50. Salmon River Mountains

I don't number all my blog posts, but the ones I do number are part of my list of things I am thankful for in America. Time magazine inspired me in 2016 with their list of 240 things to be grateful for in America on our 240ths anniversary. Why not pay it forward and think positive about our country? Negative things always happen, but there is no need to focus on them.

            In Idaho there is a particular outcropping of mountains that extends from the spine of the Rockies to the point where the Snake River decidedly turns north and forms Hell’s Canyon.  Geologists know this band as the Idaho Batholith. In Idaho the area has often been called the roadless area and in more recent years the wilderness area.  Those of us who live in it or near its edges know it more particularly to its mountain ranges—all of it being part of the Bitterroot chain of the Rocky Mountains, the part of that chain that forms the Montana/Idaho divide. The parts of those mountains north of the Salmon River are known as the Clearwater Mountains and those to the south are the Salmon River Mountains.

            I have a particular fondness for those Salmon River Mountains. If you’re watching a Boise weather forecast they’ll call them the Central Mountains and then get specific with either the West Central Mountains or East Central Mountains. Of course I grew up in the West Central Mountains, but I have always had a fascination with the entire range.

            Of course I’ve hiked all over the western edge of the Salmon River Mountains, but I’ve also spent a share of time in the eastern parts. Old abandoned mining towns sprinkle those mountains—places like Florence and Deadwood.  As I said before, most of it is now designated wilderness but parts of it are still penetrable by road.  While these mountains are drier than the Clearwater Mountains they are still forested with pine, Douglas fir, Tamarack, Grand fir and Aspen and an Engelmann spruce in the creek beds.  Sometimes you’ll happen upon old abandoned homesteads marked by apple trees, raspberries gone wild and perhaps a tombstone that seems as out of place as you do while you read it. These mountains are sometimes so vivid in my imagination that I am in them when I’m walking down the streets of Spokane or Boise.  They never leave me, or I never leave them… I don’t know which it is.  I am so grateful for this particular place in the American landscape.                                                                                       

49. The Rocky Mountains

I’ve lived most of my life tucked into the western slope of the Rocky Mountains. To me there is no greater comfort than that very mountain range. I have always had this strange, sometimes irrational, fear of exposure on the open plains. I can see myself being the victim of large birds swooping down and carrying me away. But the mountains offer protection and shelter from all of those fears. Of course the mountains create their own fears, but all of those I have not often considered.

            I’ve written frequently of my love for the rivers of this country, especially my own Salmon River. The Rocky Mountains are the source of so many of these rivers. Their peaks rise up on the western side of the North American continent and spread from the northern to southern tip. They gather the mists of the Pacific Ocean in frozen crystals at their great height and preserve them in glaciers and snow banks that gradually melt into those life giving streams that flow in raging torrents and gentle streams back to that very ocean from whence they first came or east to the Gulf of Mexico where they warm and swell into the mighty and devastating hurricanes we have all come to fear.

            This majestic mountain range encapsulates the beauty of our planetary home. We sing of them and dream of them in our songs. Without them there would never have been a Huckleberry Finn or Tom Sawyer or even me singing my own river songs. Those of us Americans of the west (and Canadians and Mexicans as well) owe so much of our existence to this great range of mountains that it would be foolish not to be thankful for them with all their peaks and valleys and their spine of our continent, their rivers and barren deserts. All of it gives me a great sense of wonder and majesty that can only be summed up in a Rocky Mountain high.

48. The Open Road

I didn’t realize the beauty of the open road in America until I lived in the UK for awhile. It’s especially true when you live out west and you see signs that say “Next Gas 65 Miles.” Of course that means you have to be prepared, but generally we are. In the UK you can drive for some distance and only come away with vertigo because you have seen nothing but hedges and walls. And I can’t deny that that tunnel of green is pleasantly overlooked in the moors so that one hardly recognizes the existence of roads on the verdant landscape.

            But here in the states there are places you can drive endlessly over mountains and look over vistas to see the vastness sprawling before you and only an asphalt ribbon and maybe another car here or there to even let you know there have been people here. I have driven all across this country of ours and have been amazed that there is so much to see and explore driving down the open road. Who could imagine that a yellow diamond sign cautioning for curves ahead could present a beauty of freedom because it is riddled with bullet holes? I certainly never thought I could until I came home after a year in the UK and drove across the vast Columbia Plain of Central Washington. In all of my jet lagged exhaustion I saw that sign, those holes, that lone curve on a solitary road and I knew I was home. Of course I could chide the idiot who shot up the sign that someone’s hard earned tax dollars (MINE!) had paid for, but at that moment I probably would have been more likely to hug the guy and tell him how happy I was to be home. At that moment I was made fully aware of the vastness of my home and the open road I love to drive down at almost any opportunity.

