Valisa

Photos from Seldovia (Part 1)

2008-09-06T18:29:00.000-07:00

SELDOVIA

So, here we are: Sean and I set up the van in my mom's driveway. We started cooking meals for all 5 of us (me, Sean, Mom, Bret (brother) and Erin) in her little tiny kitchen. We shared her space, her food and her view for over two months. We couldn't have asked for a more beautiful perch.

This is the view from her house

She also has a nice flat area in front of her house, great for potlucks.

My Dad's house is great too. The black gravel beach creates its own little climate. It radiates heat on a sunny day, and it wards off the fog when it comes up the bay.

Wild flowers grow on the cliffs just down the beach from him

And the woods surrounding his house are lush and filled with berries and mushrooms and beautiful plant life.

The porch of his shop is perfect for hanging out. You can watch the weather change, spy on all the boat traffic in the bay, and pet his dog Roxy, who is very sweet.

You can walk up the bay on various trails and beaches

And interesting things happen in his house too.

Town is beautiful. There are so many places that just take my breath away.

And the people are one of the town's best assets. All sorts of people co-exist and relate to each other on a daily basis. It is fun to watch people from totally different backgrounds spending time together and appreciating each others various talents. There are frequent potlucks at people's houses, and most of them include music (which Sean got involved with right away) and fresh seafood or garden veggies.

Town doesn't make much of a dent in the forest, or the shoreline. The plants and the tides make their way into the city limits and become a huge part of the city scape itself

Art:

I have taken a lot of time to do art this summer. I have only been working between 3 and 4 days a week. That and the long daylight hours give me a lot of time for creativity.

Being around my family helps too. I get to play with clay with my mom, and I get to marvel at my dad's various projects.

I was also welcomed back into a community of artists. I had the opportunity to learn about paper making with local artist Andy Dunham.

Beach hiking:

I have lots of favorite places here. I brought Sean to a lot of them, including lots of the beaches around Seldovia. The beach between Barabara Point and Seldovia Point is pretty close to my mom's house, and just requires a short scramble down the bluff. The beach has lots of interesting secrets, like petrified wood and fossils.

It is also a great place to watch birds. We saw Eagles and swans among other things.

This year was a good snail year. Everywhere we went they lay in thick carpets over tidal rocks.

The lichens and plants along the shore are also very colorful.

Bret and Erin introduced us to a new way of enjoying the coast. We discovered the joy of pack rafting.

You can carry more rocks home in a packraft than you can in a backpack!

Mountain Hiking:

The mountains are also very accessible from Seldovia. Some of it requires a bit of bush wacking, but it is well worth the effort

My brother is probably the most knowledgeable hikers in the area. It was like having a private guide at our disposal.

Going into the alpine is like going back in time. While summer is in full swing at sea leval, spring is just begining in the mountain meadows.

Erin's mom and aunt visited for a while, and rented kayaks for us.

We also had some unespected visitors. While in Homer for a concert, Sean ran into a girl we had met in Haines, and he convinced her and her friend to come see Seldovia. I also saw Katie Hopkins, who I met in Eugene, when she came to visit her uncle in town.

Homer was also pretty accessable for us because my friend Monica is now the captain of one of the tour boats out of Homer, so we could get rides with her whenever we wanted to go over to the big city for anything.

We made it in time for salmon, and spent a lot of time canning and freezing fish for the winter

People who visit Seldovia often ask, "So what do people DO around here." I want to say, "A lot more than you could possibly imagine."

More soon!!!

2008-09-06T17:19:00.000-07:00

Glimpses of Alaska

This was Sean's first view of Alaska. We took a short detour off of the Cassiar Highway to check out sister cities Stewart, BC and Hyder, Alaska. Notice the pavement ending upon crossing the boarder.

