Winter Solace

Rode in this morning and stopped by Kaldi's for some blueberry bannana bread and a latte. I had intended to make bannana bread last night, and didn't get there. Kaldi's is not my favorite spot, the cafe is layed out really wierd, and the front room has a table in the middle of the area where you wait for your coffee, which is annoying. Its really popular with Claytonites, which is cool for them, but since I am an outsider, its a little off-putting (case in point, there were three BMW's and a new Audi A6 parked in front). The headache, is the coffee is good and the baked goods kick serious ass. Not as good as the Rockwood Cafe in good old Spokanistan, but seriously good none-the-less. Sat outside despite the cold weather and enjoyed the view of Concordia seminary through the still leaf-less branches of the trees. Read a little of Gretel Ehrlich's The Solace of Open Spaces. Its definately up there with Desert Solitaire and Into the Wild for some good reading about the wilderness and the pleasure of free and open land. Something that more people need to understand in this country. There is a joy to being alone out in the middle of somewhere, a connection to the land, the sage, the trees, the sky. This is something that Gale Norton, George Bush, Dick Cheney and their ilk cannot grasp. The inherent value of open space is not what can be done to the land, but in what the land can do to you. This is the heart of conservationism, and more. Its also the heart of the American Dream and the core of the American Ideal, in this land, you are free.