The last two days have been lovely, hanging out with Tami and Skip, being in a comfortable house, with fridge, pantry and all the comforts of home. A nice bedroom and bath room to call my own and people and dogs for company. A great break from the string of lodgings on the way here, and a good place to rest, recuperate and gather strength for the next 500 miles through the heart of the northern Rockies.
Yesterday we went up to Ketchum, which has been completely transformed from the town of my memories (in my early 20s). Gone are the dropout, alternative young people----they've all aged like me, and look suspiciously like me as well! There doesn't seem to be the 'young vibe' that Ketchum had in the 70s and 80s (much like Steamboat, Park City, and Aspen when Hunter Thompson was mayor) but it's also not as over the top as Aspen or Park City. This weekend was the mountain biking championships so there were lots of fit mountain bikers in town, spanning all the age groups.
In 1978, when I hitchhiked here to see my grandparents (Sun Valley was the family summer home, the desert being too hot) there were lots of hippy vans, people camping out in the woods, and funky shops in Ketchum. It was a perfect spot for the long haired, hitchhiking, living in his tent grandson, and I really enjoyed the couple days I spent here on my way to a commune near Coos Bay Oregon. On the morning of my departure, my grandfather wanted to drop me off at a good spot to hitchhike (with some trepidation I might add), so we headed down the hill from Sun Valley into Ketchum. He dropped me right at the dip in the road as it crosses the Big Wood River (the bridge is still there, but due for widening shortly) and within ten minutes I was on my way in a hippy van!
Looking around town, it's clear that Ketchum has really become just an extension of Sun Valley---an extremely affluent bedroom community, where you can commune with nature, but have all of the luxuries that you have become accustomed to living on Lake Washington, or one of Portland's leafy suburbs. This is not Tahoe, where you see lots of backpackers, climbers and other folks living on little money: the younger adventurers here are all well scrubbed in their expensive outdoor clothing. I saw not a single dirtbag in my time here.....alas. Perhaps they will be seen in higher numbers in Montana.
Last night, I caught up with an old friend from high school, who left her career as a research physicist in the mid 90s, and moved to Hailey. Hailey is about 12 miles down the valley from Ketchum, and is a bedroom community for many of the people who work in the better jobs up the valley. It's gotten cute like Ketchum, with a nice little downtown, but has a much more local vibe. Marcia is now a math and physics teacher at the local high school (which is 30% Latino, predominantly the children of the service workers here), and is busy raising an almost 14 year old daughter. It was fun to catch up, we hadn't seen each other in 30 years, since she was a grad student at Stanford, and I at Berkeley. It's always great to find out that your cool friends are still cool, and that the desire to do good in the world still burns strong. Marcia was one of the few feminists at our high school, in the very conservative community of Bloomfield Hills, MI back in the mid 70s, and she became a teacher because of her strong commitment to equality and justice. We reminisced and laughed, and generally had a good time, and I was sorry to have the evening end.
Today was a chill day. Tami and Skip made pancakes and bacon for breakfast, and we had lots of yummy summer fruit. It was a great day to hang out, and I watched Wimbledon, read the Sunday New York Times, and took a nap. Later I walked into town, and got the fixings for dinner, and I got to cook for the first time in a month! How nice to have a fully equipped kitchen, and I made a yummy mushroom pesto, and steamed vegetables with lemon. Perfect carbo loading for tomorrow's big climb.
Tomorrow it's into the mountains, not much connectivity, so if you don't hear from me for a day or two, it's because I'm camping or someplace remote.
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