If you live in Montana and are not listening to live music this weekend, then it is your own damn fault.  There is so much live music happening just within 20 miles of my house that I would not have the capability of viewing it all.  There is nothing that takes the place of live music; not cd’s, not scratchy records, not NPR, nothing can match the beat of live music reverberating in your own heart.  Nothing makes you move in a way that you had no idea you could move, like live music.  You no longer look like a fool, you have become the music and it moves you and controls you and you surrender to its primal power.

On the flip side, there are the musicians.  They are completely and fully absorbed in their art.  Nothing else is taking place, they are living in the moment.  A prime example of mindfulness.  They clearly are not wondering if they took some meat out for dinner. They are not checking their phones.  Their passion alone is enough to make you enthralled as the watcher.  As I watched the third band beginning their set at last night’s live music venue, the bass guitarist looked out at the audience and said about his band; “you have no idea how much fun we are having”.

What’s the difference between a musician and a large pizza?

…….A large pizza can feed a family of four.

Here’s the music menu that I am aware of this weekend.  Starting on Thursday there was live bluegrass at The Bitterroot Brewery.  Friday there was a free concert in Hamilton featuring the iconic Big Sky Mudflaps.  Friday and Saturday were the annual Bluegrass Festival just north of Darby and the Wood Tick Music Festival up the West Fork.  I was at Wood Tick which is on a private ranch in a beautiful setting on Chaffin Creek.  Bring your lawn chair and even a tent if you would like to stay the night.  The music goes well into the night and the crowd is delightful.  Saturday night is the Bitterroot Brewfest featuring a live band as well.  If you were looking for big name bands you could take a road trip to White Sulfur Springs for the Red Ants Pants Music Festival.  Take a tent for sure to that one.

What’s the difference between an accordion and an onion?

…..  no one cries when you cut up and accordion.

If you haven’t had your fill of live music this weekend you can always come to Darby’s Last Fridays; music and art in the park, next weekend.  Art vendors, local wine and cider, children’s activities and the band for July 31st is Pinegrass.  This event is held on the last Friday of June, July, August and September in the Darby City Park from 5:00 to 8:00.  This is a relaxing evening of socializing, wine tasting, art vendors and, of course, live music.  Come as you are to this free event celebrating the beauty, art and authenticity  of Darby Montana.

I have been searching for a book for us to read and have not come up with one in a while.  So this month’s book choice is still up in the air.  If you are in need of a good book please feel free to browse through some old “Wild About Books” post and you’re sure to find something.  Here’s the link:  Wild About Books.  Or look at Amazon’s 100 Books to Read in a Lifetime.  Or, better yet,  it’s summer; go listen to some live music.  Dance.

 

 

I always feel bad for dads.  They struggle with the whole parent thing. Parenting is just not as natural to dads as it is to moms.  You can see it from the very beginning when handed their infant.  The father awkwardly takes the baby into his arms, stiff, scared.  There is nothing natural about the whole situation.

…and the silver spoon.

My advice to all you dads on this summer solstice of father’s days is that there is nothing you can give that takes the place of spending time with your child.  The key to a successful father/child relationship is time.  I don’t care if the kid bitches for the entire event.  In the end, the child will remember that you took them camping or golfing, they will not remember that they were an ass.

….little boy blue and the man on the moon.

Children remember evenings of broom ball in the back yard or dad’s invention of frisbee golf tournaments (who can throw the frisbee completely around the house in the least amount of throws).  Or who can forget dad hitting golf balls at you in the front yard.  Having your dad hit golf balls at you may not sound like a good time and probably looks dangerous from the neighbors view, but here’s the deal.  My dad was spending time with me and only me.  Now he wasn’t using one of those big clubs that you tee off with; he was using a pitching wedge, and I was catching the balls with his baseball glove and throwing them back at him.   Side note that my dad is left handed and I am not.  I’m catching golf balls with a grown man’s left handed baseball glove and have to take the glove off to throw the ball back.  It’s about spending time, not about the wrong glove or mixing up sports.

…..when you coming home, dad. I don’t know when.

It’s even tougher for the divorced dads.  They lose their mentor.  Any dad who loses the mom through divorce, death, substance abuse, abandonment, will struggle.  It’s not an easy task.  Mom’s are the glue that holds the familial unit together.  No.  Mom’s are more like a big bottle of Triflow Chain Lube.  Everything runs smoothly from gear to gear, up hills, down hills, as long as the mom is around.  As soon as you throw a dad and kids together without the mom, it’s going to be awkward.  Who’s going to make sure there is food? Who’s going to keep the conversation going? Who am I going to tell if my butt hurts?

….but we’ll get together then.

