Outdoors

A Community Art Project: Before I Die

-Jamie Hershman

What do you want to do before you die?

When I first pondered the question, I kept coming up with short term goals. But, thinking in the long-term, I know what I want to do before I die: make a difference, whether that be through my story-telling, or traveling the world and working hands-on in making a difference. Who knows? All I know is before I die I want to do something meaningful that will make a difference or impact somebody else’s life for the better.

A new community art project has whole neighborhood’s pondering the question, as well. It began with artist Candy Chang turning the side of an abandoned house into a chalkboard, having many slots open for residents to share what they want to do before they die. After the death of a loved one, Chang decided she wanted to up her spirits and the spirits of her community.

With the great response and participation from Chang’s community, there have been more and more walls going up throughout the world. “Before I Die” walls have gone up in Brooklyn, NY; Montreal, Quebec; Portsmouth, NH; and Queretaro, Mexico, as well as many other places. More are in the process of going up as well within the year from Johannesburg, South Africa to Denver, Colorado and Wolverhampton University in England.

These walls allow people to write down their hopes and dreams, and all responses are taken on record. This positive community art project is inspiring people to find and follow their passions. From past responses, many want to travel the world and reconnect with old family members. The walls encourage people to truly stop and think about what is going to make them happy in life. Some responses are funny, while others are a little more serious, but all have meaning to the person who wrote them.

Other groups have started projects to encourage people to find their passions with the “before I die” phrase. A group of four guys called The Buried Life made a list of 100 things they want to do before they die and have gone on a mission to complete every item, which MTV picked up as a reality television show. The Buried Life has influenced many young people to create their own bucket lists and try to complete them.

With so much negativity in the world, these walls provide a little center of hope for those who want to believe in their dreams and for those who want to lead better lives. Chang started with just a wall, but her one idea has sprouted walls up throughout the world and has changed the normality of the day-to-day life by encouraging people to find their passions.

So now, take some time and think about it. What do you want to do before you die?

Tuff Climbin’ -A Smith Rock Time Lapse

Tuff Climbin’ – A Smith Rock Time Lapse from Tommy Pittenger on Vimeo.

Active Vacations- The New Vacationing Future?

photo courtesy of Brian and Renee Bouma

-Tiana Bouma

“They call it Backroads, but we like to call it Snackroads.” Brian Bouma, a two-time client of Backroads, said. “Every time you ride for an hour they have a bus set up with snacks and drinks and they drive by waving all the time.”

Tom Hale, the Founder and President formed Backroads, after spending three decades trying to find more rewarding alternatives to traditional vacations. There is no better way to immerse yourself in the life of a region and explore hidden corners while traveling under your own power. Backroads is part of an active vacation movement that is finding a way to more authentically connect with the world.

The types of trips range from biking tours, multisport tours, walking and hiking tours, private trips, and family trips. You can choose exotic locations in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America or see hidden treasure of the US from a view perspective.

Brian Bouma and Renee Bouma, a couple from Bend, Oregon recently returned from a six-day trip through Northern Vermont.   The Bouma’s biked an average of 45 to 60 miles a day starting in Burlington, Vermont and winding past Lake Champlain, Vermont’s Greek Mountains, and classic New England farms.

“One of the days we have to climb Appalachian gap, which is a challenging climb that they actually have a professional road race on and I climbed it and I didn’t think my wife would make it up cause it was so challenging.” Brian Bouma said, “The trip leader rode with my wife and encouraged her and climbed the entire road without getting off. 17% incline and he did this three times with three different people.”

Clients can tell the trip leaders are engaged and care about their groups. Meals and lodgings are all arranged in beautiful towns and inns native to the area that many would normally pass up for a more generic company. Experience ranges from professional and extreme bike riders to individuals and families that have never ridden a bike before.

“You can go whatever speed you want.” Renee Bouma said, “They always support you, it’s not like you’re in a group race.” Besides the tour guides that ride with the group there is a van and usually another car following with snacks, spare tires and bikes, and a comfy seat if a rider gets tired and wants to take a break.

photo courtesy of Brian and Renee Bouma

The rides each day are about the scenery and experiencing something new. Clients are encouraged to stop, take pictures and walk around. The Northern Vermont trip included fifteen people from all over the country. The small group sizes keep the trip personal.

“Twenty percent of the roads were dirt. “ Brian Bouma said, “You’d be in a Middle of a dirt road miles off a paved road and you’d come across a farmhouse and a church that was built in 1805 or 1790.” These are sites that would have been missed in a car or plane.