Skagway:

We took a detour from Whitehorse. He drove south out of Canada into Skagway: Famed gold port clinging to the shore under an almost impenetrable wall of mountains. Horses died in those mountains under man’s oppressive quest for wealth. Men died there, and women, from greed and desire and “gold fever”. This area wears its history like a badge of honor, but they forget that it’s a dirty, cruel and corrupt history. A history of dead ends, it tells us the limits of the human heart. It reminds us that people can sell their humanity in exchange for a little luck and maybe a fleck of gold.

We stopped at a garden/restaurant/glass blowing studio on the outskirts of town with the heart of the town still unseen. The sun was shining and the food was good, and the waiter invited us to a solstice party, and we thought that it was so hospitable and lovely and the garden was so lush, and this must be paradise.

We coasted into town unprepared for the circus. A new stampede has invaded Skagway, The cruise ship stampede, with money flowing in instead of out of this port. Alaska, with all its quirks and charms disappeared into a jungle of gem shops and storefronts full of mink coats. Tourists armed with digital cameras aimed them in every direction so I felt I should drop to the ground and cover my head. Cruise ships, like toppled skyscrapers floated along the shore. They were impossibly big. Impossibly white. If this bay was a bathtub, I thought, those huge toy boats would push the water up over the edge and flood the town.

Haines:

The next day we boarded the state ferry and headed out towards Haines. What a relief to sail away from that imitation of a town.

And into our first authentic piece of Alaska. Haines has a natural food store. Haines has old time music, and big trees, and people who strike up conversations with strangers. We meant to drive out that night, but after a short hike up onto a ridge and a second visit to the natural food store, we were starting to enjoy ourselves a little too much. Then we were invited to a free salmon cook out the next night. And then we were invited again. We asked where we could park our van to sleep, and we were directed down the road. We pulled off on a stretch of road beside the bay, with views of mountains and glaciers, and a gravel beach where I could sit and write while Sean played. The first car that passed stopped abruptly and turned around in the road, driving up to where Sean stood with his bass. He was on his way to a doctor’s house to play some music, and they didn’t have a bass player. We were encouraged to join them, and decided we might as well.. We were welcomed into a warm house with the perfect amount of mess and hospitality. As they were wrapping up for the night, the doctor pulled out the biggest concertina I had ever seen. He sang a song called “The last leviathan,” about the last of the big whales. It was so mournful and beautiful it sent shivers down my spine. As I was leaving, the fiddle player’s boyfriend scrolled his number on the back of a card and said we could use his house for showers, laundry, anything we needed. Could he tell we were on our last set of clean clothes, that we hadn’t showered for a week? We had almost made it out of the driveway when the doctor’s wife ran out… she had made rhubarb cobbler, and did we want any?

The next day we hiked some more, watched seals through a telescope, then watched a glacier calve as we talked to a park volunteer. We cleaned ourselves up, and kept ourselves busy until the salmon feed, which was

amazing… free salmon, garlic bread, beans, salad.

We met some nice people and drank some local beer, then said goodbye to Haines. Our destination? Million Dollar Falls, which we were told we could not miss.

And we almost missed it. As daylight was fading into the gray that passed for the long northern twilight, we came to a sign for the Million Dollar Falls camp ground, which was closed and gated. So we hiked in, not knowing why it was closed. We saw bear tracks in the road and joked that the campground might be closed because of a grizzly on a rampage. We later learned that this was close to the truth. A grizzly had killed a moose in the campground and they had closed it until he was done eating it.

Kluane National Park:

Back in Canada we stopped for a two day biking/backpacking trip in Kluane National Park, home to the worlds "Largest, Non-Polar icefield!," and the nations "Second Highest Concentration of Dahl Sheep in the World!"

We didn't see any Dahl Sheep, or any icefields, but there were a few wildlife spottings (as you
can tell from the photos) and the flowers and lichens were beautiful.

The biking was a little tough for my non-mountain bike, but I knew it was in for some tough times in Seldovia, so I figured it better get used to it.

The weather cooperated for the first day. As we were making camp that night we watched a whole herd of mountain goats clamber down the ridge to graze on the cliff tops across the river from us. We woke to low clouds and a clinging, misty rain.

