My Feet Have A Fever

A few years back, Maile The Great and I set off on an ill-fated outing fueled by desperation to feel dirt beneath our feet and piney air in our lungs. But that Memorial Day weekend had been too early in Washington for a backpacking trip. It was just one of many attempts I've made to satiate my spring trail fever that wouldn't go at all to plan. I am really good at this. 

What a view. 

So far, total disaster has been avoided and usually, I wind up coming home early after having had my hand slapped by Nature. 

It’s that time of year again and my feet have trail fever. 

I should know better. 

But I’m in Idaho now, where the climate is drier and seemingly more stable from the lack of rainstorms. It seemed possible to satisfy my early spring need to sleep on dirt. My friend, Jess, also wanted to get out backpacking, too and her enthusiasm fueled my motivation. I should've warned her.

After few phone calls to BLM managers and conversations with local gear shop employees, I hatched a plan for an easy season overnight in the Owyhees. It really seemed flawless. 

Of course, the desert presents its own challenges. There may have been two of us eyeballing the way and we might have even had directions broken out to the tenth of a mile, but everything in the desert looks the same. 

We tried the original directions. We back tracked, reset the odometer and started over again. We looked for missed possibilities and thought about just creating our own way across the barren land. The ninety-minute drive turned into four hours. We never found our destination. Navigating the unmarked roads proved impossible.

Being optimists (or rather, me being slightly neurotic and at the wheel and poor Jess stuck along for the ride), we (I) scrapped Plan 1, and went for Plan 2: the parking area pull-off recommended by a BLM manager (why I didn't start here originally, I dont know). I'd been told this parking area offered access to a hikeable terrain but that there were no actual trails. 

"Just go overland until you decide to turn around," the BLM dude had told me. 

"Great!," I had thought, and, "foolproof!" (I’m serious. I actually thought, Foolproof!)

The parking area was easy to find and, from it, led an old dirt road. Packs on, we set off, the dogs ecstatic to be freed from the dusty, bumpy bouncing of the truck. 

Ten minutes later, the road faded into a sage bush. Ten more minutes and it reappeared fifteen feet to our left, near an old fence line. This pattern went on and on - disappearing road, reappearing road, disappearing again - for an hour or so as we circumnavigated a low hill. I figured if we walked for a while, we'd eventually find a tree or rocky area for a somewhat sheltered spot to camp. 

We never found the water source the BLM manager had mentioned in the barren, sort-of-but-not-really picturesque, hills. All we had came across were old snow patches for the dogs who enthusiastically ate it, dug in it, jumped around in and barked over it. 

As we continued, we turned around the hill about 270degrees from our starting point which is when we were hit in the face hard by whipping, mean, cold wind. 

And like a cruel prank, off in the not-too-far distance - no, it wasnt an amazing view of awe-inspiring mountains - it was the road we drove in on.  If an undulation of a hill in the foreground had been a little lower, we would’ve been able to see the sun gleamingly off the top of the truck. It didnt exactly feel like we were out in The Nature. 

Now, I have camped out in some pretty uninspiring places; boggy soggy soil in a downpour, unprotected hard-packed desert in an electrical storm, the back of my truck at countless rest stops… but I have a really hard time justifying setting up my “backcountry” camp when I can see my vehicle. That the conditions also sucked inspired me even less. 

Back at the truck, we reevaluated our hopes and dreams for the weekend. We settled on picking up a bottle of wine and Doritos at a convenience store in Mountain Home, and heading out to Anderson Reservoir for road-side camping. 

Even the dogs were cold. 

The next morning was so cold we abandoned plans for breakfast. We took enough time to boil water for coffee while packing up before hitting the road back to the city. 

The difference between this trip and that poorly executed Memorial Day one (and all those others) is that I did not stay attached to the specifics (my feet also did not, excruciatingly, lose circulation from my dog sleeping on them.). I let go. And I - me, Teresa - actually went with the flow. Mostly. (maybe i'm learning to just throw my hands up and smile at my own misguided self.) 

In the end, my intentions were again overly enthusiastic, out-of-season, slightly dingbat. In the end, AGAIN it was all misplanned. But even so, in the end, we got to hike with heavy packs. I slept outside. The dogs got to frolic. I had time to lean back and take in the night sky packed so full with stars that in spots they blended into a glowing blur. I had dirt packed under my nails (a sure sign of a good weekend), we laughed a lot, and there was plenty of time in the truck for me to sing along to Trampled By Turtles and old Janet Jackson (which I had not anticipated). In the end, it was kind of great.

