Tomorrow morning I will be heading back to the East Coast. And while I love the east and I have no desire to live permanently in Utah, there are a number of things I love about this state that I think I've taken for granted and would like to tell the three people who read this blog about right now!
First, I love the canyons. I grew up in Northern Utah, I learned to ski here, I rafted in the Provo River and even attempted water skiing in Deer Creek Reservoir. I particularly love Provo Canyon and had forgotten its vertical heights, lush greenery and waterfalls. If you ever visit Utah (or you happen to live here), at least take a drive through Provo Canyon to Heber or Park City because it's amazingly beautiful.
Second, I love free fruit. When I was in college I used to make a lot of pies and jam. Lately, I've been walking in the morning (both in Provo and Salt Lake City) and I realized why I made so many lovely desserts. There are a million fruit trees! This morning I passed three plum trees, a raspberry bush, an apricot tree, a blackberry bush, a pear tree and a peach tree. And I was only walking for 20 minutes!
Third, I love weird "only in Utah" structures and businesses. Whether it is the enormous 20 foot high balloon of a Mormon missionary on top of a store called "Missionary Mall," or video stores called "Clean Flicks" that edit films to clean up language and/or anything else that might possibly be considered offensive--nope, they don't carry The Last Temptation of Christ, but they DO carry The Passion if any of you are curious--or the strangest park in the world called Gilgal Gardens (if you're ever in SLC you HAVE to go; see http://www.gilgalgarden.org/) or basement houses that popped up when people put down a foundation, but couldn't afford to build the rest of the house (see image below), Utah is filled with kitsch that makes many Utahns crazy, but that I have learned to absolutely love.
I should really make a book called Roadside Utah with images of all the funny, weird, and utterly unique... well... crap that I love about this state.
Monday, July 31, 2006
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Driving to Eugene, Oregon
My sister Jennifer decided to drive from Provo, UT to visit our other sister Suzanne in Eugene, Oregon. And, since I've been couch surfing at my mom's house in Utah, I decided I'd jump in Jenny's car and drive with her to Eugene.
The western United States is amazing, diverse and allows for days and days of big sky driving. Most people don't realize that the land west of the great Salt Lake to the the Sierra and Cascade Mountains is a big desert. This includes eastern Oregon and southern Idaho. Perhaps the most fascinating part of the trip was a huge tree with probably 1,000 pairs of shoes thrown up into it near the Oregon/Idaho border. We decided to take a small state road through Oregon and only got waylaid in the Cascades when a large forest fire forced us to take an alternate route.
Yesterday, we drove to Silverfalls State Park east of Salem and hiked. Silverfalls State Park is made up of 10 waterfalls. We only saw 8 of them because we took the short hike (5 miles) rather than the long hike (8.3 miles). We were wishing we had brought bathing suits (or at least water socks) because the water under the falls collected in deep clear pools which looked really refreshing and after hiking we were really hot. My niece Vanessa claimed that Silverfalls is where fairies live and I think she might be right. We took this photo of a magical tree.
Today we are driving out to the ocean. It's strange that in one month I will have seen the Atlantic, Pacific and Mediterrean. Particularly strange as I'm totally broke and I've managed to do all of this traveling for free. I'm grateful I have such good friend and family who allow me to couch surf during this strange inbetween time.
The western United States is amazing, diverse and allows for days and days of big sky driving. Most people don't realize that the land west of the great Salt Lake to the the Sierra and Cascade Mountains is a big desert. This includes eastern Oregon and southern Idaho. Perhaps the most fascinating part of the trip was a huge tree with probably 1,000 pairs of shoes thrown up into it near the Oregon/Idaho border. We decided to take a small state road through Oregon and only got waylaid in the Cascades when a large forest fire forced us to take an alternate route.
Yesterday, we drove to Silverfalls State Park east of Salem and hiked. Silverfalls State Park is made up of 10 waterfalls. We only saw 8 of them because we took the short hike (5 miles) rather than the long hike (8.3 miles). We were wishing we had brought bathing suits (or at least water socks) because the water under the falls collected in deep clear pools which looked really refreshing and after hiking we were really hot. My niece Vanessa claimed that Silverfalls is where fairies live and I think she might be right. We took this photo of a magical tree.
Today we are driving out to the ocean. It's strange that in one month I will have seen the Atlantic, Pacific and Mediterrean. Particularly strange as I'm totally broke and I've managed to do all of this traveling for free. I'm grateful I have such good friend and family who allow me to couch surf during this strange inbetween time.
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
My Grandmother is 90!
I'm in Anderson, Indiana. It's a former factory town for General Motors, and like many former factory towns it has been slowly dying for nearly 25 years. The tool and die lines where my grandfather and grandmother and uncle and even my father worked have shuttered and are currently being razed. And each time I visit, more and more store fronts in Anderson are empty and have a For Sale sign out front.
