Parking Lot Politics

Me, Recording Parking Lot Politics

Taking Politics on the Road with 4WD

Tailgate Political Portfolios

Some Slogans Fades But Never Die

No Bumper Sticker? Paint Your Own

Hubby Just Needs a Stick Horse and a Horn

Just Being Silly

By one definition, politics are the "art and science of government organizations." By another, they are "factional scheming for power and status within a group (as in, office politics)." To be political is to "take sides" and this is where politics loses any appeal to me.

While I get frustrated with the politics of this nation, I love this nation with its amber waves of grain and its diverse swatches of people. I'll serve as a citizen, but I won't get political in the partisan sense. But I'm not here to discuss, debate or digress on politics.

Today is "Silly on Sunday" so I'm going to poke fun at parking lot politics in northern Idaho. It's that grand arena where trucks become mobile campaign slogans and politics rebuke from rusted tailgates.

Yesterday, my husband had me drop him off at the Bonner County Gun and Horn Show. I snort-giggled when I read "gun and horn." What came to mind were a bunch of boys riding stick-horses with pop guns and toy bugles. My husband scowled at my giggling and informed me that "horns" referred to antlers, as in hunters. I still held my vision, but was wise enough to also hold my tongue.

While I shopped at Super One and Winter Ridge to replenish the kitchen pantry, he talked ballistics, barrels and bears with the other gun-toting, horn-tooting boys. After a few hours, I called to say that I was on my way to pick him up. My husband had that octave-higher voice of excitement and I realized he was probably let loose in the candy-store too long. He sounded wired on sugar. "Not, yet," he told me before clamping his cell phone shut.

What was I to do in the parking lot with blowing snow and nothing but tailgates to read? So I drove around, in my car noting that there were few cars parked in the full lot. Northern Idahoans drive trucks; 4WD trucks with tires as big as my car and political rhetoric as bold as red paint.

Some tailgates still held to faded concepts involving Clinton, but most favored repealing Obama. The plights of rural western places spoke out in anger with catchy slogans and colorful witticisms. No one was denied speaking out against anyone or anything, and if someone couldn't afford a bumper sticker, they just painted one like drawing a Sharpie tattoo.

Feeling bold among such strong statements I grabbed my camera and recorded (note: to protect the privacy of others I cropped or blocked plate numbers and hid one gun-toting smiling face of a man I did not know). Finally, my husband emerged.

When I told him about recording parking lot politics he read a few and did what every political person does--he debated this slogan, disregarded that one and debunked the myths behind others. Sides. Even in parking lots.

Want to read other silly stories or look at silly photos? Join blog host, Everything Susan at Silly on Sundays.

The Big Bad Bears of Trout Creek Road

Ancient Cabinets

The Blue Goose

Welcome!

Man with a Holster on His Hip

Adding to the Excitement--Garbage

Thick Enough to Cloak Bears

Not Huckleberries

Not a Huckleberry

Release the Banshee Hounds!

Someone Picking Huckleberries Before

Picking Huckleberries

Worth Life and Limb?

Where There is Bear Hair...

Not a Big Bad Bear

Hanging a Peace Offering

Frightened to Death by Banshees

Trout Creek Road cuts across the backside of the Cabinet Mountains which cradles the northern edge of the Clark Fork River like an ancient mother stooped over her flowing water-baby. Old enough for whiskers, the mountains are a bearded lady, hiding her face of metamorphic granite. She must be made of stone as the mountains shed boulders and pocket-rocks that tumble down gorges and creeks.

Our truck, Blue Goose, rumbles deep into the crags of the Cabinet Mountains and we wind around the gravel road as if lost in her wrinkles. The name of the road is promising to my husband who has packed his fishing rods along with dogs. Yet, higher and higher we climb with out seeing an actual Trout Creek.