My divorced dad would take my sister and I out for pizza on a scheduled day.  We spent more time with my dad after the divorce than before. We were now scheduled in his week.  He worked a lot and played golf and now he had to pick up his kids and make plans with them.  We would sit at the Village Inn Pizza waiting for the pizza, watching how his Natural Lite would react when he added salt to it.  He would ask us lame questions, and we would respond with equally lame one-word answers.  We would look at his watch and ask how much longer for the pizza.  Eventually, it would arrive, and we would not have to come up with a conversation for a while as we ate quietly.  One night after pizza he talked us into seeing a dumb science fiction movie called “Star Wars”.  He drug us into the movie theater.  That’s another thing, for some reason kids don’t whine with their dad.  That’s for Triflow Chain Lube mom.  We don’t complain we just go along.  But Dad won some points that night. My sister and I came out of that movie in love with Han Solo and having imaginary Lightsaber wars the rest of the evening.  Time.

…..you know we’ll have a good time then.

 

 

I will be presenting a book for the month of June. I would also like to present you with other options in case you find yourself without a book to read or don’t think the June book is your cup of tea.

Presenting: “Lisa’s top 5 books she’s ever read that she can remember at this moment.”

#1. “The Brother’s K” by David James Duncan.

#2. “The River Why” by David James Duncan

David James Duncan is a fantastic writer and storyteller. I love his character development, his style of writing and his compassion for the human spirit, which he can portray through his writing. Both of these books are classics and should be handed down to the next generation.

#3. “The Poisonwood Bible” By Barbara Kingsolver

Barbara Kingsolver is also a fantastic writer and storyteller. If you’ve never read a Barbara Kingsolver book, this would be a good one with which to start.

#4. “Born to Run” by Christopher McDougall

You don’t have to be a runner to enjoy this book about the Tarahumara tribe of runners from the Copper Canyon in Mexico. A fascinating account of trying unsuccessfully to implement our societal ways on others.

#5. Number five is a tie. “Unbroken”, “The Warmth of Other Suns”, “Drive”, All the other Barbara Kingsolver Books, “The Book Thief”, “The Emerald Mile”, “The Untethered Soul”………..

Also, if you did not get a chance to read the May Book of the Month; “Nightingale”; you should add that to your list too. It was a very good read, and I highly recommend it. The survival of women in occupied France during World War II. Great story.

The June book of the month I have read before and am now re-reading. My mom is re-reading it as well. We both enjoyed the book before, but this time it has more meaning to our current life. It must have meant something to me from the first reading as I had saved the book in the storage shed. The book is Eckhart Tolle’s “The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment“.

“Time isn’t precious at all because it is an illusion. What you perceive as precious is not time but the one point that is out of time: the Now. That is precious indeed. The more you are focused on time—past and future—the more you miss the Now, the most precious thing there is.”

Once again we touch on the subject of living in the moment. I believe this is a talent that we should all practice. The past is history, the future a mystery. Today is a gift. That’s why we call it the present.

I’m also reading Jon Krakauer’s newest book. He wrote “Into the Wild” and “Into Thin Air”. His newest book is “Missoula, Rape and the Justice System in a College Town” When this book first came out I was upset that he titled the book “Missoula”. A Rape town is not the way I would want the beautiful college town of Missoula Montana to be considered. Some of the reviews I have read in the Missoula Independent have praised Krakauer and Missoula for having the courage to address the subject of “date rape”. It is often dismissed due to “drunken college antics”. I’m curious if other societies have this issue. I believe in Europe that sexuality and nakedness are not as taboo as they are in the United States and, therefore, are not the proverbially “prize to win at the fair”.  Krakauer is more of a reporter than a book author. That is one reason I like his books. This reporter style writing makes this book “Missoula” a very difficult book to read. The facts are stated as told to the police. I believe everyone should be concerned that our society seems to say:

“….you put yourself in that situation; what did you expect.”

As if the act of rape is now the victims fault. Tough read.

For more book of the month selections as well as an entertaining blog post, check out Wild About Books.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I hope it’s ok to call you Barack.  It feels right.  I voted for you twice.  You seem like a good person and I think we would be friends given the chance.  I assume you must be getting “short timers” disease and wrapping things up.  This letter may fall on deaf ears as you are already planning your next adventure.  I’m writing this letter to let you know how it’s going out in the real world.  I would assume that you quickly loose touch once you become president and you need people like me for a reality check.

First of all I want you to know that despite all of the bad things you hear, most everyone is good and honest and dependable.  Lots of people are really good.  They help out their neighbors when they need it.  They look out for each other’s kids.  Most people want to help others.

I know you have tried hard in your job and that you have lots of obstacles and hurdles to jump in order to get anything done. I appreciate all you’ve tried to do with the Affordable Care Act. I’m still excited that it will work out in the end.  In the mean time, it’s a bit of a mess.  My husband and I have health insurance through my work and my employer pays the monthly premium.  It’s catastrophic $5000.00 deductible per person per fiscal year health insurance.  When my husband goes to the doctor he tells them that he doesn’t have health insurance.  He then ask for a discount for paying on the spot in cash.  We never come close to the deductible and a doctor’s visit is very expensive.  Just to put things in perspective, my husband and I each made $30,000 in 2014.  I work at the public school as the clerk and business manager.  My husband is a wildland fire fighter in the summer, an activities school bus driver in the school year and a substitute dorm staff at a local Job Corps.

