McCall Idaho

I arrived in Idaho a few days ago and things have been relaxing to say the least.  That is until today.  I have played some golf, watched some baseball and played cribbage with my mother.  My aunt and my cousin's boyfriend Nate are also in town so it has been good to catch up with them.   The weather has been colder than expected, so not much time spent on the lake.  The water is pretty much freezing.  Today was the first big adventure of the vacation back in America.  My mother and aunt enjoy doing some kayaking which is relaxed and a nice little float up then down the river that enters Payette Lake.  I was expecting something similar when I was thrown out of bed and brought to where we put in the kayaks.  Little did I know what was about to ensue.  First off it was cold outside and windy which really stirred up the water.  Kayaking in multiple layers of clothing is pretty awesome.  Second the water level is really high because there has been so much snow that the water ruff off from the mountains is still way above normal levels.  We got out our kayaks and put in.  I was feeling like I had prepared for this upper body workout by doing about 100 pushes in the last ummm 7 months.  We got on the water, myself in my kayak, my mom and aunt in a double, and nate in his own kayak.  Going alone was my first mistake.  Within about 5 minutes of going up the river I had my first blister and if I didnt keep pushing I was literally going backwards.  The nice cool, ice cold breeze kept pushing my kayak sideways and water from my oar into my face.  I was pretty happy with my decision to go out today.  After about 2 hours of going up hill (actually about 30 minutes) we had covered about 200 meters.  Truly the worlds slowest moving vehicle.  We pulled into a beautiful lake that was nice and calm and I recharged.  The scenery is beautiful something right out of Deliverance.  We went back onto the moving sidewalk we were paddling against and finally got to our turn around point.  At this time I had resigned myself to the fact that I may die of exhaustion on this river.  The float down was beautiful.  I may have only paddled once and just flew back.   We arrived safe and sound back at the drop in point with a false sense of grandeur as if we had just kayaked down the entire colorado river.   Total mileage was not even one mile round trip.   I feel like a have completed a journey which will change me forever...not really but it ended up being a good time and not nearly as hard as described.  We made it home and relaxed watching some baseball.  I can justify doing nothing now.

My summer feels half over.  Its been really good to see the people I have but there are so many that I have missed out on seeing.  Below I added some more information about McCall.  Hope you all have a Happy 4th!

McCall is a small vacation town with a population of around 3000 people.  Originally a logging community it is now an all season tourist destination for outdoor activities.  Along with Brundage Ski Mountain the main attraction is beautiful Payette Lake which features all sorts of water activities.

Vail Colorado

I have been in Vail Colorado for the last few days.  I used to live here before moving to Arizona and my father still owns the house I grew up in.  Vail is a small ski community or atleast it was.  There have been so many changes over the years that I am recognizing less and less of the town and the places I knew growing up.  The weather has been beautiful and I have been getting my fill of golf and relaxation...the way vacation should be.  With all good things something must go wrong.  It just so happens that it was my computer that decided to go haywire.  As it stands right now I have lost all of my journals, photos, videos and music on my computer.  I can only hope that it may be recoverable because we all know you cant go back in time and retake those photos and relive those moments.  This blog it turns out is a god send because all of the photos on this blog still live.  I am sure this post interests none of you, I just thought to update you all on the tour of America.  I hope that all of you are doing well.  Sunday I head off to McCall Idaho to see my mom.

Being Home

Hello All,

I arrived in LA at around 9:30pm and my first meal was In & Out Burger.  It was what I needed to start readjusting to life in America.  I finally landed in Phoenix at 12:30pm and stayed up all night/day until 10pm the next night.   It is nice and warm here in Arizona reaching about 110 degrees yesterday.  Needless to say there is not a lot of time spent outside if it is avoidable.  I saw some friends and my first meal out was Chipotle.  It was just how I remembered....delicious.  Mexican food is one of the foods we could never find a good version of in Luang Prabang/SE Asia in general.  I wish I had more good updates but its just the little things that I am readjusting to, such as, every road is paved, so many cars, and how fast the internet can be.  It has been great to see family and friends but the stories I tell are starting to get old.  I will be heading to Colorado on fathers day and there is much golf in my future.  Its been good to be back but it seems like September and heading back to Laos will be so soon.  I had a moment while clearing customs that it dawned on me that I will be spending a larger portion of this year abroad than in the States for the first time in my life.  I dont know why but that gave me a little shock.


Side note one of the great things in baseball happened tonight the ever illusive walk off balk.

Mobile Version and 4 Days till USA

Google and blogspot have now come out with a beta version for mobile devices.  This means it will be easier to read on Iphones and Androids.   Be sure to check it out if you use any of those devices and send me some feedback.  If you are using the device and would like the web view there is a button at the bottom of the page to change things back. 

Another change that blogspot made is the locations indicator at the bottom of each posts. 

Tom leaves tomorrow night, Saturday, on his epic 24 hour travel journey to Bangkok.  He takes the night bus to Vientiane.  Next he tuktuks across town to the other bus station and takes a bus to Udon Thailand.  After cross the border he heads to the airport to fly to Bangkok.   He will spend a few days there getting a check up from the doctors there (all American trained and much cheaper than the states), before setting off on his flights back to Portland. 

