State by State

Apparently there is an entire country between Boston and San Francisco.

thirst

by Natalia

Today we were dehydrated. We took only one bottle of water for what we thought was going to be an easy short hike. But in pursue of an elusive silver mine site the hike turned out longer and more strenuous then planned. It went surprisingly high up a slope drenched in the unforgiving sun light. And to our dismay instead of looping back to the parking lot it veered onto the other side of the mesa: we had to retrace our steps to get back. Park service advises to drink at least a gallon per person per day when outdoor in arid climate and they have it right - we drank about that amount upon return to the car after several hours of hiking the Catwalk followed by the Gold Dust trail in Gila Forest.

CatwalkCatwalk

Americans consider themselves dehydrated all the time. They are not thirsty anymore - they are parched. Leisurely stroll down the street calls for carrying bottled water. I consider this language development - scientific sounding dehydrated replacing plain old-fashion thirsty - to be the reason behind the bottled water fad. Thirsty people can be easily helped by giving them something, anything, to drink. Dehydration sounds like an illness that has to be treated with respect and vanquished with something more potent than water flowing from the tap.

CreekCreek

And because the quality of what comes from most American taps is comparable to regular purified bottled water, the industry has to invent new ploys to sell it. Pure water becomes somehow not enough and it has to be fortified with vitamins, spiked with panacea like ginseng and enhanced with flavors. While there is no evidence such additives have any effect we continue to spend money on water despite it coming from the tap for free (or for far less). We also contribute to global warming (the bottles have to be produced, transported and then recycled), ocean pollution (plastic that is not recycled floats and eventually ends up in the ocean), and exorbitant profits of petroleum industry (all this plastic has to be made from something).

So how about quenching one’s thirst with a regular water and reserve dehydration for the ill-prepared hikers?

b&b

We rarely stay in a bed-and-breakfast type of lodging. You never know if the owner is a sweet lady who is going to serve you fried eggs in the morning or a mis-employed prison guard who will track your every step with an evil glance and start vacuuming at 8am without bothering to switch off the deafening TV. On the subject of lodging: our friends suggested we try a place with magic fingers, but they are not easy to find. Nowadays even the oldest dump advertises its free broadband. At least this is what we prefer to think after seeing a sign proclaiming availability of a highspeed breakfast. These has to mean two separate and familiar things, right?

indians

This is the place where the longest war ever fought on this continent started. By modern estimates over 20 million people perished. Land was devastated. Nations were lost. Biological warfare was used by aggressors. Brutal propaganda was unleashed to portrait invaded as uncivilized, cruel savages without religion, language or or farming skills. As a result Europeans have won a new rich and unspoiled continent, which they proceeded to misuse and exploit. American Indians were resettled into practically uninhabitable areas, stripped of their democratically elected governments and forced to lead substandard existence.