My interest in Idaho got off the ground in late june 2002 after I had met a family of five at a summer solstice party hosted by a long time friend whose older brother has lived in Washington state for at least 25 years.
Ken and Teri has a farm near the sawtooth mountains. Ken raises goats and every fall he hosts a bbq that attracts a lot of friends and folks from the area. They have three daughters. Camey is youngest and she will turn 17 or 18 in 2007.
I used to daydream about going to Canada, buying a bicycle and ride from Saskatchewan into Idaho taking care of refundables along the way and stop off at the farm were Ken and Teri lives and say hello.
Ken's number one interest is The Doors. Teri works part time at a school. She make fudge. Teri is also somewhat of an expert in American cousine. Salads, for instance.
Some day I will write a letter and send it to them. May be they don't remember me so to make that one easier I will enclose a photograph of me.
I was accepted to Boise State University, but changed my mind about going.
But I know about the blue football field there, and I wish them the best of luck in the Fiesta Bowl tonight.
Tim
I live in Idaho, up in the panhandle.
Hi & Thanx for your replies.
Whenever "Idaho" is mentioned I tend to get all ears/eyes, happily absorbing the details that are of my liking. Every bit of info is like a small piece of an infinite jigsaw puzzle. It's a long time since I sought out any specific information pertaining to this interest. But I daydream a lot about Idaho.
One of my favorite authors, Richard Brautigan, wrote his novel "Trout fishing in America" on vacation in Idaho, 1961. I think he might be on our spectrum.
Well, I think it's time for me to steer my swedish eyes on a map of Idaho...
http://idahohardtimes.blogspot.com/
The above addy is a blog story I am writing, true story, about the way things were when I first moved to Idaho. If you're interested in Idaho, you might enjoy reading it.
Hi chamoisee, and thanx for the link. I'm going to go there...
I steered my eyes to a map last night. I think the time difference between Sweden & Idaho is 8, maybe 9, hours. I felt a little embarrassed when I saw that Saskatchewan doesn't border to Idaho at all. I also learned that larch wood is the best fire wood.
Yes, here we call larch (technically it is western larch) tamarack. If you have any questions about Idaho I'll be happy to answer them. I love it here...I just wish it was a more affordable place to live.
Well, the only thing that I can think of now after reading parts of your blog is how the Weaver family are doing.
I will go back and read the entries in the right order when I have time to read them all.
I read somewhere that the mountains of Idaho once upon a time was connected to the mountains of Scandinavia. We're 9 hours ahead of PST.
What really would be interesting is pictures of the landscape itself, or highways, old houses and barns, semi forgotten places, ruins, illegal dumps, animals - wild or not. Scenic drives isn't so thrilling.
I hope - but feel quite uncertain - I didn't upset you by asking about about the R.R. people.
The R.R. people....please clarify? If you mean Randy Weaver, what happened was really sad. The government here sent spies in, pretending to act like local rednecks and asking to have a shotgun sawn off to a length that would be illegal here. Randy was short on money, so he did it. The economy is really bad here, (and was worse then) and while it was wrong for him to do it, frankly, most locals who own guns would probably consider doing so if the offer of money was rewarding enough. Anyway, then the issued a warrant for his arrest, and he felt like they were crooked and couldn't be trusted, so instead of going to court, he hid away up in his cabin on the mountaintop, with his family. Then the government sent in some secret agents of some kind, and the Weaver's dogs saw them and started barking. The son (Sammmy, he was 14) and a friend were walking around in the woods at the time. Well, the agents shot Sammy's dog and pet. What happened after this is controversial and debated. The agents say that Sammy shot at them. What we do know is that they shot Sammy in the back (Sammy died), while he was running away from them, and they also shot the friend (who managed to live, though badly wounded). The friend ran into the house, Vicki opened up the door to let him in. She was holding her 10 month old baby girl. Well, there was a sniper up in a tree, and he shot Vicki's head off right as she was holding that baby. Her blood and brains went all over the baby...it is a miracle they didn't kill the baby too.