The rain stayed with us into Alaska. Suddenly we were passing through towns that I knew, if not from basketball and band trips, then by name at least.

We set our sights on Palmer, where we would meet up with a childhood friend.

Palmer:
The Agricultural center of Alaska, Palmer welcomed us with a splash of sunlight. We met up with friends, and then hiked up the butte in the middle of town. From the top we were rewarded with views of lush fields stretched out to the base of snow capped mountains with silty glaciers spilling out of the valleys.

Anchorage:
And we made it to the city! We got there just in time for our ultimate tournament, which was tons of fun.

We gained a traveling companion for our trip down the Peninsula. My friend Noah was headed down to Homer as well.

My one hope for this leg of the journey was for good weather. My wish was granted, offering us clear views of mountains, ocean and volcanoes.

Homer:
The end of the road! We didn't have much time to spend in town, but we made the most of it, seeing friends and walking around on the Spit.

Saving...

And then we loaded up on the ferry, which took forever.

And we had a mini-reunion on board, with my long lost brother and his wife Erin, who had just finished their year plus journey from Seattle to Unimak Island (www.groundtruthtrekking.org).

Seldovia:
And I am home.
Where sunsets last forever, and I know where all the best berries are, and I have a job waiting for me, and people to visit and special places to see.

Erin's dad, step-mom, and brother were visiting, so we took them up to Red Mountain, just outside of town to look at cool rocks and pretty plants.

And Erin told us all that she was pregnant! But we weren't allowed to tell anyone until a few weeks ago.

We were also just in time for some big low tides, so we got to tool around in the tide pools.

More to come!

Crossing Canada

2008-06-18T15:53:00.001-07:00

O Canada!

Beautiful Canada.

Sunny Canada.

Lush Canada.

Green Canada.

Wet Canada.

Majestic Canada.

Lovely Canada.

Living in the Van:

Can be difficult, but also creates a different type of travel. Instead of suspending your life and living a temporary, stripped down life with only what fits in your backpack, you can continue living your normal life even though you are on the road. You still shop in grocery stores, cook your own meals, draw pictures, write letters and play your bass. This isn't the miniature tube of toothpaste life. It isn't the "leave it behind, it's too heavy," life. I pick up rocks. When we get stopped for an hour at an accident site I pull out a box of beads and make earrings. Sean plays the bass. We swat mosquitoes.

Still, I can't stand up out of bed. I have to crawl over Sean and push my way through the door before I can stretch out. We learn to use the outdoor space... for eating, for writing, for playing, for yoga and planning and drawing and peeing. I remind myself that this is our home for the next few months, and it will be easier when we are stationary, but I should get used to the cramped quarters anyway.

Totem Poles

The boy appears on a bike, screeching to a halt on the dirt road. “What are you doing?” he asks. I stand, camera in hand, in front of a row of totem poles in the village of Katwancool, or Gitanyaw, Canada. I tell him that I am reading the sign. He looks at it. “What does it say?” he asks. I look at the sign, then at him.

“Can you read it?” I ask. When he shakes his head, I try helping him through it. In the end I read it to him.

When I’m finished he says, “My dad’s a killer whale, and my mom and my brother are frogs.”

“What does that make you then, a frog?” I ask.

He nods. The clans are matrilineal, and the children belong always to their mother’s clan. He watches me as I tilt my head back to watch a crow land on one of the poles. He doesn’t even look at the towering monoliths, finding me much more interesting than these things that have been here longer than him. But his fascination is short lived, and he soon speeds off again on his too-big bike to play with friends.

He is the only resident of the village that we see. No one drives by, except another Volkswagen with another couple and another camera.

Sean and I wade through a field of dandelions already gone to seed. Their little parachutes catch the wind and fly ahead towards another row of totem poles behind the closed museum. We discover a treasure trove of old poles here, stacked up like trees in a lumber yard under a roof behind the building.