What we do see early on is an ominous sign declaring that we are in grizzly bear country. We've seen these signs before on other forest service roads in the Kanisku Forest, but this one remains legible. In other words, it hasn't been shot to scrap metal as if it were a practice target for wanna-be-bear-hunters

The sign warns, "Hunters know your bears!" Thus don't shoot a black bear, mistaking it for a grizzly unless of course that black bear is attacking you at which point I don't really think it matters that you properly identify your toothy, drooling, clawed attacker. Either bear is likely to outweigh, outrun and outwit you. But no bear can outgun my husband, and I plan to stick close to his .45 magnum hitched to his hip. He will think I'm an adoring wife when really, I'm twittering scared of big bad bears.

Next the sign warns, "Campers keep a clean camp!" What this means, is don't eat. Best to camp without food to attract a bear that can open up your vehicle like a can a tuna. Hoist food up a tree? Not likely--bears taught squirrels to climb and their claws are what inspired Stihl chainsaws. So what do we do? Todd and I bring our garbage along for the ride into grizzly bear country. I know, crazy, but we forgot to stop at the dump along the way, which is becoming an annoying habit of ours--let's go fishing; honey grab the garbage!

The final warning on the sign is, "Hikers be alert on trails!" Are you kidding me?  I'm in grizzly bear country and that bit of knowledge is like downing a bottle of No-Doze. My eyes won't even blink. How all three of these warnings are meant to preserve the bears for future generations, I'm not sure. I want to live another day, and that's as far into the future as my mind is going.

With garbage in tow and no visible signs of Trout Creek we instead stop because Todd "sees something." After much debate within the cab of the the Blue Goose, we finally understand what huckleberry plants look like. Todd gets out, eats one and declares that he has indeed discovered huckleberries.This initiates us as almost-northern-Idahoans.

We have found huckleberries, and my husband grabs the bucket to pick. In known grizzly bear country. Great idea.

Huckleberries in Tillamook ice cream, and huckleberry milkshakes for sale in every little town to dot the map in northern Idaho and western Montana (including lil' ol' Elmira country store) is sweet and dear. Summer tourists headed to Glacier National Park or driving the great Selkirk Loop into British Columbia love huckleberries. So do bears.

As if our garbage isn't beacon enough, Todd lets loose the hounds. With boundless energy and curiosity, the two German Short-haired Pointers (GSPs) run fearless up and down the steep forested slopes. Through ferns and underbrush--you know, bear beds--the dogs run. If we don't stumble upon a bear, certainly they will. Todd is already hiking up the slope, and I reluctantly follow the holster on his hip.

To me, huckleberries resemble blueberries, just smaller and less blue. You have to pick a lot to get any kind of yield, and each plant has about five berries. Sharing the bucket between us, we manage to pick about a full cup of huckleberries, which means we are half way to a batch of jam. Okay, this is fun, my mind decides until it then says, hey what's that?

"Todd, is that bear hair?" I ask, standing up as if it might still be attached. Todd comes over to the clump of hair matted among the huckleberry plants and affirms my find.

Now my eyes are like super-sonic scanners as I scope every tree, fern and boulder for the bear missing a clump of fur. Is he full or did he leave these berries for a snack, or worse yet, a snare? Torn between fleeing the scene and not being able to move, I then hear a horrible cry.

The Irish believe that a banshee wails moments before death and it sounds as if death is rampaging down the mountain slope. Bursting out of ferns and brush, Grendel, our male GSP, is galloping and baying like a banshee. He runs past us and I cringe, waiting to hear the crash-boom-bang of an angry grizzly.

Crazy Banshee Dog

With the kind of calm that first-responders possess at the scene of a horrific accident, I ask Todd, "Do you have your gun?"

"Yep." His answer is tight and he's swearing in mumbled tones at the dogs who have brought death upon us all. The crying continues down the slope and now our second dog has issued the banshee's cry.

That's it for me. My legs begin to move and my feet barely brush the tops of huckleberry plants as I nearly make it all the way to the truck, writing a eulogy for both my dogs in my head. Then I see the garbage. What am I doing? I was supposed to stay with the gun, not the garbage!