I was driving to work on a Monday morning and was listening to a story on NPR.  The person telling the story made the comment,

“I was lucky….. I had health insurance”

It made me think how unfortunate that it takes luck to have health insurance.

That same evening I was driving home from the hospital emergency room 70 miles away at 1:00 am thinking “I’m lucky it’s not later in the year when I would have to pay my $5000.00 deductible twice”  My husband had just been Life Flighted to Missoula that afternoon after having a tree roll over him. I’m lucky that we have health insurance.  I’m extra lucky that our bills should all come through before July first so that I don’t have to pay another $5000 deductible.  Hopefully he’s healed enough by July first that he doesn’t need pain medicine or physical therapy. He may not have a choice.  He will be as good as he can be when it’s the new fiscal year. Of course $10,000 is going to be a drop in the bucket compared to the total medical bill, but it’s also a third of his income.  This is how we have to think in the real world.  He will not be working for at least two months.  He will not fight fires this summer which is where he makes most of his money for the year.  I’m not complaining.  We will be fine on the money I make. We are survivors not whiners.

Brett is a volunteer fire fighter.  The fire department has already come up to our house and finished sawing up all of the trees that Brett had in the yard.  They already have a date set to come back and split and stack the wood so that we will be ready for the next Montana winter.

Last night the Volunteer Fire Department had a fund raiser spaghetti dinner, silent auction and live auction for us and another fire fighter who has also gone through some expensive emergency medical issues.  Unfortunately the other fire fighter does not have insurance and is also out of work.

We didn’t ask for help.  People just do it because they know that between the out of pocket cost and the time out of work that it’s a lot to deal with while you are healing.

This is the real county that you are managing.  It’s small communities like ours that don’t think twice about spending their Saturday preparing to feed over 200 people in the community. They spend $10 for a plate of spaghetti.   They donate items to the auction.  People that don’t even know us are donating.  An anonymous individual walked into the local bank and asked about the signs for the spaghetti fund raiser and wanted to know what had happened to the two firemen.  She left a $1500 check with the bank to deliver to the fund raiser.

We are members of our community; period. No one cares if or where we go to church.  No one cares who we voted for.  They just care.  I want you to understand that people care.  They are good and generous and they care.

I read a book once that was describing the problem with our country was the lack of “community” within our own congress.  It said that in the past, members of congress lived and worked in Washington D.C. Their children went to school together and played baseball together.  The congressmen were often at social events or sporting events in which they got to know each other as individuals.  Because of this social interaction they respected each others opinions at work in congress.  They could discuss options in a civilized manner and come up with a common solution.  The book explained that now members of congress commute to Washington D.C. from their state of residence. They spend their time commuting  and campaigning and fund raising for the next election. There is no social interaction.  They don’t even try to get to know the guy on “the other side”.  It’s an us vs them congress.  This is why there is no compromising.  You can not successfully run a country with this mentality.   Why can’t we all just get along?

Congress could learn a lot from my small diverse community.  But I bet no one in congress has to pay one third of their income towards their health insurance deductible.  I bet they don’t need five cords of wood each winter to heat their 1200 square foot house.  I bet they would still get paid if they were out of work for two months after a trauma accident.  I think maybe that they don’t even understand what it’s like in the real world.

In closing, I was hoping you could go ahead and implement a real socialized medicine health care plan for our country.  There are plenty of other countries that make it work.  I’m sure we could too. I’m pretty good at budgeting if you need some help.

Sincerely,

Lisa Poe                                                                                                                                                                                   Darby, Montana

 

 

 

Seriously.

This has gotten too serious lately.  Where’s the fun, the spontaneous, the whimsical, where’s Tom?  Where are the books? Crazy ass blog.  No more scheduled once a week blog.  No more scheduled monthly book.  If there’s a new book to read we will read it.  If there is something worth writing about let’s write it.

I just got a call from my good friend who I really don’t communicate with except to see pictures of her on facebook and vice versa.  But the kind of friend who if she were at my front door you would think it was just last week that we had seen each other instead of once in ten years.  What made her pick up the phone to call?  Was it to schedule a visit? No…was it to check on Brett?  No she doesn’t know Brett or know that he is in the ICU in Missoula.  Was it to check on our mutual friend whose got serious shit going on? No. No. No.  She called to tell me that her two pack E-Cloths just arrived from Amazon and how crazy amazed she is at how quickly she can clean her windows with no streaks.  She will be up all night cleaning windows.  It’s already changed her life for the better and she’s considering upgrading to the e-cloth 8 piece home cleaning set or the e-cloth deep clean mop.  How is this product not a network pyramid marketing scheme.

Oh let’s have an e-cloth party.  We’ll have cocktails and warm brie on rosemary crackers as we wash the host windows for demonstrations.  Then you can all sign up under me and buy $800 worth of e-cloths so that I can make $15 and get an e-cloth Cadillac and quit my job.  Oh the joy.