My grandmother has lived in this town for 65 years. And yet she still considers herself from Tennessee. She still gets the local paper from "down home," and moved with all her Tennessee friends to Anderson in 1940, essentially creating little Overton County, TN (population 3,000) in Indiana.
On the 25th of this month she turns 90. My aunt threw a huge party for her at the local bowling alley on Sunday. Over 100 people showed up ... folks she had worked with in the factory that she hadn't seen in 40 years, a huge Tennessee contingency, the neighbors.
My grandmother has always been sickly. She is constantly complaining that her body aches, her bowels don't move, her head hurts, her arthritis makes her knuckles swell. She, like everyone else in my family, suffers from depression. Yet she is the one who has outlived many of her siblings, her son, her husband, most of her friends. And the only real decline I can see in her after all these years is that she's more frail and she is decidedly going deaf. She's really quite healthy as she still lives alone, still does her own laundry, still fixes her own meals.
I turned up at the party after having not slept for 40 hours due to flight connections from Tel Aviv, to see my grandma parading around wearing a cape and tiara and holding a scepter, and complaining (lightly, of course) that we should have waited until she turned 100 to have this party.
Don't worry, I thought, we'll probably be having a party for you when you turn 120. Because I honestly believe my grandmother will outlive us all.
My grandmother has lived in this town for 65 years. And yet she still considers herself from Tennessee. She still gets the local paper from "down home," and moved with all her Tennessee friends to Anderson in 1940, essentially creating little Overton County, TN (population 3,000) in Indiana.
On the 25th of this month she turns 90. My aunt threw a huge party for her at the local bowling alley on Sunday. Over 100 people showed up ... folks she had worked with in the factory that she hadn't seen in 40 years, a huge Tennessee contingency, the neighbors.
My grandmother has always been sickly. She is constantly complaining that her body aches, her bowels don't move, her head hurts, her arthritis makes her knuckles swell. She, like everyone else in my family, suffers from depression. Yet she is the one who has outlived many of her siblings, her son, her husband, most of her friends. And the only real decline I can see in her after all these years is that she's more frail and she is decidedly going deaf. She's really quite healthy as she still lives alone, still does her own laundry, still fixes her own meals.
I turned up at the party after having not slept for 40 hours due to flight connections from Tel Aviv, to see my grandma parading around wearing a cape and tiara and holding a scepter, and complaining (lightly, of course) that we should have waited until she turned 100 to have this party.
Don't worry, I thought, we'll probably be having a party for you when you turn 120. Because I honestly believe my grandmother will outlive us all.
Saturday, July 15, 2006
Caesarea, Jaffa, dancers and the Conflict in Lebanon
It's my last day in Tel Aviv. A "conflict" has started on the Lebanon border, and though everything is business as usual in Tel Aviv, it is strange to think that three hours away missiles are killing innocent civilians.
My trip has been lovely though. We visited Caesarea, an ancient port city built by Herod (yes, THAT Herod from the New Testament), on Tuesday. We had intended to visit Jerusalem or Haifa, but with all the unrest it seemed sort of unwise. We swam in a turquoise blue ocean and I was delighted (because I'd almost forgotten) what the salty taste of sea water is like.
Tel Aviv is part of the greater municipality of Tel Aviv-Jaffa. Tel Aviv was founded in 1909. Jaffa was founded 1909...B.C.! Old Jaffa is an amazing mix of crumbling stairways and beautiful doors. In the Jaffa market (which featured everything from rugs to--my personal favorite--an old Victrola) I found my dream vehicle, which actually worked. Unfortunately, I am going to have to move to Jaffa in order to have this motorcycle with side car.
I also attended the Jerusalem Film Festival and saw really bad experimental film. I love found footage films, which was the focus of this section, but of the ten short films, only two were remotely interesting, and the other eight were like watching bad student films. Not good. But I also saw the Batsheva Dance Company's world premier performance of Bertolina, which was a violent mixture of hip-hop, ballet, modern dance, brilliant costuming and one of the best DJ sets I've ever heard. Truly a brilliant performance. It was like watching a modern dance interpretation of a drug fueled rave and it almost took my breath away. And after I ate passionfruit ice cream, which is my favorite ice cream in the entire world!
Soon, I'll be off to Indianapolis for my Grandmother's 90th Birthday. Then to Utah for two weeks, then back to New York, where I am going to be couch surfing until I can find an apartment of my own!
My trip has been lovely though. We visited Caesarea, an ancient port city built by Herod (yes, THAT Herod from the New Testament), on Tuesday. We had intended to visit Jerusalem or Haifa, but with all the unrest it seemed sort of unwise. We swam in a turquoise blue ocean and I was delighted (because I'd almost forgotten) what the salty taste of sea water is like.