The logs are cracked are gray with age. A face is divided in two. A warrior turns into an old weathered man. Sean read that once a pole has fallen it is never raised again. So this is their graveyard, their resting place. There is something telling about the way they lay here. Where the standing poles are monuments of power, rank and success, these are signs of a disappearing society. There is something akin to the jungle covered temples of the Maya, the empty streets of an Incan city, or the buried tombs of Egypt.

We visited other historical sites as well, but none of them really seemed as awe inspiring as that village and its forest of carved poles.

Wildlife

Subtitle: from the safety of your car

I wouldn’t want to run into a grizzly on foot, but from my van it would be pretty cool. Unfortunately, the only brown bear we have seen is a brown black bear.

There has been plenty of wildlife though. The highlight for me was a lynx that sat crouched on the side of the road as we passed. I was so excited I could barely explain to Sean that we needed to turn around. I think I said something like, “A cat! A cat, a Bob Cat, Lynx?” Confused, he turned the car around. We didn’t see anything at first, so we turned back, disappointed. The cat popped up about 30 feet in front of us as we swung around on the highway. We stopped and grabbed for the camera as she turned and loped away along the side of the road. She had long fuzzy legs, a small torso and a stubby black tail. She crossed in front of the van a ways down the road and glared at us in a very angry-cat way. We asked some girls the next day if it was a bob cat or a lynx, and they said there were no bob cats in the area.

The only really close encounters we had with wildlife in the car were with foxes. The first was siting on the side of the road about 50 meters away when we first spotted it. As we slowed down it trotted up to us, sitting outside my window and looking at me expectantly. It was obviously aware that we had food in the van. We called him the pirate fox because of his haggard appearance and injured right eye.

The next fox we stopped for was also injured. It was a black fox with a serious limp, and we began to wonder if they were faking so we would pity them and throw them scraps. The locals confirmed that the foxes in the area had learned to beg from the RVs that drove through. Crafty little critters aren’t they?

There was some not-too-wild life too. This chicken was in Stewart BC (home of the toaster museum). She was not at all camera shy, in fact I had to rescue my camera from a possible pecking after taking this photo with it balanced on the railing in front of her.

Alaska '08: The Beginning

2008-06-10T18:25:00.000-07:00

Portland:
Is like an extension of home. Familiar. Full of friends. We even run into Lali and Goat unexpectedly after a late lunch downtown.

It is gray and wet, and everyone is talking about the weather. When will it decide to be summer?
I quietly hope that I am not dragging Sean north into an even colder, wetter season.

ORCAS ISLAND

We were welcomed with budding roses, thick patches of nettles, and the start of a garden that promised a rich and rewarding harvest. Al’s house is “The Coop.” It isn’t what you would expect from an old hen house. In fact, it has morphed quite successfully into a comfortable home. It is the caterpillar post-cocoon.

Al is learning about home-ferments. We help him fill bottles with a strong ginger brew. Three bottles are loaded into the van with strict instructions to drink them in three to five days.

Al is invited to a party, and we tag along. We soak in a wood fired hot-tub. There is a mushroom hunting party, and we cook their bounty in a cast iron pan on the wood stove. Home-made kombucha is shared. We are consuming this island: Its energy in the plants we eat and the people we meet.

For Sean’s birthday we walk into the clouds on Turtle Back Mountain, a new public

area on the island. We plan a scrumptious birthday dinner. We return to The Coop with groceries. I leave to pick nettles for lasagna, and when I get back people are showing up for a “Booty Shaking Drill Team” rehearsal. Learner, who we had met the night before, brings oyster mushr

ooms, and I pick Kale, spinach and chard from Al’s garden. The lasagna is layers of mushrooms, nettles, greens, and cheese. I also bake two pies, but use crusts that we bought from t

he restaurant Al bakes for. Sean practices the bass while I cook, and I can hear drums from outside. If I look out the window I have a lovely view of some real booty-shakers practicing their moves. Learner, Al, Sean and I sit down to a fresh, Orcas grown salad, and my first ever nettle lasagna. And the pies were perfect.