And, as Jessica said, "adventure with Teresa means packing for a 3-day, 2-night backpacking trip and going for a half day instead." I think I take that as a compliment.  ? 

Privacy Died and I Missed The Memo

Over the years while telling stories about growing up on a farm, my dad has mentioned once or twice that the phone his family had when he was a kid was a party line. Party lines weren’t private but shared between multiple families. Besides the person you purposefully called, dad explained that on the party line, anyone else who shared that line might be listening on the other end of the phone.  You had to be somewhat discrete, otherwise whatever you said could become common knowledge to everyone in town by the next day.

As a pre-teen, I become an excellent snooper on the phone when my older sister started dating. What did she talk about for hours with that boy anyways? I got really good at picking up and setting down the receiver with hardly a trace of a click (or at least I thought so – she might disagree). If she talked about anything that seemed particularly juicy to my 12-year-old ears, I might share it with my 3 or 4 girlfriends so that we could decipher its meaning and figure out what boys were all about.

I dont know this nice looking
gentleman, but I found his photo
online and I DO like ice cream

In both my dad’s youth in the ‘50s and mine in the ‘80s/‘90s you could share things with your closely held and, while friends, family, school mates or coworkers might gossip, for the most part your news would be contained within your immediate community. Unless someone did a lot of legwork, your story was yours to share.

Nowadays, with the creation of the Internet and the convenience of group information sharing including Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Linkedin, etc. our personal stories are being shared faster and the not just our chosen communities, but with the whole wide, wide world with a click and a second or two of waiting (no big news, I realize. I guess I’m just a late bloomer).

When I signed up for my Facebook account, it was with the intention of staying connected with close friends who lived far away. Sharing photos and brief news was a way to witness their lives without having to be there, without losing touch.

This blog was created for a trip to Nicaragua to allow me to share my travels with family and friends back home so that they wouldn't worry and also in part because as a solo traveler I wanted to have people I loved “along” for the trip.

Over the years, like so many others’ who are light years better at this than I am, my job has become intricately intertwined with the web; blogs to manage, Facebook, Twitter, and Vimeo accounts to update, being a public voice for brands with clients and employees spanning the globe. That I loved my jobs, that some of my best friends were coworkers or associates, and my personal passions aligned with the brands’ focuses blurred the line between personal and business. Broadcasting news and info through business accounts was highly personal and would often bleed over into my non-work accounts; and vice versa.

I recently was prompted to see what might come up about me and was astonished by how much I found when I hit Return. Maybe I shouldn't have been. Maybe my surprise just shows a blatant and embarrassing lack of awareness on my part. Through the evolution of my usage, personal information, experiences and relationships that I thought were fairly private seem to have been served up on a platter for anyone who wants to see.

While its part of my job, from a personal side I also enjoy parts of this community sharing immensely. There are people I care about but who are as busy as I am and I appreciate the ability to stay somewhat connected.

I dont know this dude either
but he looks to be in a cool
place and coffee is nice. 

So what does it all matter then, right? The conflict comes from the fact that I also enjoy my privacy. And it is my own damn fault for not honoring this myself, for letting too many bits and pieces loose.

Maybe I should simply realize that there is no such thing as privacy anymore and, as evidenced by my sharing, maybe even I don't really want it.

The internet has pulled wide open the curtains of our lives, of our souls and hearts, for the world to see. And we let it happen – I let it happen (though apparently I wasn't paying attention). We obliterated the private life, allowing the internet to be our own personal paparazzi sharing any nugget that might be juicy – as well as all those boring as hell nuggets that no one gives two shits about (want another photo of another brussel sprouts dinner I’ve made?)– to anyone who will take notice, or who wants to take notice.

Is this just the new reality to get used to and I am behind the curve?

Should I just get over the urge for privacy (when my social sharing is anything but)?

Should I quit sharing though it may mean, or at least feel like, losing touch with people I’d like to stay connected to?

And as viewers, is there a certain level of information gathering that is respectful versus invasive? If you walk by your neighbor's house at night and the blinds are open, does the glow of lights cause you to quickly glance inside or to stop on the sidewalk and study their interior decorating in depth?

Long gone are the days of making a call and asking to speak to one of several people who share the same number, and of making a call and wondering who might be listening in (unless you’re a conspiracy theorist and then multiple governments and manipulative corporations are listening into your calls). We don't share phones very often these days. Instead, the internet is the new party line, and anyone can listen in at anytime, and gather more than you ever imagined you might’ve said publically. Privacy is dead. But what I don't know is, does it matter?