Idaho Pilgrimage

As you probably know my favorite form of recreation (and meditation) is whitewater kayaking, and my favorite place to do whitewater kayaking is in the deep wilderness.  Oregon is rich in lovely day runs and I have called it heaven for the whitewater kayaker.  One reason that Oregon is heaven is the proximity of Idaho.  Every year I make a pilgrimage to celebrate the rivers there. 

A man named Frank Church was a senator from Idaho from 1957 to 1981, and during his time in the senate he got a lot of bills passed that help protect wild places and things.  Some of the rivers we ran flow through a wilderness that bears his name.  Thanks, Frank.
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We may not think often about how wilderness impacts our health but it does.  Undeveloped areas provide pockets of clean air and clean water for us and all the other species. Clean air is important to maintaining cardiopulmonary health and our sanity.  Clean water is key to most life processes in most living things.  Even just having a treed area nearby enhances quality of life for people in a city.

Idahoans know this.  They hunt and fish and camp and swim in the rivers more than most folks.  Some of them have fallen prey to misinformation about COVID-19 from the whitehouse, and I worry that they will not fare well when the virus finds them.  But they are proud people and the more they get out into the wilds, the fitter they will be and the higher their chances of surviving the dread virus when it arrives.

As I settle back into my city routine I will begin to post again about COVID-19.  Having taken a nice time-out my perspective has shifted a bit.

I hope you are getting outdoors.  I hope you pull your face out of the mobile phone screen long enough to take in the green.  I hope you see the crows fly and feel the cold water of a stream.  These things are strong medicine.