The Yard

2008-05-13T13:55:00.000-07:00

The Wheather is allowing us to spend more time in the great outdoors of our home. I thought you might enjoy some pictures from tropical Oregon.

Weeping Willow in our front yard

Miss Malia P hiding in the lillies

Ash likes the outdoors too. He goes out dressed as a bear to chase off any would-be attackers.

Sid and his friend Tag hanging out on the porch. Tag is visiting from Colorado with Benjah's mom and step-dad.

We have discovered that the former owners liked the color purple. A lot.

Enjoying the Camera

The newest residents of 1110 W 27th... A hive of bees have been parked on our roof by their doting keeper.

Malia plays fetch.

First blooms of Spring... The plums first blossomed and then leafed out into a beautiful living umbrella over the back yard.

Photos!

2008-04-06T12:52:00.001-07:00

PHOTOS!!!
and just a note: Jes and Benjah had a baby boy this morning... name yet to be announced, but they are leaning toward "Ash." Updates soon.

Its been a little over a year since I got back from Thailand and moved to Eugene. Here are some photos from that year (in reverse order just to be confusing)
It is spring in Eugene, which means lots and lots of flowers. Our back yard shows the remnants of an old orchard, with plum trees white with blossoms. Miss Malia P. , my kitty, loves the great outdoors, and is becoming more and more adventurous. It helps that our entire compound is like a huge kitty jungle-gym with awnings, trees, roofs and all sorts of fun things to climb on.

We have a lot of work to do in the garden. Its hard to manage such a small amount of land with so many people who have so many ideas. Brian and Benjah are making sure to plant some good medicinal for us, and Crystal has created a beautiful prayer garden. I worried about vegetable space, but it looks like we will have functional roof gardens, as well as some space in a community garden, and in a neighbor-friend's yard.

With Benjah and Jes expecting, we have had some new additions to our household. With Lisa taking off on a number of adventures, we have filled her space with her friend Bergere from Wisconsin. We have also welcomed Jesika's brother Paul and his partner Terra

Easter Dinner:

Terra and Bregere and neighbor Rich examine our holiday feast.

The men take over the kitchen: Goat, Bregere, Paul and Sean

Miss Katherine is the best egg deviler ever!

I made my first batch of vegetarian "gramma's" meatballs.

As usual we made way too much food.

Terra working on a baby blanket......

Some time ago

This is us asking the baby to turn around in Jes's belly.

And miss P watches

A trip to the coast:

Sean and I spent a weekend at the coast recently. We romped in wetlands, strolled on windy beaches, found agates in the gravel, and even ate muscles.

The skunk cabbage was so beautiful and bright. I couldn't stop taking pictures of it.

Yellow water lily roots exposed in a meadow near the Hobbit Trails.

Our house:

In the snow.

Bellys:

To the mountains:

Sean and I went with some of my friends from work to a "cabin" near Sisters. This mansion belongs to the family of Ally's husband, and we had a great time playing pool and ping-pong, cooking scrumptious goodies in the amazing kitchen, and playing Cranium.

Me, Sarah, Ally, and Kate. Sarah and I are the only ones Who still work at the Shedd.

More pics of the house

Christmas

We had some special guests for Christmas. My mom and Jesika's parents and her sister Ellen all came for a visit.

Thanksgiving!

Lali made sure we were all dressed fabulously for the occasion. And we all cooked fabulous dishes of course, lots of them.

We had A LOT of friend over for the feast. Arjay and Cynthia (friends from Waveland who moved to town) brought an amazing butter cream pie (or probably two or three of them). Heather and Eric came down from Portland, and Jesika's uncle Van came over and made his famous Caesar salad. Kiki was in town too, and her friend Dan came down from Seattle to see her. Jeramy was also here, and Kitty was living with us... basically we just had a bunch of great people here to share food with.

This is Kitty. She made Deviled eggs, which were great, even though the shells were really hard to get off.

We love making food together.