47. American Microbreweries

I never really liked beer as a kid or young man. American beers at that time were still just a conglomeration of macro-breweries and the choices were between Budweiser, Rainier, Olympia, Pabst Blue Ribbon and a few other watery lager’s none of which were very flavorful. So when I went to the UK for the first time and had a pint of bitter (an ale), I was pleasantly surprised to find that I liked it. And then when I came home I found that here in the Northwest there was a new trend starting called micro-breweries. These were little local breweries that were making their own beers and serving food very much in the style of a British pub. More often than not, one of their beers was an ale, and now they almost all have an India Pale Ale which is a nice hoppy beer that has a great bitter taste. It works well for this part of the country because we are known for our barley, wheat and hops. Now, around here, even little towns will have their own microbrewery and pub. The trend has gone nationwide so that even when you end up in places like Washington, DC you can find a little microbrewery and pub where you can place an order for fish and chips and have a nice flavorful beer. And, of course, if you are mor3e prone to the old fashioned American palette of lagers and pilsners (tapping into our strong German heritage) you will always find an array of wheat beers as well.

            Our history of prohibition all but obliterated little breweries and the larger ones made ends meet by marketing non-alcoholic drinks like root beer. But fifty years later, here in the Northwest and gradually across the country “micro” breweries have taken hold. It’s akin to the British CAMRA—Campaign for Real Ale—and I’m fully on board and grateful for the growth of the American microbrewery. So for all of you, who, as Tom T. Hall sang, “I like beer, it makes me a jolly good fellow…” Cheers!                                                                                                               

46. Alaskan King Crab

I get rolling on these themes of great things in America and now I’ve stumbled upon seafood. That just seems crazy that an inland guy from that last state in the 50 to have been discovered by outlanders would be attracted to the ocean (so many native Idahoans have never seen the ocean) but I am. So now I best give praise to the more typical destination of someone from Idaho: the seafood off the coast of Alaska. Sure, I like Dungeoness crab, but it’s so much work for so little meat. You know how they say everything is bigger in Texas? Well those people haven’t been to Alaska. You want to crack a crab shell and get some meat? Try Alaskan king crab. One broken shell there and you will have found yourself an entire meal. Melt the butter, please. Oh, I know it’s expensive, but you have to understand the risk that goes into catching those crab. Of course I don’t eat it all that often. I live off the salary of a teacher, and a teacher from Idaho at that. But on a terribly special occasion it would seem very self-indulgent to have one Alaskan king crab leg, a baked Idaho Russet, a nice Northwest Riesling and top it all off with a bit of huckleberry cobbler and a cup of coffee. There are worse things for a crabby old man to be thankful for than Alaskan king crab.

45. Maine Lobster

Sometimes of a winter morning when the grind of work and the weather is blah, when my wife has berated me for forgetting to do something trivial, when I would rather be back in bed, I dream of a summer afternoon in a seaside town in Maine eating a lobster roll. That’s right, this Idaho boy sometimes just dreams of being on the other side of the country in another season chowing down on an Atlantic lobster. I love the flavor of those shell fish hiding in the rocky bays of the Atlantic seaboard. Just knowing they are there gives me a good feeling on a winter morning. Even if it’s too early here to be dipping lobster in melted butter, I know that if I were in Maine right now at around 7:30 am here it would be lunchtime there and I could be eating some of that wonderful Atlantic lobster. Isn’t it good to live in a country where even the existence of a special fish on the opposite shore can make an otherwise blasé morning worth getting up for? I’m so grateful for Atlantic lobster.

44. The poetry of ee cummings

While I’m singing praises for poets, American poets, I must not forget ee cummings. I don’t know anything about him as a person, but I am a fan of his poetry. I love how he plays with the very fiber of the written word, its punctuation, capitalization and order. Sometimes you really have to look at the poems to make sense of them but most of the time you’ll be surprised at how quickly you can make sense of the seeming nonsense. “the little lame balloon man whistles far and wee” “in Just spring” “when the world is puddle wonderful” There are so many lines that have gradually crept into my consciousness just because of their unique twist on my view of the world with a phrase dangled in a new pattern or said in the way a Jedi Master Yoda would say them. “Anyhow lived in a pretty how town.” It’s that kind of gift that he gave to his fellow Americans—a slightly altered world view that wakes us from a slumber. I’m very grateful for the poetry of ee cummings.