But where’s the book?  I read this blog for the book.

I’m writing a book.  I do have one rule about this blog and that is that it remains PG.  That there are only innuendoes or maybe a quote with an inappropriate word.  The book I’m writing may cross the line a bit. If there are young children in the room you should politely ask them to leave for a moment.  I’ve been writing this book for 20 years.  The title is “One Hundred and One Pubic Hair Jokes”.

I have two.

BUT.  Today while Brett was getting fitted for an epidural, the ICU male nurse gave me a third joke for my book. I screamed with delight that I now have three jokes for my book. I don’t want to ruin the book for you so you’ll have to be patient for me to get 98 more jokes.

That’s not the book of the month because it’s not finished yet or published.

Let’s talk about some books.  One of my favorite authors died this month.  Ivan Doig.  A Montanan who writes books, mostly novels,  about Montana.  He is a writer whose every sentence should be savored and backwashed.

Maybe “backwashed” is not the right word.  The words should be worked through with small gravel as if you had a gizzard.  His books read like poetry.  My favorite is “The Whistling Season”.  I highly recommend it.

I slept three hours last night and now I can’t get to sleep and it’s past my bed time.  The Good Times Running Club is counting on me to be there at 6 am.  I need to go to sleep.  All this time you thought I’d been sipping some wine and really I’m just sleep deprived.

I thought the May book was going to be “Farmacology” a book that was brought to my attention by my brother-in-law who thought it would be a book I might enjoy.  I have enjoyed it very much but now it’s getting a little long and drug out.  Drug out?  is that a term.  Peace out.  This book is quickly becoming not suitable for the book of the month.

Then I started reading “Wild”  and thought this could be the choice. No. Don’t like it too much either.

Let’s make amazon do the work.  It’s a little wrecked since I find books for Brett to read on his kindle through my account.  We’ll go to “Lisa’s Amazon .com” then “recommended for you” and see what we come up with.

Well, first of all it will be a book that neither me or my staff have previewed.  Talk about spontaneous.

First book on the list “The Girl on the Train: A Novel”  No.  We’ve already read a book about a girl on a train.

Next.  Non-Obvious: How to Think Different, Curate Ideas & Predict The Future.  What???

Next:  The Nightingale;  HUMMM…this one has five stars.  It’s another World War II novel which we’ve already done.

That’s it. Decision is final.

The May 2015 Wild About Books book of the Month is: NO wait.  The book that we will now read just because we want to and not because it’s almost time for the May book will be:  The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah.  Lots of good reviews too.

Whew.  I feel better now.  Maybe I can sleep.  Good night.

Today I’m appreciating my friend Jennifer Ray.  Last fall Jennifer suggested I wash my windows with “E-Cloth”.  This weekend I finally did that.  Holy smokes what a liberating product.  Fast, easy and sparking clean with no streaks.  No more saying “well; the windows look better than they looked before; kind of..”.  The windows are perfectly clean.  I even cleaned the light fixture over the kitchen table.  It was such a feeling of satisfaction, I’m considering starting my own window washing business.  I highly recommend E-Cloth.    You don’t use Windex or vinegar; no paper towels or newspaper.  Just hot water, a wet e-cloth washing cloth and a dry e-cloth for buffing.  Done.  Look at this photo of my kitchen window.  You can see the garlic on the inside of the window and the reflection of the front yard clearly in the clean window.  I’m starting to sound like that infomercial guy; but I’m telling you this as a friend and possibly loosing business in my new window washing career; buy the e-cloth window cleaning 2 pack.  It’s $13.85 on Amazon.

I was also appreciating the warm sunny days of this weekend which brings me to the subject of this post, appreciation.  Do you have to not have something to appreciate it when you do have it?  For example.  Do I need a cold Montana winter to appreciate a beautiful sunny day in April?  Do I need to have lived in three cold houses to appreciate the warm house I live in now? Do I need to have hand split cords of wood every winter to appreciate the neatly stacked and cut wood that is always available to me now?  Do I need five days a month of an horrific headache to appreciate every single day that I wake up pain free?  I could go on and on.

When do you stop appreciating and start expecting.  I hope never.  But it happens.  Hannah and Meg worked in a place that provided fresh fruit in the break room every day.  Everyone appreciated this perk in their office.  I asked Hannah what would happen if the fruit buying person forgot one day and there was no fruit in the break room.  Oh, they’d be pissed; she said.  When do we go from appreciation to being pissed? When do we go from being happy to have a job to “….if I don’t get at least a 5% raise this year I’m out of here.” ? When and why do we cross that line?