Behind me, Todd is yelling, "Drop!" Drop? Does he really think a bear will heed his command? If it's devouring one of the dogs, well, that's just one less dog for us to feed. Maybe we'll still have one GSP after today. Hesitating, I turn toward the man with the gun.

Todd steps out of the brush and trees, onto the road, followed by two GSPs eagerly jumping at something my husband is holding aloft in one hand. It's a dead bunny, run down by two banshee-screaming GSPs. My legs become jello-shots, and I crave a whiskey. If the Irish truly do hear banshees wailing in the night, no wonder Jameson is so popular.

Throughout it all, Todd managed to keep the bucket from spilling and our dogs are alive. He never drew his gun once. What a man with nerves of steel. "Okay, time to go," I call to him, as he places the bunny high in the fork of a tree.

Maybe it's a peace offering to the big bad bears of Trout Creek Road. Or just a late afternoon snack.

Fishing Grouse Creek

Grendel on Grouse Creek

Todd Casting, Grendel Sniffing

Fishing with GSPs

Picking Flies

Cool, Clear Water

An Itty Bitty Fishy

Bobo Sniffing out the Good Rocks

Waiting for Trout

Drooling on Grouse Creek

Our GSP Water Sprite

Seriously, When Did This Dog Start Liking Water?

But What's Not to Like About This Water?

My Feet Are Submerged in a Mountain Spa

That's a Dog Smile

Driftwood the Size of a Small Car

Bobo and Her Best Buddy

Casting Over Dog

Trout are Biting

Beautiful Afternoon Skies

Blue Goose

We pile the dogs into the backseat of the Blue Goose, and head to Samuels Corners for breakfast at the Blue Heron. We even see a great blue heron fly over as we eat omlettes out on the patio, overlooking Walsh Lake. It's exactly three miles south of Elmira Pond and both waters are deep blue in the blowing wind this morning.

Instead of driving into the maw of the Pack River canyon with its massive peaks of weathered granite, gneiss and swift-tumbling waters, we go the opposite direction, heading east into the Cabinet Mountains that span across northern Idaho and western Montana.

We get lost.

If it's not battery cables, it's a wrong turn, but such is the stuff of great adventures. It's not like there's a lot of roads in Kanisku National Forest, so we explore the ranch-lands and make a mental map to make up for our lack of one on paper. Before long we cross the forest service road and travel along a meandering creek, smaller and not as turbulent as the upper Pack River.

Todd can't stand it. He's seen too many fishing holes, so we cut short our drive to go to Big R in Sandpoint. A fishing license turns into an elk and deer tag, too.

Somewhere between the canning supplies and the gun counter, I take a wrong turn and come face-to-face with a retail wall of "bear deterrent." For cross-promotional purposes, Big R should sell "Depends" on this aisle. Seriously, if I come close enough to a grizzly to annoy it with a spritz of cayenne, I'm also going to need an adult diaper.

The attendant at the gun counter is helpful. He even suggests that I shoot the buck eating my strawberries, as it is a known fact in Bonner County that the circuit judge refuses to try locals for poaching deer. He doesn't even try to sell me a license. It seems I have quirky rights as a local gardener; the local deer have none.

Yet, leaving Big R, I realize that I've spent more on pectin and jars than Todd has on his multiple licenses to pack our freezer with protein.

Thus we return to Grouse Creek armed with fly-rod, elk-hair catis flies and dogs to point the way. I have packed my essential gear, too--book, camera, picnic food, kibble for "good dogs" and a walking stick that also serves as my imaginary bear-nose-buster.

If a creek were ever perfect, Grouse Creek would take top honors. Gurgling clear water, melon-sized rocks of metamorphic minerals and biting trout.

