MONTANA
Fewer
people may be heading for vacations in our national parks these
days, but “glamping” – short for glamorous camping – is
on the rise. Think of luxury tents that come equipped with Persian
rugs and electricity for powering blow dryers. As for stinky
outhouses – forget about it. The possibility of glamping convinced
the parents of a 6-year-old boy fascinated by fly-fishing that they
could rough it out West in style, reports the Los Angeles
Times. After surfing the Internet with the words
“luxury,” “camping” and “Montana,” the family settled on a Big Sky
Country hideaway called The Resort at Paws Up, which charged them
$595 a night, plus an additional $110 per person per day for food.
The hefty fee ensured a cook who could rustle up bison steaks as
well as huckleberries over French toast, plus a butler to light the
evening campfire and a maid to heat their down comforters.
THE SOUTHWEST
Never mind the plebian pursuits of plodding along on foot
or riding through the backcountry on all-terrain vehicles
or horseback. People of wealth have found a way to emulate Icarus
and sightsee through the air, zipping along in Ultralight planes as
fast as 115 mph or as leisurely as 25 mph. The new Southwestern
sport is called “aerotrekking,” reports the Arizona
Republic. Members of an exclusive club called Sky Gypsies
wend their way along a 1,100-mile circuit of mountains, canyons and
deserts in isolated parts of Arizona and New Mexico. You need a
high tolerance for risk, since steering a little open-air plane
with a rear propeller can be dicey in unstable weather or around
power lines and cliffs. And you need money: Fees range from $1,000
up to $200,000, and include the privilege of bunking at landing
fields equipped with spiffed-up Airstream trailers from the ’40s
and ’50s. Software developer John McAfee, one of three men who
founded the 150-member club, trumpets the thrill of flying “15 feet
over a cow … you feel every sensation, every movement, every
breath of air that goes by.” He also considers the sport safe “so
long as the pilot is conscientious.” McAfee’s nephew, however, and
a passenger were killed a few months ago when their kite-wing
aircraft crashed. Not just anyone can join Sky Gypsies: The club is
invitation-only, extensive training is required, and alcohol is
verboten.
CALIFORNIA AND WASHINGTON
Since 1970, the average American home has bulked
up from 1,500 square feet to 2,450 square feet, says the
National Association of Home Builders. But supersizing is the wrong
way to go, says Jay Shafer, founder of the Small House Society and
denizen of a 100-square-foot home in Sebastopol, Calif. For
comparison, says the Seattle Post-Intelligencer,
“You may have a tool shed or a master bath about the same size.”
Shafer sells homes to baby boomers looking to simplify their lives
in retirement, and his Tumbleweed Tiny Houses have won awards for
energy efficiency and green design. They’re also inexpensive,
costing between $20,000 and $48,000, though the price doesn’t
include land. Up in Olympia, Wash., one woman lives in a truly tiny
house – an 84-square-foot wood-frame home that she built from
scratch. Dee Williams told The Olympian that she used to live in a
1,500-square-foot house in Portland, but sold it after returning
from a trip to Guatemala: “(I) felt weird spending money and time
on a house when there are others who have so little.” Williams
scrounged old wood, doors from a Dumpster and shredded blue jeans
for some of the insulation. Two solar panels provide electricity,
and she has a propane tank for heat and cooking. Since the house
lacks running water, she takes showers and borrows water from the
friends who let her build in their backyard. Total cost: $10,000;
the feeling afterward, “empowering.” After also downsizing her job
to part-time, Williams said she gives more to charities and tries
to buy everything locally, except books, which she takes out of the
library. “Maybe for the first time,” she says, “I brought that
profound sense of intention to my life.”
ARIZONA
If anyone is a good
sport, it’s Christina Ryan, an event planner from
Tennessee. In Tucson recently to compete in the Mrs.
America contest, Ryan carefully dodged a spider at Loews Ventana
Canyon Resort, only to find herself next to a rattlesnake, which
promptly bit her on the foot. The 8-to-10-inch-long snake left one
of its fangs in her, stuck just above her toe. “The pain was the
worst pain I have ever had – worse than childbirth,” she told the
Tucson Citizen.”It was like someone stabbed a
knife in my foot, and kept stabbing it in over and over again.” The
poison moved up to her ankle before 10 vials of antivenin – sent,
she noted, from her home state of Tennessee – had any effect.
Throughout the ordeal, Ryan kept up her spirits, saying her goal
was to heal enough so she could wear heels during the final day of
competition. The pain almost paid off: Ryan was first runner-up,
with Kelly McBee of Worland, Wyo., taking the title of Mrs.
America.
Betsy Marston is editor of Writers on
the Range, a service of High Country News in Paonia, Colorado. Tips
of Western oddities are always appreciated and often shared in the
column, Heard around the West.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Heard Around the West.
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