Randy was also wounded, and they all hid in the cabin for quite a while, certain that the rtest of them were going to die, too. Helicopters with barrels of gasoline were flying over the cabin, there were tanks....it was obscene. The rest of the family lived and ultimately won a lawsuit against the government.
They were such nice people.
Anyway....yeah, I should post pictures. We have books about the area all over the place here. Do you know how much the postage would cost to mail them to you? Is it expensive?
R.R. was just short for Ruby Ridge. I knew the Weavers lived in Idaho, somewhere in the north, around Couer d'Alene. Something just clicked in my head when I saw the name. There's a lenghty post about it on Wikipedia. I've seen a movie called Ruby Ridge that actually was quite good despite that it wasn't a big Hollywood production, or maybe it was because of that. I don't know if it was filmed in Idaho.
I think it costs at least 10 dollars to send just an ordinary book because that's what I had to pay when I ordered an antiquarian book from an American seller. One way to go about it could be if you snapped some random pictures and just posted a roll of film, negatives or just the photo's. Or on Aspies For Freedom as I guess you have seen. I think many of the photo's that Graelwyn has posted is top notch, as well as several of those posted by mbaker (hope I got the name right).
Since I have a disability pension I have a steady income so I have no problems money-wise. Some kind of exchange would be fun. I asked the friend - whose brother lives in Washington state - to bring back a piece of America, but he didn't understand that I meant it to be a little dirt off the ground, pebbles or something tangible. If I can't go to America because of my utter fear of flying maybe America could come to me was what I was thinking about.
Glad that you overcame your allergy. Three thanks from me...
Idaho?
I have sisters who live in Idaho, one in Couer d'Alene, and one in Southern Idaho called Lewiston. There's quite a change in climate from North to South. Both are college towns.
I'll see what pictures of the scenery (my pictures always include interesting buildings, especially of old historic buildings or cemetary's or interesting formations) and post them.
I, too, had a severe fear of flying. The first time I flew, as soon as the plane took off, I passed out, and then came to screaming. My next flight was twenty four years later, and I challenged myself because I want to travel and to get to where I want, I have to fly. Also, two Xanax helped immensely. It not only got me through that flight, I was able to get on another plane without the Xanax using meditation techniques.
Just a thought.
Metta, Jaye.
The first and only time that I've been up in an airplane I wasn't scared at all. I was 10-12 or something like that. It was a small 4-seated plane and we flew over the area were I grew up. I got sick and threw up in a bag. My dad (who wasn't in the plane) thought this was very funny and teased me about it.
15 years ago I decided that I would travel and see friend that lived up north in Sweden and it struck me that I could fly there, but as I pictured myself going to the airport, walking out on the tarmac toward the plane, my legs just disappeared under me. But the train ride was lovely.
While Sweden is 450.000 sq kilometers, Idaho is 216.000. The population in Sweden is 9 million, and Idaho roughly 1.4 million. The size of Sweden is fairly similar to Idaho; long and narrow but a little wider in the south.
1830-1910, 1.250.000 swedes migrated to the United States. 20% of them returned. A lot of the swedes went to Minnessota, or its neighboring states.
Thanx!
ichtms--
Oh, the wobbly legs, oh wow. That would slow a person down...
I do have to add that I had two friends who helped me on that plane and held my hands that first plane trip...I don't know that I would get into a 4-seater plane though. Aren't parents funny in their responses to our situations?
That's interesting about Swedish immigrants.
Metta, Rjaye.
Well, Jaye.
I was really looking forward to that first plane ride and everything went fine with except my sickness which was due to that it was quite bumpy at times. And yes, parents are funny people.
If you're interested to read about migration there's a splendid epic about that written by swedish author Vilhelm Moberg. It was filmed in the early 70-ties by Jan Troell, starring Max von Sydow (the old priest in the exorcist movie) and Liv Ullman (once married to film maker Ingmar Bergman). I think it's so well known that it wouldn't be hard to find the books anywhere in the world.
Migration issues turn very interesting when you look at how it was a hundred or so years ago. Swedes left to escape poverty, starvation or religious persecution. It's much the same today, just add war.
The world wouldn't be what it is today if it wasn't for migration. All borders being much else than figments of imagination.
t-m-s.