Everywhere, America

If you have ever driven on the interstate for an extended roadtrip, you will experience what a friend of ours refers to as "Everywhere, America."  Everywhere, America is that phenomenon you experience when you exit the freeway at any major development and find that it is exactly the same as the last exit you stopped at 12 hours ago, or 36 hours ago, or 72 hours ago.  It can be a little haunting and is certainly disorienting.  Home Depot on the right, McDonalds on the left, Walmart up the block, and Starbucks tucked into the strip mall next to the Radio Shack.  Deja vu and vertigo can set in simultaneously.  Those particularly adverse to consumerism may feel nausea. 

I experienced Everywhere, America on our last roadtrip.  I realized in my state of disorientation that the only thing that really distinguishes a place anymore is the landscape.  The rocks, the rivers, the sand, the mountains, and the trees.  And in order to see the landscape, you have to take the road less traveled, past the silos and the cows, on the gravel and the dirt, towards the ocean near the tracks.  In honor of Mr. Frost, and all wanderlust souls out there, we'll be taking a few more rights into the unchartered territory of smallville.

Massacre Rock, Idaho

We spent Memorial Day Weekend at Massacre Rock State Park.  Massacre Rock is located about 40 miles southwest of Pocatello, Idaho.  The campsites are on a hill overlooking the beautiful and meandering Snake River.  The variety of birds along the river and in the trees was amazing.  We spent a lot of time just watching the huge yet graceful pelicans take off and land along the river.  An activity only camping can create. 

Massacre Rock is located along the historic old Oregon Trail used by thousands of emigrants heading to Oregon or California in the great westward migration of the late 1800's.  The area around Massacre Rock was notoriously dangerous for the emigrants due to the rocky landscape, the torrential river crossings and neighboring indians.  Massacre Rock got its name from an incident around 1862 when 10 emigrant were killed in a narrow rocky passage by the local indians.  The photo above on the left is a rock etching from Register Rock where passing emigrants would scroll their names marking their passage through this portion of the 2,000 mile journey.  The one on the right is me and Riley in front of Register Rock.

We were lucky enough to spend the weekend with a fantastic group of women who refer to themselves as some type of pastry (actual name reserved to protect the innocent), but who I have fondly re-named the "hoola hoops" due to their constant dose of insane hilarity that pulls you in and spits you out at a dizzying pace.  The spinning, swirling, gyration of a weekend with the hoola hoops has left us exhausted.  Although I have to say, I am anxious and eager to give it another spin once I catch my breath. 

I love this shot of Mary.  This one pretty much sums up the weekend.

Editor's note (and specifically, to my second grade teacher many moons ago who marked me down for misspelling a word that I had made up for literary effect):  I intentionally misspelled hula hoop.  The "hoola" spelling is far more representative of the hoola-ing that went on this weekend than the traditional and pedestrian spelling of hula.