Brett is my oldest friend. I’ve known him for as far back as my memories go. Growing up in San Antonio, going to church, spending the night at each other’s houses. The best you can hope for in the suburban habitat and prison-yard school system is a bro who you can go on adventures with, to hell with the rest. That was us. Rocking the imagination games, fighting off invisible enemies with sticks, building forts, jumping off the roof onto piles of furniture and boxes, beat boxing in Mission Friends during the prayer.

My face splits into silent laughter as I recall the night that we were in the First Baptist Church nursery, late in the 80’s, while our parents were at choir practice on Wednesday night. Mission Friends was a childcare program that the church offered to the members, which consisted of bible lessons and discussions about the missionaries out in the field. It was run by Mrs. Hern and several other volunteers. Older kids had other activities like R.A’s (Royal Ambassadors) G.A’s (Girls in Action) or Wednesday night youth programs, but until you were six or so, you were in the preschool program.

Such a container was not sufficient to keep Brett on the up. Mrs. Hern asked us all to bow our heads and close our eyes for the prayer. We did so, and as the prayer commenced, Brett started to feel the flow and busted out with the phattest beat box that the Mission Friends kids ever heard, let me tell you. I found it too hilarious to bear and laughed, and the next thing you know, we were both in the corner. Time out! Naughty behavior, breaking the ritual incantation. If I could do it over, I’d have spit some fire freestyle.

So yeah, Brett and I go way back. He’s lived all around, from San Marcos to Ukraine, then Denver. Now he’s in Boise, and as I was driving back from Oregon, I came through for a visit. Brett is now married, expecting a child with his wife Ashley. When I arrived, Ashley was out of town, and Brett had work the next day, but we still stayed up late talking, making plans for the visit. He wanted to go out to a reservoir he had hiked around before, just over the Oregon border. It was an overnight trip, and we planned to head out on Saturday morning. The next day he went to work and I went for a stroll about Boise. It was only my second visit there, and I was able to take more time walking around the city this time. I was delighted to see that Boise is filled with colorful street art and generally has a very hip vibe. Brett told me that tons of people are moving from Denver to Boise, which is smaller and more affordable but still has a lot of the same attractive qualities.

Center for Statist Activities

I visited Freak Alley, which is a grand collection of exquisite paintings on the sides of buildings in an actual alley. One intricately beautiful image after another. I posted pictures of my favorite ones in an earlier steemit post. It was very impressive art work.

That night we got ready for the camping trip, buying some food and packing our stuff. Brett’s dog Zoya was coming along, of course. She loves a good hike.

We left fairly early in the morning, trying to get as much daytime as possible. The drive was only thirty or forty miles perhaps, but it soon took us off the main road, and once it became a dirt road we were much slowed, even though Brett kept a good clip, being in a Toyota Tacoma that was well equipped for off road.

We drove for a long time on winding roads, in some places having to go around massive mud pits. Brett had been to this reservoir once before, but he had never approached it from this direction. He believed that the road we were going to end up on would take us into a valley that would drop down into the reservoir. We got to a cliff and stopped to take in the beautiful view, overlooking the reservoir below. We noticed the road heading down into the valley seemed to be going the opposite direction from what we wanted, but we figured that maybe it was just going to switch back.

We took it down into the valley and it became rocky and steep, with rocks and drops that taxed the high ground clearance, but that Tacoma crawled down easily. We finally figured out we were going the wrong way and so we turned around and climbed back out, putting it in low for some of the ascents. The road we wanted was a ways back, but we found it and took it as far as it would take us. A gate blocked our way eventually, so we had to park and walk it. We figured we could set up camp later when we got back from the hike. We headed down the valley following the road to a creek which would lead us to the reservoir. We took a hike up a side canyon where we saw some big horn sheep. It got so hot and sunny that we thought we might actually want to jump in the water, but that changed quickly. As we were walking down the clouds rolled in and it felt cold.