The hard part then would be to find the things we should appreciate but don’t.  If you have to have not had something to appreciate it when you do have it; then what about the things you’ve always had.  Do you remember to appreciate those things?  How would you know?  I’ve always had food in the house.  Except for that one time where I was close to not having food in the house and was un-robbed.  An anonymous person or persons broke into my house and filled my pantry and refrigerator with food.  I did appreciate the food so that’s not a good example.  Here’s a better example.  I have a mud room full of shoes and boots for every sport for every season.  When I went to Belize we had to have closed toed shoes for caving and I took an old pair of slick bottomed, paint covered running shoes with the intention of throwing the old wet shoes away once we were done.  After changing into dry clothes and looking for a trash can for my shoes I had to ask our guide where I could throw them away.  “…oh, I’ll take those; there will be someone in my village that can wear them”.  Appreciation.   Not only do I appreciate the mud room full of boots and shoes now, I plan on shipping several of them to Belize for Juan Carlos to take back to his village.  Shoes that are not slick bottomed and paint covered.

It is officially that awkward time of year in Montana.  Snowboarding is over.  Cross country skiing is done.  Too mucky and icy to mountain bike and usually too cold on the downhill as well.  Hiking trails are still too wintery.  Too cold to float the river.  You’re probably assuming we just catch up on some reading, maybe do some spring cleaning.

You would be wrong.

Get out your jerseys and gloves,  Lace up your cleats and pump up that pig skin.  It is Powder Puff Football season.

No! Don’t pump up the pigskin.  As I advised Tom Brady; proper deflation  in the football and your whole team plays better especially if you have little hands.  A flat junior sized football is optimal in powder puff and not so painful on tender breast.

Darby Powder Puff Football League started several years ago by my eternal optimist friend  Christina.   The league is a school fundraiser for the Destination Imagination Teams.  Each football team pays a fee to play, people pay to come watch, there is a concession stand and there are paid sponsors.  We have referees, a chain gang, a clock/scoreboard person and an entertaining announcer who makes the cost of the $2.00 ticket, the deal of the day.

We have encouraged the spouse like people to create a cheerleading squad but clearly need to up the encouragement ante as this had not yet become a reality.

The league originally started as a fall event.  Then one year a Destination Imagination team won state and were headed to Knoxville for the World Competition.  This meant a mad scramble for more fund raising and the advent of Spring Powder Puff Football.

There was even an experiment to have a men’s league.  A testosterone filled football field without any bodily protection is just an invitation to a catastrophe.  The men’s championship game ended in a fight and everyone was told to go home.

The women seem to be more tame but I would have to say that “powder puff” is a misnomer.  This game is rough and tough.  I’ve been flattened, run over and stepped on all in one fell swoop and once by my own teammate.

Traditionally, I have played the quarterback position.  Number 16; Poe Montana; in case you haven’t heard of me.  Most people assume I’m the quarterback because I have such a good arm and an insanely accurate throw.  No.  I am the quarterback because I can immediately get rid of the ball, step back and let the play take it’s course while I’m safely in the background with no one coming after my flags.  I’m the oldest one in the league and I’m not stupid.  Quickly getting away from a mad rush of competitive women is your safest bet.

It was my childhood dream to be a football quarterback.  One year I asked my mom to buy me a “Mr. Quarterback” a battery operated devise that you placed your football in and it would throw you the ball.  My mom said that was the saddest thing she had ever heard and instead brought guys home to throw the football with me in the yard.  Thanks to my mom for teaching me that men are better than battery operated devices.

Powder Puff games are played rain, sun or snow.  Some seasons there are just smeared event signs up and down main street as the weather has wrecked them before the games have even started. It’s always a good time whether you are standing by a burn barrel to keep warm or getting burned by the hot sun.  We’ve always had 4 teams in the tournament; Dotson’s Barmaids, Hamilton Wild Things, Darby Destroyers and the green team or blue team; I can’t remember.  The Barmaids have won most of the tournaments but we have made them earn it.

After the tournaments you’ll find most of us  supporting some of the local drinking establishments and having  a celebratory or congratulatory shot. A shot whose name is usually a particular body part paired up with a descriptive adjective.

If you’re looking for a good time and want to help out a local fund raising event then come cheer on the teams on the evening of April 24 and all day April 25 to help send another Darby DI team to Knoxville again this year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brett and I just spent 11 days in Belize.  We were on an REI Travel trip; Belize Ultimate Multisport Adventure.  Our Maya guides called us “The Ultimates”.  I highly recommend this adventure.  Every single day was amazing.  Brett and I had never done anything like this.  Each adventure from landing in the Belize City Airport to camping in the jungle was an eye opening experience.  Although we did many cool things like snorkeling, sea kayaking, paddle boarding, inflatable kayaking and caving and stayed in forest cabanas, beach cabanas and two man tents; what made this trip so spectacular was the local Maya guides.

We rotated through Juan Carlos, Mario, Valencio and Pedro.  They were all very passionate and proud of their culture.  They knew dates, statistics, history, animals, plants and trees and they took pride in sharing this information with our group of eleven North Americans. The official language of Belize is English, but among themselves, the locals speak a Kriol (that’s how they spell it) of English, Spanish and words from an ancient language.  There wasn’t a language barrier although the dialect proved to be challenging.  I thought they were offering a hummus sandwich but it was actually a ham sandwich.  My mistake caused a genuine, loud, long, heart felt, contagious deep belly laugh from the Maya guide.  The Maya were happy, easy going, laid back and real.  They were what made this trip an unforgettable experience.

