I believe that the suggested time frame for posting blogs is about once a week. Well, as with many things in my life, that didn’t happen. But, I do have an excuse! I just emptied, cleaned and sold my home; ditto for my car; rented a truck and hauled the very small percentage of what had been my belongings to a storage unit in Colorado; took possession of my new motor home with all the attendant attention to learning how to drive, maintain, and adjust to the place that I will be living in and using to move around the West; and, most significantly, coming to grips with leaving a place that has been home for over 30 years.
Leaving happened yesterday, May 18, about 12:30. Yes, I do have the details down for that turning point. And I do have a short-term destination: Chico Hot Springs. I gave my self 2 days to make what would normally be a half-day trip; one night at Hebgen Lake—a place I’ve never been—and one night will be somewhere in Yellowstone. I spent some time today in West Yellowstone asking questions about the differences and similarities between there and Jackson.
When I originally thought about building and posting on this website, I was focused on the physical landscapes that I would be exposed to and curious about. And, while I have always considered these landscapes holistically: with social, economic, environmental components included; it wasn’t until I was actually uprooting myself from Jackson Hole and talking to those folks in West Yellowstone that I realized how naive I have been.
It has been my intention to identify planning concerns in towns that I find myself visiting and using those as a way to learn about that community—is what I’ve seen even considered an issue there? to sort through past newspapers and other publications, talk with local governments and agency people—and share on my blog what and how other places approach and resolve their collective environmental and planning and zoning needs. What if the “issues” are the lack of such fundamental needs as basic health care and towns are focused primarily on how to achieve those needs? How realistic is is my intention then?
Jackson is a very passionate and engaged community. And there is no lack of concerns that bring people to both sides of the table. But if I pulled into Jackson would I recognize those issues? Would driving throughout the county and seeing the miles of pathways reveal the growing opposition to the impacts they have on government funding, wildlife and habitat? Would discovering the ratio of public lands to private lands indicate the pressures of workforce housing or the overwhelming recreational demands on public lands? Would the existence of so many high-end hotels, retail stores and restaurants hide that fact that many of the residents of Teton County can’t afford to patronize them?
The underlying factor in determining whether there is even a problem is “community.” It is the people with their values, needs, passions and guts that determine if decisions being made are acceptable or not. But the decision will only rise to the level of an “issue,” a “problem,” when there is a split, with some people for and some people against. I imagine that I will be in many places where the population is in agreement on how things are going.
I did not recognize how important being a part of those communities is in being able to really see how they function; to be able to determine issues from decisions. Slowly moving throughout the West, untethered and ungrounded, not a part of a particular community, will add a layer to my intention that I hadn’t thought of. And it will place me out of my element—identify me as an outsider. A role that I haven’t assumed in quite awhile.