Like I said, we had tons of food, and shortly after Thanksgiving our refrigerator broke. Luckily it was cold outside, and we were able to store most of the food on shelves on the porch.

After dinner we were treated to first class entertainment, with Sean on Bass, and Van and Arjay playing guitar and singing.

The rest of us were just comatose from all the food.

TIC ceremony

We swore ourselves to each other on top of Spencer's butte.

OPAL CREEK:

Sean and I hiked up this beautiful creek and camped on its shore. The water was such an amazing color: like nothing I had ever seen.

There were plenty of opportunities to swim in secluded pools, and to hike up little tributaries into tight gorges with rock walls blanketed in soft green moss.

Ultimate
I didn't want to bore anyone with a bunch of photos of Ultimate, but I thought this one was kind of cute. This is a pic. of the girls from the Alaska team I played on for Spawnfest (we were the champions in our division)!

And this is Sean, on our way to the Beach tournament in Seaside. He is sporting a really tough looking black eye, but it isn't ultimate related... it was a work injury. I'll let him tell you how it happened.

We took our time getting to and from the tournament, stopping at nice beaches and waterfalls en route.

The weekend of the beach tournament also marks the transition from the Jefferson Street house to 1110 W 27th. THe rest of these photos are from when we lived in the old Ken Kesey house on Jefferson.

Sushi is typical dinner-party fare in our house. This may be from my birthday.

These are two of my favorite ladies in the whole world.

North Fork of the Smith River:

This was a lovely hike with Sean. Beautiful waterfalls, lots of greenery, and lovely flowers.

and because we were practically there already, we took a quick trip to the beach after our hike.

Back at home.

Spring in Eugene: There are so many flowering trees here. The tulip trees are pretty spectacular.

Its nice to have Lynn so close by. I try to see her every time I go up to Portland, and she has brought the kids down here once.

OK, one more ultimate photo...............................................

Sean's crazy hair. don't you just want to muss it up?

This was my first baby kitty when I first moved to Eugene. Her name was Yoshiko, and she sadly had a very short life.

War protest in downtown Eugene.

We went on a hike when I first got here. It was a good welcome back into the Northwest.

I stayed with Lynn for a few days on my way to Eugene. The highlight was taking Waker to go see the ducks.

Our House

2008-01-02T11:50:00.000-08:00

Our house, is a very very very fine house...

We even have two cats that hang out in the yard, sometimes... when it isn't raining, which hasn't been a lot lately. I wish I had a pretty summer picture to show you, but our place is nice even in the winter. We have a cute front yard------------------------
and each of us has our little space.

Which brings up the question, who lives here anyway? There are 8 residents at 111o W 27th. Most of us know each other from the Made with love cafe, but we are trying to branch out a little, and we have had a few people stay with us who we know from other parts of our lives too.

So here are the current house-owners (TIC members):

Me, Valisa Higman

I am happy to be back in the Northwest where the rain makes everything lush and green. I am working right now at a performing arts center called The Shedd Institute (www.theshedd.org). It's not a bad gig. I am learning a lot about how non-profits are managed in the real world. As a development assistant I am learning about grant writing, fund-raising, audience development, and all sorts of other little things that just need to get done for the daily functioning of our music school and venue. Outside of work I spend my time doing art (www.valisahigman.com) playing ultimate, doing yoga climbing (indoors until the weather changes) and cooking. I also spend a lot of time enjoying the company of my sweety, Sean, and my kitty Miss Malia P Wassie. I am looking forward to spending a lot of time outside this spring!

Mr. Brian Basor
Our resident botanist, Brian spent last summer as a field biologist, which kept him far from home. We are happily seeing more of him these days as he is working for a company that researches organic foods something-or-other, taking care of their database and just working really hard in general. Brian spends a lot of his free time in Cottage Grove, about 20 minutes away from Eugene, where his girlfriend has a beautiful piece of property where she runs her own plant nursery and landscaping business. Brian is happiest flitting about amongst the trees and ferns and all things natural. He is a great handy-man around the house, and is also a really good person to have around when you need help on the computer (he wrote a program for me so I could load new pictures onto my website without learning html) or when you are sick and want to know what kind of herbs will make you feel better. He makes teas and tinctures from local plants, and also makes some killer kim chi. He has many other talents that I won't list here, but if you ever have a question, just ask Brian.