Grendel, our male GSP, used to loathe water. Somewhere between Lake Superior and northern Idaho he morphed into a water sprite. The dogs splash every potential hole and riffle for Todd. Nonetheless he catches (and releases) a dozen trout and only loses one fly to a willow.

We walk back to the Blue Goose happy for our day. The dogs are blissfully exhausted, my pockets are full of rocks and my feet still tingle from soaking in a cool mountain spa. We eat tuna fish sandwiches and peas from the farmers market, watching the sun set behind the mountains.

Life is good even 10 miles from the pond.

Do Not Worry

Elmira Pond

Horses in Clover

Blue Heron with Open Beak

Bird Definition of Insanity

Watching Catbird

Morning Pond Activities

Blue Skies or Knapweed?

Tender Bee in Clover

He's Watching...Are We?

Matthew 6:25-27

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?  Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?"

My eyes fell off the birds of the air today.

The owner of the horses pulled up in her truck, followed by another. She was showing Snapper to a couple looking for "an athletic horse." But they are not here to swap words with me or hear about the happenings of a pond. I'm an awkward bystander in my own pasture.

I had just settled into my chair under the apple tree after watering garden plants, roses and tree swallow mud-nest foundations. Crazy catbird woke me up at 5 a.m. to tell me that the sun was shining enough for him to attack my bedroom window. Slinking outside, blurry eyed, I caught Blue Heron with another great blue heron. The photo documentation turned out blurrier than my eyes. After dog-breakfast, Grendel settles into watching catbird strike a different window as if living out the definition of insanity--hit the window, hit the window, hit the window and expect different results.

So when the trucks pull in, I look away from the pond. Suddenly, I become aware of my gardening grubbiness, yet feel like I just got caught slacking off under a tree. The horse-owner is a trim young woman who wears jeans, boots and enough make-up to look the part of rodeo queen. I wear a summer farmer's tan and probably look like I live under this tree; the rodeo clown carrying a camera and cup of coffee, barefoot.

The man says something to me about rain and I acknowledge that a few drops fell earlier. He nods, looks at the horses. The woman asks what I'm taking pictures of and I say, birds, and they look at me as if I said I photo-document pixies that live in the willows. The man changes the subject by pointing out that I have knapweed. "Bad stuff," he says, "I have to spray mine constantly."

I speak western and know I'm being chided, judged for choking my pasture in noxious weeds. I'm being offered the sensible solution, but to me it's as insane as catbird. Why spray weeds with chemicals if they keep coming back. Then it occurs to me, that I've stopped the chemical process here. The pond is superbly pristine. How do I explain that? What rancher cares about a pond? Birds? Bees? I'm wasting pasture, sitting under a tree watching birds.

They leave and like an alcoholic I grab a drink--a deep shot of worry.

Someone turned us in to the owners last month, saying we abandoned the place and left junk. Was it the horse-owners? Who was peeking in our windows? Who thinks my spare furnishings are junk? Before they leave I see the man jawing at the horse owner, pointing  at  knapweed. Are we in trouble? Will she tell the owners of the ranch? Oh, my God, please don't let them spray...the birds, the bees, the pond...

Worry is wicked drink. Suddenly I don't see God in blue skies, I see the devil in weeds. I see gophers, I see a highway that might one day get expanded. My mind rushes in circles. Where is the shovel? Will chemicals be okay? After all, how many years prior were they applied?

Worry just leaves me defeated. I can't solve the deaths of thousands of bees; I can't kick Monsanto or Bank of America in the knees; I don't know where I will live after this place; I don't know if I can revise my novel. My humor and heart have flat-lined.

All we ever have is today. Worry does not add a single hour to our lives. Today, I missed out on the birds of the air for worry's sake. But I know the promises I stand upon, feeble as my feet are, the rock is solid. God's mercies are new every morning and then I shall look up, look up, look up. It may sound insane, but I know I will get the same results I do every time I seek God--for I will find him in the chirp of an osprey or the waggle of a blue heron feather.