Juan Carlos was our first guide.  He picked us up from the airport and took us to the Nature Center where we stayed in forest cabanas which were like staying in a screened in porch.  We had our meals in the dinning hall; just a bigger screened in porch.  Someone in our group compared it to summer camp.  Juan Carlos gave us a talk on the history of Belize, formerly know as British Honduras and answered our questions.  He prepped us on our cave tour for the next day with what to wear and why we couldn’t bring cameras.  We met very early the next morning for the cave tour as Juan Carlos wanted to beat the crowds so that we could enjoy it more.  It was a bit of a drive to the trail head and then a 30 minute hike to the cave entrance.  We wore long pants, shirts, closed toes shoes (I wore a pair of old running shoes), headlamps, helmets, and life jackets.  Juan Carlos carried a dry bag backpack with safety supplies and a machete. Now I wish we had been able to have a camera.  We jumped into the river and swam to the entrance of the cave.  From there we were anywhere from ankle deep to almost swimming deep while going farther into the cave.  In some places we were squeezing our necks between narrow openings in the rocks and in other places the cave was as big as the Duke Cathedral.  Along the way we saw many Maya artifacts and human remains while Juan Carlos told us all he knew about the cave and it’s ancient uses.

After returning to the trail head and having a picnic lunch, Juan Carlos drove us to Dangria where we met our next Maya guide Mario and our white guy guide Todd from Great Britain. Then a boat trip to the five acre island of Tobacco Caye where we stayed in small cabins that were also like screened in porches but a little more beefy due to the constant wind, sand and salt.  Here we learned to snorkel and sea kayak.  You could tell that Mario was at home in the water.  He could stay under forever, swam like a fish and knew all of the names of the sea plants and animals.  He used fins and a mask but no snorkel.  He would just hold his breath, dive down, point out things with his pointer stick, swim back to the surface and yell out the name of what he just pointed out.  We could all hear him because our heads were just on the surface of the water watching.

After snorkeling and before dinner Mario gave us a coconut talk.  He climbed straight up a 30 foot coconut tree with only his hands and feet touching the tree and he was up in 15 seconds He twisted the coconuts until they fell from the tree onto the sand.  White guy guide Todd tired to climb the tree too.  He used his whole body to cling to the tree and slowly and painfully inched his way up, twisted a few coconuts and painfully slid back down.  He then headed to his room to tend to his wounds.  Meanwhile Mario told us about all of the uses of the coconut.  He cut into the shell with his machete where you find the brown fuzzy nut that you see in the grocery store. He sliced off the top and poured the coconut water into one of the pitchers that we had borrowed from the kitchen.  Our talk would be concluded with coconut water and rum cocktails.  Mario sliced open the coconut and we all got to try the fresh coconut.  He shredded some through a hand crank shredder and we tried that.  Then he mixed the shredded coconut with the coconut water to make coconut milk which they use in the kitchen.  It was a an hour long coconut talk and it was fascinating.

At our next Island of Southwest Caye at Glover’s Atoll we were joined by another Maya guide, Valencio; Mario’s cousin.  Valencio helped with the snorkeling and other water activities for our two days of exploring Glover’s Atoll.  Another boat ride took us back to the mainland where there was a van waiting to pick us up.  We said good bye to Mario and hello to Mario’s brother Pedro.  Pedro drove us to a beautiful lodge where we got our first hot shower and were able to wash away the sand and salt of the ocean.  The next morning we rode for a couple of hours and down a long bumpy dirt rode, through several villages and eventually arrived at Pedro and Valencio’s village.  Pedro took us to his home for a bathroom break.  His home was a long hut with a thatched palm leave roof, a concrete floor, wooden walls that had been made with a chain saw, an open fire pit for cooking  and hammocks for sleeping.  There were no interior walls, no electricity, no running water.  We had more stuff in our luggage than these people had in there home. The chickens came in and out as they pleased, but the pigs remained in the yard.  Pedro’s wife and 3 of his 11 children were in the home and watched silently as Pedro gave us a tour.  The tour just meant standing still and turning your head as he pointed things out.  He took us out back behind the house down a short path to the place to use for a toilet.  A hole in the ground with a wooden box over the hole and a toilet seat on top of the wooden box.  The walls were palm leaves and there was a piece of plastic acting as a door.