Laura Smith aka Lali aka Laura Lee Laroux.

Lali and her dog Cassie reside in our converted garage. Converted to a fashion design/sewing studio that is. Laura Lee Laroux and her label "Dress to Kill" are already a fixture in the Eugene community. She has designed everything from roller derby uniforms to prom dresses, and has headlined fashion shows here as well as in Bend, Salem and Portland. Despite her happening career Lali finds time to advise me on my work wear (I have a tendency to dress a little too counter-culture for my job), and to work part time at a consignment store where she also sells her one of a kind creations.

Jesika Feather

She is the Mama-To-Be, and though this takes up a lot of her time and thoughts right now, there is so much more to say about her. She is a fantastic writer. Lucky kids around the country get to read her stories when they take standerdized tests. Not only does she write for tests, she also teaches high-risk teenage moms in a local non-profit called Looking Glass. She also has a great laugh. And a great smile. And she gives great advice. And she is really good at cleaning the kitchen floor. Basically, she is destined to be a really wonderful mommy.

Benjah Brubaker:

This is the Daddy-To-BE. He works for this amazing non-profin in Eugene called White Bird. He started out as a crisis worker, counciling and helping people find resources. He now is also part of the CAHOOTS team. This is a pseudo-police force that the cops and local businesses and private residents can call when there is a situation that has the potential to develop into something harmful or illegal. They are used when there are problems with say... mentally ill people, or really intoxicated people. It helps the cops out, because they aren't really trained to work with psychos like CAHOOTS is. Besides that Benjah likes to keep up on poitics, and he is into medicinal plants and meditation. He also enjoys music and dancing... so much so that he has a tendency to throw his back out by dancing too hard. Really his crowning acheivment in recent months has been the expert training of my cat Malia. He has her shaking paws, giving high fives, jumping through hoops and over Cassie's head. Its quite the performance.

Stay tuned for bios of our three renters (Crystal, Lisa and Kath), various houseguests, and pics from our frequent dinner parties. :

Also, soon to come ................. Baby!

Colorado/Utah

2007-11-04T18:00:00.000-08:00

From Oregon to Utah & Colorado:

Sean & Valisa's trip, October 2007

Day One: Not in a hurry, we decided to say good-bye to Western Oregon with a quick hike down to a few waterfalls before climbing up over Santiam Pass and into the high desert. What a wet place this is, and so green! The mist made the fall leaves glow, and the trees themselves looked like still-life waterfalls, their silver barked trunks cascading down through feathered branches.

We have both driven across this pass many times, and we were well aware of the drastic changes we would see in the next few hours of driving. We drank a few extra gulps of soggy air before setting off.

As soon as you get to Sisters, just over the crest of the Cascade range, the trees shrink, dwindling down from the thick lush cedar to a smattering of twisted juniper. Then the great expanse of Eastern Oregon opens up and swallows you whole.

We pass through miles and miles of grass and sage, the landscape somehow older and more worn. The hills are soft and sloped, the canyons crumbling into ruin, and the fences lean, their barbed wire sagging. This landscape stayed with us across the Idaho border, and we watched darkness fall across the cattle lands as we pushed on into night.

Idaho: We finally stopped in Twin Falls Idaho. In search of a nice place to pull over and sleep. Finding the parking lot for Shoshone Falls just outside of town, we pulled over and stepped into the darkness. Somewhere below us there was the great noise of water. The land sloped away from us towards some unknown Abyss. We climbed wearily into bed and woke at dawn to a new and changed landscape. The morning light illuminated flat-topped mesas and fortresses of stone all aound us. Below us an immense cascade laced in rainbows plunging into the serpentine curve of the Snake River, which then flowed placidly away to the West.