Tel Aviv is part of the greater municipality of Tel Aviv-Jaffa. Tel Aviv was founded in 1909. Jaffa was founded 1909...B.C.! Old Jaffa is an amazing mix of crumbling stairways and beautiful doors. In the Jaffa market (which featured everything from rugs to--my personal favorite--an old Victrola) I found my dream vehicle, which actually worked. Unfortunately, I am going to have to move to Jaffa in order to have this motorcycle with side car.
I also attended the Jerusalem Film Festival and saw really bad experimental film. I love found footage films, which was the focus of this section, but of the ten short films, only two were remotely interesting, and the other eight were like watching bad student films. Not good. But I also saw the Batsheva Dance Company's world premier performance of Bertolina, which was a violent mixture of hip-hop, ballet, modern dance, brilliant costuming and one of the best DJ sets I've ever heard. Truly a brilliant performance. It was like watching a modern dance interpretation of a drug fueled rave and it almost took my breath away. And after I ate passionfruit ice cream, which is my favorite ice cream in the entire world!
Soon, I'll be off to Indianapolis for my Grandmother's 90th Birthday. Then to Utah for two weeks, then back to New York, where I am going to be couch surfing until I can find an apartment of my own!
Monday, July 10, 2006
The World Cup in Tel Aviv
Do you know why Tel Aviv is amazing? Because you can sit on the beach at night, watch an enormous big screen where the semi-final of the World Cup is playing (France vs. Portugal) and a waitress walks around and serves you whatever you like, including a drink called Malty, which is like root beer in America, except is tastes like real beer but is non-alcoholic.
Plus, the ocean is beautiful at night...a full moon reflected off the water and there was such a sense of celebration in the air. It's amazing that soccer is such as huge sport world wide except America. And watching soccer outside with friends on the ocean is so much better than watching it in a bar in Boston...
I love Tel Aviv, I'm actually getting a tan for once! Maybe next summer I'll make a film here!
Plus, the ocean is beautiful at night...a full moon reflected off the water and there was such a sense of celebration in the air. It's amazing that soccer is such as huge sport world wide except America. And watching soccer outside with friends on the ocean is so much better than watching it in a bar in Boston...
I love Tel Aviv, I'm actually getting a tan for once! Maybe next summer I'll make a film here!
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
Paris, France and the Ruby effect...
At this very moment I am sitting in the Charles De Gaulle airport on a layover to go to Tel Aviv. Perhaps those of you at home are thinking, "wait a minute, how can she afford to go to Tel Aviv--and with the current unrest why would she want to--if she has to raise such a big chunk of change for grad school?"
Well, my friends, last summer I went to France for my friend Anouck's wedding and got bumped off my flight home, so Air France gave me 800 Euros toward a free ticket. And since my very best friend in the entire world lives in Tel Aviv, and I had to buy the ticket by July 5th, I figured, why not?
Plus, I'll try really hard not to get blown up.
On other thoughts that relate to absolutely nothing, I have two gay friends I really want to shake right now that are suffering from what I like to call "The Ruby Effect" (also known as the "David effect" for boys). Ruby was a girl, who though straight, was a little bi-curious and self-centered enough to lead everyone on. And because Ruby was beautiful and smart (and--it goes without saying--manipulative) I knew a couple of gay girls who would swarm her, in hopes that Ruby would come around and realize she was gay. But Ruby had no intention of being gay. She just liked the attention of having someone's undivided gaze. She liked to spoon with girls, play with their hair and give them hope for a few months until Ruby found a new male conquest and left her wannabe lesbian lovers in the dust.
How do you warn your friends of impending heartbreak without alienating them? I guess you don't. You just sit back and watch the trainwreck happen.
Well, my friends, last summer I went to France for my friend Anouck's wedding and got bumped off my flight home, so Air France gave me 800 Euros toward a free ticket. And since my very best friend in the entire world lives in Tel Aviv, and I had to buy the ticket by July 5th, I figured, why not?
Plus, I'll try really hard not to get blown up.
On other thoughts that relate to absolutely nothing, I have two gay friends I really want to shake right now that are suffering from what I like to call "The Ruby Effect" (also known as the "David effect" for boys). Ruby was a girl, who though straight, was a little bi-curious and self-centered enough to lead everyone on. And because Ruby was beautiful and smart (and--it goes without saying--manipulative) I knew a couple of gay girls who would swarm her, in hopes that Ruby would come around and realize she was gay. But Ruby had no intention of being gay. She just liked the attention of having someone's undivided gaze. She liked to spoon with girls, play with their hair and give them hope for a few months until Ruby found a new male conquest and left her wannabe lesbian lovers in the dust.
How do you warn your friends of impending heartbreak without alienating them? I guess you don't. You just sit back and watch the trainwreck happen.
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