstore (looking at swag) and the basketball museum.

The latter is probably not for everyone but it was a hit with us. UNC has churned out great basketball teams and notable players – many of whom ended up in the NBA. If you’re not a basketball fan, a size 18 basketball shoe in a glass case may not be your thing.

* * *

We have several friends in the area, including people we knew from Nairobi, so we spent time reconnecting. We even randomly ran into someone in a shopping mall that we knew from the French school. Crazy.

* * *

While in Chapel Hill, we found out that there would be a football (soccer) match between two professional clubs that were in the US: Celtic FC (Scotland) and Manchester United. Though we would be unable to see the match due to our need to return to Indiana, they also offered the opportunity for fans to attend a public practice the day before. My daughter Kinaya, being the football fan that she is, was anxious to go. It was a rare opportunity for us to see all these famous players, including one of her favorites, the powerful and entertaining striker, Erling Haaland. Considering it as part of her birthday, I bought tickets (yes, you need to pay way too much to attend their practice).

Overall, it was a wonderful stay. I wish we were closer so that we could spend more time together. Such a cool family.