From Pedro’s house we walked through the village of 400 plus people and to the community center where the women and girls had set up a craft sell for our group of eleven. Everything was laid out on the floor on blankets and the women and girls sat on the floor next to their crafts. We bought bracelets, baskets, wooden carvings, hair bands and other jewelry that they had made.  They also had a donation basket for their school that we all gave to.  Once we were done with our first shopping spree of the trip we left and the women and girls packed everything up and went back home or back to school.  From there we went to another home for lunch.  A family had prepared a hot lunch for us and we sat in their home on a long wooden bench and ate wonderful local home grown food.  The village is completely sustainable .  During the rainy season their road to the city is flooded and they are unable to get out for months.  They all have their own farms, raise animals and there is plenty of fruit.  The forest supplies all of the building materials for their homes.  The community comes together and can build a home like Pedro’s in two days.  One day for the walls and one day for the roof.  We thanked the people for our lunch and headed out when we heard our van return.

Valencio, Todd and another white guy guide, Kyle had driven to the river put in, inflated our tandem inflatable kayaks, loaded them with our dry bags and everyone had a bucket of food on their boat as well.  They drove us to the put in and gave us a quick paddle lesson.  Pedro called the tandem kayaks “divorce makers”.  It clearly took some practice.  After the first day one couple realized it would be better to split up now in order to continue to have a good time on the trip and they never paddled  together again.  We camped in tents in the jungle for 3 nights as we floated down the Moho River.  The guides made our meals for us.  One night they cooked chicken over an open fire.  They built a grill over the fire with sticks from the jungle.  Then placed the chicken on the sticks that they had soaked in the river and then placed palm leaves over the chicken to keep in the heat. Pedro put on spices that he had made in his home from the peppers in his farm.  The meat eaters said it was delicious.  While the chicken was cooking Pedro and Valencio took us on a nature walk.  They both carried their machetes.  We didn’t get too far in the walk as we were mostly stopped while Pedro told us what all of the trees and plants were and what each one was used for.  He gave us allspice leaves to chew on.  He cut out a heart of palm for us to try.  He showed us all of the different trees they used for building their homes.

In the evenings right as it was getting dark the noises of the jungle would start.  It was a symphony of different noises with a light show from the lightening bugs and headlamp beetles.  At the third night’s camping spot we heard Howler monkeys as well.  Pedro and Valenio were open to telling us stories about their village and their families and even a little bit about their beliefs.  I asked why there were Jesus signs on the road leading to their village and they said that was the Mennonites.  They had three churches in their village.  A Mennonite, a Roman Catholic and a Baptist but that none of them were well attended.  They had their own ancient believes and tended to stick to those.  Pedro had delivered his first 7 children in his home.  After that the government told them that they had to go to the health clinic.  Pedro’s son had been bitten by a poisonous snake when he was fourteen and was out looking for young coconuts.  Pedro took him to the Shaman who sucked out the venom and knew the proper prayers for a snake bite.  They boy’s leg swelled up and he couldn’t walk for six months.  He is now alive and well six years later.

Valencio was fishing one night while on our trip and slipped and fell on the rocks.  He explained that he then had fear to continue so he had to drink the water from the river and pee it out in order to release his fears and then he was fine.  This all made me question the Mennonites and other religious missionaries that come into a remote village to change their beliefs.  Actually, I was getting mad about it.  Why is one belief better than another.  These were happy, beautiful intelligent people who lived off the land in bare feet and gave birth to their children in their homes.  Why would a group nail up Jesus signs in their villages.  The Maya don’t come to other countries and nail up “Maya: we know the right prayers for a deadly snake bite; put your belief in us”.  They could put up “Maya Happy; laughter is the best medicine”

On the fourth and final day of floating the river Pedro wanted us to see an Iguana up close.  The iguana slept way up high in fig trees.  Their defense when feeling threatened is to fall in the river from way up high in the tree.  We did hear a loud splash once but did not see the iguana fall.  Pedro told Valencio to go climb one of the trees with the resting iguanas.  Valencio went up the tree as if he were just going for a walk on a paved sidewalk.  He shook out an iguana and the white guy guides jumped into the river after it, but without the innate ability to swim and see underwater they failed.  Further down the river Pedro found another tree of resting iguanas and he climbed the tree and shook one out.  Valencio dove into the water like an Eagle diving for a fish.  His feet were out of the water. Kicking and kicking and kicking.  What we couldn’t see was Valencio wrestling the iguana underwater waiting for it to get tired out.  Then Valencio swam back to his kayak with the iguana for show and tell.  Brett started paddling towards him.  I started paddling away.  I was close enough to this reptilian, snake like, prehistoric looking animal and did not want to get any closer.  I lost and was seconds from jumping out of the kayak as I floated too close and Brett took the iguana from Valencio.

We floated into the village for the take out and saw the women out in the river doing the washing and the children were playing and waiting for our arrival.  Several of them hopped onto Todd’s boat and rode on top of his dry bags to the take out.  We unloaded and disassembled the boats while the group of children helped us carry everything up to the road.  We changed into dry clothes and the children led us to a home to buy cold drinks and then to another home for lunch and more craft shopping.  This village was known as a mennonite village and most of the Maya women wore long dresses and head scarfs.  After lunch we said our good byes and thank you’s to Pedro as we loaded the van and headed back to Dangria and then a ride in a small plane back to Belize City.