At the end of the day riders hand the trip leaders their bikes and continue vacationing. All riders need to travel with are clothes. Backroads even offers gel pads for bike seats. Although the Bouma’s Vermont trip was close to home, a trip through Europe or other continents is recommended. The Bouma’s first trip a few years ago with their two daughters, current University of Oregon students, traversed Austria and the Czech Republic.

“What we really enjoy about these trips is that they map out these amazing routes that you would never ride or figure out on your own unless you’ve been a resident for 20 years.” Renee Bouma said, “True to their name, you were on backroads.”

A Winter Wonderland in Spring

- Erin Peterson

The air was quiet and crisp, the only sound being that of snow falling upon snow. The trees looked as if they had been made of ice, and every inch of the mountain was covered in mounds of powder. The chairlift attendants kept reminding me that Mt. Bachelor’s spring skiing was its best skiing and, over this past weekend, I found that to be true.

Riding down the mountain was like gliding through silk, not a patch of ice in sight. The easier runs on the front side of the mountain were well groomed, the more difficult Northwest runs were covered in tracked powder. The sun made an appearance several times throughout the day, but it wasn’t too long before it hid behind the fog and clouds again. I would have gone up to the summit, but with the wind biting my face already at the middle of the mountain, I decided against it. After riding my snowboard, Blue, named for its Blue Jay print, through the powder for at least five hours, my legs started to give in and I decided to call it a day.

Luckily, there was still plenty to do in Bend for the night. The Deschutes Brewery & Public House is one of my favorite spots in the city. Order the Inverted Pale and the hop-infused hummus platter and I can gaurantee you will be happy with your night.  Or if you’re feeling more like a seafood that night, order a comforting bowl of New England clam chowder and a glass of Merlot at High Tides across the street.

Although is was hard to leave the fresh powder, the views on the drive back home made it almost worth it. The snowy tops of Three Sisters, the carved summit of Mt. Washington, and the three peaks of Three-Fingered Jack made it difficult to keep my eyes on the road.

It was hard to leave my winter wonderland, but I was happy to find spring in the air when I made it back to Eugene.

Taming the West

-Laura Lundberg

Two hundred years ago, the West was still an uncultivated property in an untamed world. Today there are only a few pieces of that world left, and one species taking advantage of that are the wild mustangs that roam free on the plains of Nevada. But these creatures may not be around for much longer. While there are about 33,000 wild mustangs to date, the Bureau of Land Management has been rounding up thousands of mustangs yearly in order to move them off of public lands and onto long-term holding lands in the Midwest. These roundups have been called inhumane, leading into much discussed controversy.

Each year, thousands of mustangs are put up for adoption, where they can be sold to families, ranches, barns, and more morbidly, slaughterhouses and glue factories. Other lucky ones are sent to grazing territory where they are safe. Susan Pohlman, owner of Whispering Winds Animal Rescue & Sanctuary in Roseburg, Ore., purchases horses from the roundups that the Bureau of Land Management conduct and keeps them on her ranch.  “Currently we have 36 horses – 14 are domestic horses (QH, Arabs, Paints, Thoroughbreds, Appaloosa) and 24 of them are mustangs from different herds – Paiute Indian horses, Virginia Range horses, Sheldon horses, and BLM horses,” says Pohlman.

Pohlman has had a deep passion for horses since she was a little girl. When she attended her first auction for roundup mustangs, she was heartbroken to see the mustangs stripped of everything they had known. She immediately modified her property and began purchasing horses that were going to be sent to the slaughterhouses. Pohlman worked on gentling the horses and treating them of any illnesses or injuries that they had. She then worked to find suitable homes for the horses.

“I love the animals that reside at the ranch.  It is a very comforting feeling knowing that they are safe from slaughter and have a home where they can just be horses,” Pohlman said. For her, Whispering Winds Animal Rescue & Sanctuary is a small piece of home that many of the horses that she takes in aren’t accustomed to.  She hopes to is to expand the compassion for the mustangs and horses that have been hurt or traumatized and combine it with children who are dealing with the same issues. “We would love to take some of the rescued, long term horses, and have underprivileged and/or at risk kids come in once or twice a week with their counselors to care for their “assigned” horse – a therapy type of environment for both,” she explained.

Pohlman also hopes to continue educating the public about wild horses and the challenges they face. However, since the facility is fairly new (established in 2007), the ranch still has a lot of work ahead of it. While she does have plans for the future, she’s focused more on the present and the horses that she is working to rehabilitate, as she explains, “Right now, it’s one day at a time.  We try not to make too many plans for future things because they always seem to change when the sun comes up.”