Yeah, I survived the RV adventure. We took the tent, but the RV park was completely paved. The whole thing was asphalt. But we all had a good time, played cards into the wee hours of the morning and did some sightseeing, which included a tour of the old silver mine at Wallace, Idaho. Our tour guide, a third-generation miner well-versed in the lore of northwest mines, was really cool and funny until he went on this political rant against the EPA. Seems the EPA shut down all the smelting plants a while ago (you know, since they were MASSIVE polluters in a completely unsustainable business that was essentially stripping the mountains of their natural state). Seems our tour guide blamed the EPA for everything wrong with America these days, and he justified his stance by claiming that "everyone" in the Northwest agreed with him. Then I thumped my head against the mine wall a thousand times and wondered if he realized that had the EPA not stepped in and slapped the mining industry around a bit, the Northwest would now be a strip-mined barren wasteland shedding silt and toxins into the Pacific.
posted by Jen at 11:58 AM link/comments
