More free food

Day 72

Today was average.

I did have a nice burrito in Ketchum, though.

Day 73

Today, above all other days, I got a great sense of the possibilities of the kinds of people out here in Idaho. Stacey wanted to play music with a new friend that lived down near Twin Falls (a veritable metropolis for Idaho). Amanda has played fiddle since she was four years old, and is also capable (and proficient) at playing the upright bass, and guitar as well. She’s actually quite good at everything, and picks up song after song as she and Stacey play on the street outside of a bar on the street. They’re just practicing, but every passing car stares at the two of them, turning their heads and leering for as long as possible. People who were eating outside came and thanked them as they left.

Back to the main point though. Amanda, Stacey and I were soon accompanied by a couple of other people: Lacey, and Hailey (no to be confused with the town that Stacey lives in). Lacey never said how old she is, but I’d guess somewhere around 20, and Hailey was 25. The two were very nice - something I’ve come to expect from everyone that I happen to meet on my travels - and we talk while Stacey and Amanda continue to play various songs. Shortly thereafter, more people showed up, including a man named John, a guy who must have been 6’ 8” (and who had just started to jump-start some dreads by putting honey in his hair), and Courtney, Hailey’s sister. There was also Hailey’s almost husband, Courtney’s husband, and John’s girlfriend, but I didn’t talk to them all that much so this story isn’t about them.

They were all quite happy to be out and they started drinking pitchers of beer that had ice holders built in - something I’ve never seen before. Lacey was told she had to leave by 11:15 by the bartender, which was weird because 1) she was just sitting outside and wasn’t drinking, and 2) the picked 11:15 almost randomly since it really has no significance that I can possibly think of. But before she leaves we all get to talking, and there was mention by Hailey how happy she was to be able to get a sitter for the kids. She also invites both Stacey and me to stay at their place for the night and that they have a brand new trailer that we can sleep in. She said that it might be a little noisy because of all the kids, but that it would be a great place to sleep. And then there was mention of how the place was a bit of a zoo because of all the kids. Through careful listing and some innocent questioning, I found out the following: Hailey, 25 years old, has 3 kids, Courtney, 30 years old, has six kids, and Lacey, 20 years old, has two kids. And they were all staying at the same house. One house, 11 kids, none of whom could have been more than 12 or so years old. In addition to all this nonsense of hundreds of too many kids, Hailey and Courtney started getting way too drunk, getting out of control and yelling wilding, and John (the huge dread head dude) told his girlfriend that he hated her. I quickly became uncomfortable with the whole situation because Stacey was playing music the whole time while I had to interact with this circus of people, so I had no one to turn to. It was good in a sense since it took me out of my comfort zone, but man did I ever want to decline the invitation to stay at their house. Shit. I can’t think of anything I’d rather do less. And at the end of all this mess was Hailey picking up the entire tab while her sister Courtney told her she couldn’t afford it. I wanted out.

Stacey and I had an interesting talk on the drive back to Hailey at 1 in the morning. We talked about how some people feel like they don’t have options. And these girls obviously felt like having babies was the thing to do. They were all nice people (until John said mean things to his girlfriend) and yet something made them feel like their best option would be to pop out tons of kids. And once they did that they felt trapped and maybe slightly depressed. It showed because of how happy they were that Stacey actually came to visit them and that there was something fun happening in Twin Falls. It’s hard to stay objective in situations like this, to think that their life choices might be good for them. I just can’t help but think that it’s unfortunate that they didn’t get to experience something else, maybe something more, or at least work at a job before they locked themselves into the life parenthood and stay-at-home momness. Because what it looked like was that they were probably deeply unhappy, and the solution is to turn to alcohol. The area that Stacey lives shows that not all of Idaho is like this by any means, and I’m sure this is all over, but there’s a very high rate of alcoholism (and worse) in sections of Idaho, and it’s no coincidence that it’s also the areas that don’t privilege education.

Day 74

There comes a time in every man’s life when he needs to pretend to be a professional photographer at a wedding in order to get some free food. At first I was hesitant since I wouldn’t have the proper attire and had no real means of blending in. Luckily it turned out not to be the wedding itself, but rather a celebration for a wedding that took place a couple of months ago. So I went, Stacey’s profession(ish) looking camera in hand. I got there rather sweaty since I had to bike, but Stacey’s band was already playing so I just waltzed in a started snapping photos in professional looking positions (like crouching and weird angles). As I took photos I drank some delicious lemonade and ate some mediocre appetizers. And then, from out of nowhere, a real professional photographer showed up, taking pictures of everything, including the fake photographer I mentioned earlier. At this point I just sat down and watched, realizing that I couldn’t compete with a camera twice the size of mine. When Stacey finished we ate some dinner (garden burger, potato salad, quinoa and veggies) and got the hell out of there. I managed to get through the whole ordeal without talking to a single person, which was quite nice.

Day 75

Breakfast today marked the first time on this whole trip that I got pancakes. Well, corncakes. So delicious. The diner didn’t have real maple syrup (idiots) so I settled for their homemade blueberry sauce that’s intended to go in crepes/blintzes. We nearly didn’t eat there though because Stacey realized that they didn’t have eggs benedict, which is apparently the only breakfast she accepts as delicious. Luckily we pointed out that two eggs (any style) can include poached eggs, and that the toast could include English muffin. So she basically just built her own. Close call.

Billy, Stacey, and I bought some inner-tubes and floated down the river that runs along town. Twice. It was so much fun that we decided to do a second run. Billy’s dad was super helpful and did the shuttling back and forth. I also found out he thought my name was Doug, so that was pretty funny too. There weren’t any huge rapids or anything, but it was fairly fast moving the whole time, so we covered the few miles quite quickly. It reminded me of the classic game, Toobin’, since we had to dodge such perilous obstacles as fishermen, fallen down trees, other inner-tubes, and alligators (not so much). God I love floating down rivers.

That night was dinner at Billy’s parents’ house, which was funny for two reasons: 1) Billy got stressed out and had to go pick up something at his house for the food we were making, which was code for having to take a bong rip, and 2) I counted the number of words Billy’s mom said to Stacey (67) because I was told that she’s very quiet. Dinner was quite delicious as Stacey made some grilled turnips, some salmon, and salad. The weird thing to me was that I found out that Billy’s dad doesn’t really eat fish, and neither does Billy’s brother. This is funny because for the past two months Billy’s brother has been up in Alaska fishing, and was bringing home a 38 pound salmon, which I guess no one is going to eat. Bizarre.

Day 76

Stacey and I took a 10 minute bike ride up to the botanical gardens in between Hailey and Ketchum. Only it took 45 minutes because Stacey really had no idea how far away it was, and we overshot it a bit because it wasn’t visible from the bike path. It was a nice little garden of various local plants and a vegetable and herb garden. There was a spot with a bunch of Buddhist stuff near a little creek, so we sat there and did some reading.

The second half of the day was cooking up some dinner and watching Burn After Reading. I’d already seen it, but it’s a fantastically absurd movie and was definitely worth a second viewing.

I also had a very interesting conversation when I called up to reserve a car at Avis. I prefaced the desire to reserve a car with the line “I rented a car last week and would like to rent one again on Wednesday.” After the man searched to make sure that he could have one available, his last question was “and what did you pay last time?” Huh? Not, “that’s going to be x dollars,” but, “we don’t have a fixed price, so sometimes we’ll screw you.” I thought the man was crazy, but I quoted the price I paid last time (which might have been discounted because Billy helped me rent the car last time) and he seemed fine with it. I wonder what would have happened if I said something totally bonkers like $2. Damn. Missed opportunity.