Hiking ..Skiing loving life...
Weekend number one I went for the river hike. Up the hill around the bend and you end up above the Elbow river. Eventually you finish back at the waters edge before you get in the car and drive back to life... The scenery is fabulous, the air is cool and there are no bugs.
Weekend two I went the the sunshine ski resort in Banff. 50 Miles from the hike there is lots of snow. You pay your 45 dollars and ride up and down the mountain baking in the afternoon sun or chattering down the icy slope in the morning. I love the exhilaration.... conquering the hill..skiing timid for the first hour, then getting the groove going...then scaring myself..then pleasure skiing...then draggin myself up the hill one more time.
Decadence -- how lucky I am to live in such a country. The hike is free, the skiing is 45$ but because I am on the cheap side I always bring my own lunch and snack.. I go by myself and to a certain extent I like it like that. I am not anti social but sometimes I think I just need time to think. I feel incredibly lucky.
I am raring to go now... ready to jump the corporate beast and ride it until tamed. I am off to the US south this week and I will smile all week.
Uniformity
I traveled through America this week and it would be easy to talk about "the ugly America"
I flew into JFK at 7 pm and I had to drive about 90 minutes out... As is my custom I turned on the radio.. The commentator was talking about the need to build a wall on the two land borders. "it worked in china for centuries, it works in Palestine today" He went on and on that only international pressure kept it out of Jerusalem and this is where most infiltrate. It made me mad..I think almost all 9/11 terrorists came through Saudi Arabia... so I changed the station..
The next station a caller was talking about how America missed the biggest opportunity ever on illegal aliens- that it should have mobilized the military and captured the protestors on the day of protesting the new proposed legislation (last Monday), then shipped them all home... . The commentator added with glee that that would get rid a liberals at the same time...
just stupid stuff... like the biggest problem America had was the leakage of illegals from Mexico..
I relayed my radio experiences to a few Americans and without exception they were not right wing slay them all people --they were more balanced approach, that illegal aliens is something easy to get excited about but that this is not the crucial problem in America. One said that we should be proud that people still think America is such a wonderful place that they endure to get there. These were all groups from those in the corporate world... to a beautiful black woman I talked to in the hotel lounge
Intuitively we know that there are all kinds of people in America but sometimes we slip into making ourselves believe that there is a uniformity that doesn't exist... "you Canadians are so nice" "its so beautiful up there" well..three are nice Canadians and it has beautiful spots but being Canadian does not automatically make it so..
when I switched the radio stations and got more fear my first thought is that America is going nazi but its not... America is made of all kinds of people and all kinds of idea's. There are kind ones and beautiful ones and hateful ones and ones who like dogs and ones who hate dogs..
We have to catch ourselves...
The biggest problem in America is not the influx of illegal Mexican aliens --- but it might be that there is very very little hockey on TV down there even in the playoffs... A little more hockey would go a long way...
