What's All This About, Then?
(aka Your Many Questions Indelicately Answered)

(hint #1: scroll down and this won't be as hard to read. You're welcome.)

We go on trips. Road trips. Other trips. But mostly road trips. Sometimes (ideally) long ones. Sometimes not.

Yes, this is the same blog as the one about the Oregon Trail. Yes, it used to have a stagecoach and a dusty feel to it, which went along with the Oregon Trail very nicely. Yes, that was a great trip. That was three years ago. (the blog is still here if you want to read it...it starts here)

So...as we embark on the latest chapter of our roamin' ways, we want to invite you to come along. First, we might get lonely. I mean, we don't really get lonely much, but it's possible. Second, you might miss us. Third, you just might be nosy. And fourth, we are notoriously and and historically bad at sending postcards, circulating photos, keeping up with a scrapbook; as a matter of fact, with documenting our trip in most every way. We figured this might be the 21st century solution. It worked for the last trip, which was (as you know) three years ago (sniff). So we're keeping it going.

We hope you'll pop in, read about where we are, what we're doing, see photos of our adventures, and experience our gypsy hardships (like no room service) vicariously! Most importantly, we hope you'll add your comments and greetings, which we will get when we get to one of our stopping points. Souvenir requests will receive due consideration (Hint #1: Success is highly correlated with tackiness).

For those so inclined (you know who you are), we will also list links to related sites so that you can learn with us as we learn on the road, and maybe visit some of the same sights in the future!

Happy Trails to us all!

Love, Phoebe and Robin

Thursday, August 2, 2007

Twin Falls, ID to Nampa, ID


Spent most of the day today along the gorgeous Snake River, from Shoshone Falls back into the flat plain, where the river is still grand, but less imposing than upstream. As we got a late start (again!), we weren't able to pack in the sights today, but spent a couple of hours at the Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument in Hagerman, ID. Phoebe loved it there--many activities for kids, and skeletons (or replicas) of many animals found locally. An interesting fact--did you know that camels originated in North America, and then migrated to Asia where they became more populated? And that the Hagerman Horse skeleton, found right here, is one of the most important contributions to the study of the evolution of the modern horse (it's considered the link between ancient horses and modern horses, and is about the size and structure of a zebra)? And that Mastodons and a saber-toothed cat roamed southern Idaho? Great stuff.

We've stopped for the night outside Boise (it was a shock to see such a big city!), as we want to see Fort Boise tomorrow--it's only open for tours on Friday, Sat, and Sunday and then only between 1:00-3:00 p.m....so it's lucky we're here on a Friday.

And here's the real shocker---hold on to your hat--we went out to dinner and had some of the best Japanese food we've ever had. Up until this point, we had been considering our Asian food experiences on this trip as our way of vicariously experiencing the many risks taken by the pioneers (we've had Japanese in Idaho and Wyoming, and we had Chinese in rural Nebraska), but now that's shot. So much for assumptions about cuisine in the heartland (yeah, go ahead, call me a coastal snob, an elitist, whatever...I've heard it all before, and you're right anyway).

And one more thing about today...I wonder if any of you ever have had this experience. We had a lengthy conversation this morning with our warm, wonderful, bright 24 year old waitress at IHOP in Twin Falls, whose name was Amanda (hello, if you're reading this, Amanda!). She has a darling three year old son named Emilio--we saw his picture. We got to chatting about travel, and she said that she had never been outside this area--the furthest she had been was to Boise, and not even there since her son's birth. She said she was one of nine kids, and so they never could afford to travel. She really wants to see Greece (me too!), Rome, Scotland, England, California (she has never seen the ocean, and really wants to), Arkansas (where her mom lives), Las Vegas (where her sister lives), and lots of other places. It got me thinking a mile a minute about the value of travel (e.g. the back of our t-shirts), how much I love it and take it for granted, and about the ways in which lives intersect, despite tremendous differences in life circumstances. It made me wish (more than you know) that I was one of those people who could afford to leave a plane ticket to somewhere on the table for her, or even somehow to keep in touch and be a travel "mentor" of sorts, or get her some kind of an award or something. I recognize it as a wish--I don't live in a Hallmark movie nor do I know much about her--but the thought of it persisted vividly throughout the day, and it seemed worth saying here. I'd love to hear if you've had similar thoughts or experiences....
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