After taking our time to enjoy the water, we decided on a side trip to City of Rocks, which was socked in under a snow storm. It still provided us with spectacular views of oddly shaped stone spires framed by snowy peeks and grassy valleys. Then it was off to deserts and canyons of Moab.

Grand Gulch & Bullet Canyon: Lured by stories of ancient ruins.

We spent 3 days hiking through an ancient Eden. Structures made of stone and mud were tucked into nooks, balanced on ledges, and hidden among the boulders. Everywhere there was evidence of an ancient peoples well versed in the arts of architecture and cultivation. Miniature corncobs and shards of pottery were eroding out of the heaped midden piles. Looking down at the valley I imagined a life in such an arid climate. No wonder archaeologists hypothesize that drought eventually drove them first to fight and then to flee from the canyon.

But this year the water was plentiful. We were able to pick and choose which watering holes to drink from, waiting to fill up at clear springs instead of muddy puddles.

TEXTURE: Such dryness and such wetness create some amazing textures. Pockets of wet mud gleamed in the shade, marked with the evidence of flowing water. In the sun this wet mud dried and cracked, peeling up into something reminiscent of large field of pencil shavings.

Trees that have fallen victim to drought or flood lay splintered and broken, their bark bleached silver in the sun.

ART

For someone interested in both art and history, and also in art history, the pictographs and petroglyphs that marked the various village sites were just some of the many treats that this valley offered us.

BEAUTY: The architecture fits so well with the landscape, it ads instead of takes away from the beauty of the canyon. We could learn a lot from their simple style. In some places all that is left is a rubble of stones on a ledge, but something about the way they perch tells me that they were put there on purpose, for a purpose, and there is something so quietly beautiful in the teetering piles of stacked stones.

Kivas Every village had a communal space. The Kiva was partially or entirely underground. Each village had at least one Kiva. At the last site we visited they had restored the Kiva so that you could go down into it and see how they had been constructed.

TOOLS

Turkey Pen: Evidence of domestication of
animals

Stone on stone: Simple method of grinding grains

The canyon also offers up many natural wonders. A favorite is the repeated form of the "balancing rock"

Which Sean demonstrates here...........................

The BIGGEST cottonwoods I've ever seen!

I got into this tree by climbing its bark. It was enormous! Usually when we saw trees this big we were close to a village site. Perhaps the Anasazi looked down on there same trees.

What a spectacular place to visit.

Natural Bridges National Monument

When we emerged from the canyon we were lucky enough to catch a ride back to the van from a lovely couple out of Durango, Colorado who suggested we could camp at Natural Bridges just up the road. We pulled into the ranger station just as the sun was setting, but the place was locked up. As we looked over the literature outside, two smiling rangers walked up and invited up to an educational program that would be starting shortly. They were going to talk about geology and history and, one added, there would be live violin music! We quickly set up camp and returned to classical music in the visitor center quickly followed by a slide show that was punctuated by short clips of violin. Pretty fancy stuff!

We woke up early the next morning to look around.

Then ventured into Moab.

And off to snowy Colorado! We stayed at Ed and Susan's house in Edwards for a few days while I dug through my old stuff and tried to figure out what was really worth keeping. Then we Visited Chris and Blair (and Layton and Althea) at their new house up in Leadville.

Then it was down to Denver and Boulder for a few days. It was shocking to drop down out of the clean mountain air into the smog of the city.

But it was great to see old friends before heading back to my new home in Eugene. We had the pleasure of eating the best sushi EVER in Denver. You wouldn't think you could find seafood like that in a landlocked state. We also had the pleasure of hanging out with Heli and Gwen after rescuing them from a flat tire fiasco.

Then it was time to go load up the van and head back West.

2007-01-04T23:33:00.000-08:00

What's up?!? This is Valisa's new blog site at http://valisahigman.blogspot.com! Check back often for more posts.

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