My journey is much simpler but equally as long.  I leave from the LPB airport and fly to Bangkok before jumping on the 17 hour plane flight back to LAX.  I arrive in LAX 2 hours after I left and then jump on a quick hopper to Phoenix arrival time around 11:30 if I am lucky.  I am sure it will be about 95 in Phoenix.

I will be back in the States for a few months before heading back out to Laos to help train the national team in September.  I will keep blogging on life in the states but if some of you decided not to read any of that section be sure to check back in September. 

As always I hope all is well, thanks for the support and I love the comments.

June 5th

Sunday was a rather simply day.  I woke up and walked into the living room to find Somlath sitting at the computer.  Since I wasnt able to check my email I walked around the house and found Chanthas brother high up on a home made scaffolding painting the house.  I talked with him for a while and asked if I could help he said there was nothing I could do.  I saw some of the students who live at Chantha's sister, LingLing's, house sitting outside.  I walked over a bugged them for a few hours.  We talked and one of them made the spiciest papaya salad I have ever eaten.  I learned that all there are Natural Science majors (that may have been the hardest thing I have ever tried to translate) and all are 21 yrs old.  They were nice for talking to me in my broken Lao they didn't speak almost any English.  At this time it was about 12:30 and maybe 90 degrees.  Tom got home from a long breakfast/trip to the library shortly there after and LingLing decided to walk over.  I let her and Tom play the car racing game as I drove to get some Pho.  I picked up my pho and got back as I saw a cloud on the horizon.  I walked up to Chantha's moms house to buy a coke and by the time I got there a monsoon had hit so hard that the rain was coming down slanted and it wouldnt let up for the next 3 hours.  I scurried home the best I could and got completely soaked.  LingLing seemed to be super hyper so we played a version of pingpong without a table it was a good time.  I decided then would be a good time to watch a movie and she had picked out Gullivers Travels.  She put some headphones on and kept yelling at me "Pasa Thai"  meaning she wanted to watch the movie in Thai not english. I kept yelling back ok I understand stop saying that.  About 35 times later the movie started...in Thai and she was quiet.  We made it about 10 minutes before her mom came over and took her home.  Dinner was with Brad and Yoxa a couple from Boulder who volunteers on a village science project in the back room of the library.  We see them almost everyday and they are probably the best falang friends we have.  We had decided awhile back to have a taco night.  There was some trouble with the ingredients so it was changed to a pasta night.  Tom and I added nothing to the cooking but we did bring some garlic bread.  Dinner was great home made pasta and sauce with a beer and a salad with Caesar dressing.  With the music of journey on in the background I hadnt felt so much like I was in America for a long time.  The conversation lasted for a few hours.  Overall it was a good night.  It is times like this where I can see how people who move to other countries can be so insular with the other people from their country.  To have a meal where only english was spoken and people talked about places america, and movies and actors, really made Laos feel like home.

Celebration at the Library

Yesterday there was a celebration and a blessing for the library. Chantha had wanted to do this for a while and she finally got her chance.  There was a group of about 12 of us in one of the main rooms of the library all sitting on the floor doing prayers and listening to the monks bless the library.  Tom and I may not be able to walk for a week because we are just not built to sit like they do on the ground.  There were six monks and there was an obvious hierarchy.  The eldest monk sat in the middle then on either side of him were the next in line followed further out, and sitting minus cushions were the low men on the totem pole.  Near the end of the ceremony, after each monk was given his gift basket of assorted goods, there was a bucket filled with folded money and candy which was thrown by Chantha into the crowd.  The ceremony took about an hour and after we had a large dinner, drank beer and danced.  I know that the library and all of us will have good luck for a long time.

 Photo of us hanging around after dinner.

 Another view of dinner.

A photo of the chicken fight and Chantha's brother holding his winning chicken.

June Starts with a bang

Yesterday Tom was sitting at the desk using the computer when I walked by him and saw something outside the window.  I was not sure what I was seeing so I asked him to take a look.  He confirmed what I thought I had seen.  There was a small circle of people, one of which was Chantha's brother, standing around and looking at the ground.  On our property there was a friendly neighborhood cock fight going on.  Yes you read that correctly a chicken, well rooster, fight.  There were no blades involved just a lot of pecking and jump kicking.  The two would fight and move around until they got out side of the circle of people, then one man,whomever was closest, would pick them both up and put them back in the middle.  They fought until one rooster did a jump kick and knocked the lights out of the other.  It was just like boxing the neck went limp the rooster stumbled then slumped.  I thought something terrible had happened but it turns out after about 2 minutes he was fine and jumping around a little bloodied from the pecking.  His owner picked him up, money was exchanged and then he headed on his way with a rooster still alive but a little worse for wear.  Chanthas brother collected his winning and returned the rooster to the coop.  I am not condoning this by any stretch it was a very shocking and momentarily horrifying thing to see.  When the rooster got back up I didnt feel so bad, not happy but not quite as bad.  This is just one of those things you never expect to happen but in Laos they do.  Hopefully this will be the last one on my porch I see for a while.  Under two weeks till America which seems much more civilized after this post.