We reached the reservoir and took a spot on the beach. Nobody else was there. A boat or two went by, but otherwise we saw no one. There wasn’t really any easy access for people to be here. It's nice to be surrounded by the great quiet of nature. After lounging in the sun for a bit, I decided I would get in the water. It was dang cold, and I wasn’t entirely sure how clean it was. I didn’t put my head under.

As we hiked back up the valley, it started to rain lightly. We laughed, surprised. It was not projected to rain, and we were in the desert. Rain is so rare that we didn’t even put all our stuff into the cab of the truck. But we figured it wouldn’t rain too much. It wasn’t heavy rain, and it came and went at first, but as we got towards the part of the valley where we turned up the road towards the car, it was raining fairly steadily. We were getting wet. We hustled back to the truck, to find our stuff was pretty much soaked. Right after we climbed in it started raining harder.

We had planned to drive back out the way we came and find a spot to camp somewhere along the way, but climbing back up towards the main road was dicey, as the rain had soaked in enough to make the road slippery. In four by four we did pretty well, but in a few places we were sliding about, barely in control, and we hadn’t yet gotten to the mud pits. We had driven around them on the way in, but if slippery, the side walls we went around on could easily deposit us into the pit. The rain kept up, and the road condition worsened. We had a few challenging spots, but we made it through, and getting around the mud pits wasn’t too bad after all, but that whole straight stretch up on the plateau was muddy with clay, and the truck would ski side to side as we dashed along, eager to get back to a decent road before we got stuck.

By the time we got to a decent road we were past all the good camping spots, and we were wet. Our backpacks were all wet too. We decided to call it it and head back to the house. There we ate a nice big meal and crashed out, glad to have comfortable lodgings.

Ashley came back the next day, and we had a relaxing morning. At one point we decided to go out and check out an old historic penitentiary. It looked like a castle, though the walkways along the walls were on the outside. We went in through a large building and got tickets. They pointed us out to the yard where we could walk about and go through the open buildings.

What a place. They had a cafeteria, a church, a huge laundry room, and a big industry center. I say had, because many of these buildings were in ruins. It was interesting, if a bit unnerving. Going through some of the exhibits revealed a lot about the nature of prisons in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

This is a hallway between the cell rows, where guards could walk and eavesdrop, even peek into the inmates' cells. (The toilet here is apparently just placed there randomly...)

This was the oldest cell block building. Back in the day, they didn't let very much light into the cells.

This was mostly before major expansion of federal government and a long list of victimless crimes for which people can be jailed. The profiles of many of the inmates was posted on some of the cells. Most were in for murder, some for armed robbery. Although there was that one tale of a man who was incarcerated for having too much of an appetite for chicken...

It was neat seeing the collection of hand made weapons that had been confiscated in the prison yard. The usual shivs and clubs, but some interesting ones too, such as num-chuks!

Another exhibit was only loosely related to the prison, but it was very interesting. A collector of antique weapons had worked at the prison, and he left a big part of his collection to be displayed there as a museum. It was a fascinating overview of the history of weapons of war.

Old J. Curtis Earl really had an arsenal. From old spear tips forged in the bronze age all the way up to late 20th century weapons, he had it all. So much firepower! It's dang waste for human efforts to be so steadfastly bent on devising new ways to kill others in war, but the results are something at which one cannot help but marvel.

We went out to eat that night, talking about old times and ruminating on images in our heads from the prison tour. Something about going to a place like that really gets you thinking. I certainly am thankful for my freedom, and my heart goes out to all the caged birds who are locked up for no good reason, and even to some of those who may be in there for a real reason. Some people may be so sociopathic and dangerous that they deserve to be locked up and never released, but I for one believe that a lot of people who go down the wrong path could experience healing and change their ways, if they had the right help. But the problem, of course, is that our "justice" system does very little to help such people rehabilitate. In fact, it seems to serve quite the opposite function, and for obvious reasons. (For profit prisons do not incentivize a reduction in the incarcerated population.)

A glimpse into Norway's prison system

We had one more night of hanging out and talking, and I began to plan my departure. I had a long drive down to Denver, so we didn’t stay up late. It was great seeing Brett again, and great meeting Ashley. There’s nothing like lifelong friendships.

Topics