The Trip and the Trade: Wolves, and hawks, and Hot Springs

About the 'Trip and the Trade'

This is a journey about connections, friendship, new experience, community service, and yoga. This idea quite appropriately came about during a yoga class. While I was supposed to be watching my thoughts pass like clouds through the sky of my mind, I was instead thinking hard…thinking about the road trip I was planning. I intended to drive through multiple cities visiting friends and family along the way. As I thought about this trip an idea began surfacing in stages. It went something like this: Oh no! How am I going to practice yoga while I’m gone??... Hmmm, I bet there are studios in most of these places …oooh, that’d be fun! Trying out new studios! ... and then I began to wonder about how I could integrate my yoga with community involvement. I love connecting with people and places. I kept thinking and by the end of the class decided that I would attempt to forge relationships with at least one studio in each location where I stayed, a relationship based on passion for yoga and interest in their community. That’s it! I would ask them if they would be willing to trade me one yoga class in exchange for a couple hours of my time giving back to their community, and THAT is exactly what I’m doing.

I will be blogging daily along the trip, mostly about my time with each studio and community. After my class with each studio I will dedicate a post to my experience there with photos and a direct link to their website. Although I am open to all that this trip will bring, I do have a few objectives. These objectives fall under two things: ‘Trip’ and ‘Blog’ and one crosses over into both:

Trip Objectives:

1. To connect with each location through community service

2. To experience a yoga studio in each community

3. To inspire people to incorporate yoga in their lives and get

involved in their communities as well as others

Blog Objectives:

1. To have a forum for writing and sharing my experiences

with others

2. To track/document my trip

3. To inspire people to incorporate yoga in their lives and get

involved in their communities as well as others

I have sent hard copy letters to a few studios in each of the places where I plan to stay. Getting to this point has been an interesting process. I vacillate regularly between excitement and fear. Excitement about meeting new people and doing good things in their community and fear of well…fear of failure. Will anyone be open to my idea? What if no one responds? Each time I feel nervous I remind myself to move forward with a heart and mind open to possibilities and yes, one of those possibilities is failure and that is okay. So here it goes, cheers to trying something new and being satisfied with unknown outcomes. I invite any of you that will be in the same locations as me to join me for a yoga class. The map with destinations, dates, and yoga studios is below. If you are interested in joining me for a class in your town during the dates I will be there please e-mail me at berghk@gmail.com and I will let you know what class(es) I will be attending and when. Cheers to The Trip and the Trade!

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Wolves, and hawks, and Hot Springs - Oh my!

My time in Boise thus far has been nothing short of fabulous! I am staying with Julia and her family. She and I have been friends since we were four years old and attended school from kindergarten all the way through high school.

Julia, her girls, and I made the trip up to McCall on Friday for an overnight adventure. As we drove into town a huge gray wolf trotted across the road in front of our car - it was amazing! Once we settled in we drove through the Payette National Forest to the Zims Hotsprings located about 20 minutes out of McCall. The hotsprings felt great and the scenery was fantastic! A hawk joined us for a bit on the way back to McCall flying along side our car - wildlife everywhere!

Julia started out our Friday night right by cooking a steak and shrimp dinner. Not too shabby!

Saturday morning began well with a hair appointment with my personal stylist, Avery. She made me beeeyuuuuteeful. With the help of Avery and Margaret, our friend Marcus brought 'Orange Blossom' to life. Nice job, Marcus, I think you may have missed your calling.

After we "batted", threw rocks, and found numerous treasures in Payette Lake - we all took a hike in Ponderosa State Park. The fall color is starting - pretty scenery, beautiful people.