Thank you to Brett for a most incredible adventure.  Thank you fellow Ultimates for sharing this adventure and all of the good times.  Thank you Bruce for the pictures I stole from you for this blog post.  And thank you to our guides who made this trip much more than just a vacation.

Check out Wild About Books; a seriously great reference site for book lovers and adventures lovers as well.

You are really going to like this month’s book selection.  This is a laugh out loud novel about a grown man with Asperger’s.  He’s unaware that he has Asperger’s but is aware that he does not fit into societal norms.  It isn’t until he falls in love that he starts to work on his quirky ways and even become a little flexible in his strictly scheduled life.  I really liked this book and finished it on my trip.  I highly recommend “The Rosie Project” by Graeme Simsion.  It’s a light quick read and very enjoyable.

I’m cutting this post short to make up for the super long one that’s in the works.  It’s also taking me a while to get my energy back from the trip I just took and I’m feeling behind in everything at work and at home.  Maybe I’m just suffering from “river time” in the real world.  How can we incorporate “river time” to become “real time”.   A little more laid back, not so uptight about deadlines and schedules.  I try.  I try to do this but it has the same results as me not celebrating Daylight Savings Time.

I was working an Adventure Cycling Supported bicycle trip  one year and was sitting on the back of the U-haul luggage truck. It was the first day of the trip.  The luggage truck driver and another worker were sitting with me when three of the participants came up to us and said they were ready to register.  Annie told them that registration started at 3:00.  They all looked at their watches and said

“…it’s three o’clock”

We looked at each other and said;

“oh…..well…come back in 10 minutes.”

They did come back in 10 minutes and we had our table set up with rider packets, t-shirts and other information for their 8 day bike ride in Montana.  The three men decided at that moment that they were not going to be so uptight and that anytime they  crossed a river or a creek they were going to stop and go for a swim.  They were not going to be on a hurry up mission to get to the ending point for the day.  They were going to enjoy the sights and sounds and even the other participants on the trip. These men were luckier than most participants.  They discovered “river time” on the first day.  I hope that they took a little of it back with them when they went home to their busy lives.

Check out Wild About Books to see other monthly book selections.

 

Once upon a time, not so long ago, in a not too distant place there lived a mountain bike princess. She spread love, peace and happiness in everything she did.  She was not your typical princess; most people had no idea that she was a mountain bike princess.  She was simple and plain and genuine and sincere; certainly not a high maintenance princess as one would assume of all princesses. But, if you looked closely you could see that she had strong thighs and firm triceps and helmet hair.  She could swing an ax, knit beautiful scarfs, grow her own vegetables, and she liked to drink micro brews; especially at lunch.

Being a mountain bike princess did not come easy to her.  She had spent many hours learning to use her clip pedals in which her special shoes attached to her special pedals.  With a quick twist of the foot you are magically released from the pedal.  The learning curve for this quick twist was high for the mountain bike princess as she rode around in the grassy yard falling over and over and over still attached to the pedals and unable to put her foot on the ground to catch herself.  She laid on the ground looking up at the sky with her bike sandwiched between her legs when her two young children showed up, starring down on her.  They had a look of concern; the boy clinching his Mighty Morphined Power Rangers in his hands and the girl holding tightly onto her Bare Naked Barbies.

You knew it was a good day in the house of the Mountain Bike Princess when the Mighty Morphined Power Rangers and The Bare Naked Barbies were playing well together.  I asked my son one day what morphined meant.  He replied that that meant they didn’t have a mom or dad.  From that day forwarded we referred to them as the Mighty Orphaned Power Rangers.

The Bare Naked Barbies got their name simply from the fact that no one could get the clothes back on these inflexible dolls once they came off.  There was a basket of bare naked barbies to choose from and a wide assortment of clothing that was never worn.  One of the barbies had attachable wings.  These wings could be dipped into bubble solution and then you would wave the barbie around in the air and the bubbles would fill the world as only bubbles can do.  Shortly after the purchase of bubble barbie, she not only lost her clothes but she lost her wings as well.  With the six holes in her back for attaching the wings she became know as Bare Naked Buckshot Barbie.

As the children looked upon their mother lying in the grass after falling on her mountain bike, the boy asked; “Mom. Don’t you ever cry?”

The mom looked into her children’s eyes and told them no; for she was the Mountain Bike Princess.  The children gasped in amazement.  They knew that their mom was magical but had never dreamed that their mom was The Mountain Bike Princess.  They knew from this day forward that they would now be held to a higher standard than most children and they never faltered from this expectation.

The Mountain Bike Princess had few enemies and mostly, people were true and good to her and her children.  She did have to protect them from one bad witch who tried to lure them into her evil lair with Barbies and Nintendo, with cases of coca cola and buckets of thin mints.  But, the children were smart.  They were cautious.  They knew that love came from the heart and not from Costco.  Eventually as the children got older the evil witch left them alone.  The evil witch did manage, in her resentful, retaliatory ways, to steal their father from them.  It was unfortunate as he was a good father.  But that’s another story.