Croakies = the good life

To break up a long drive from Jackson, WY to Portland, OR we stopped in Missoula, MT to stay with a friend of R's from high school. Missoula, like Jackson, is an outdoorsy city. Citizens and visitors are running, jumping, floating, swimming, hiking, paddling (a new term I've caught on to) and just plain 'ol enjoying life.

How does one get this lifestyle? They seem to work, income comes in, but work is not their life.

After much deliberation and on-sight research in the form of pit stops off of the highway, I believe that the gate key to this lifestyle is a little something called a Croakie. These are little elastic fabric type things that are secured to one's sunglasses and adjusted according to the activity. When one wear's one of these it says two things about their way of life: they are so active that there is an actual threat to their sunglasses falling off of their face and, two, the sunglasses are a complete necessity to this life. Without these shades they may not be able to bike down the mountain, climb up the rock face, evade something terribly dangerous while kayaking.

In my every day life I do not need a croakie - pair of croakies? Are they like pants? - when I walk to work, get on the subway, or stroll out of the office for a snack, there is no reason, apart from the angry New Yorker, that my sunglasses should be wisked from my face. This seems to be the problem. If I had a croakie perhaps I would go looking for a little more adventure.

If this croakie phenomenon continues west I may just have to jump on the band wagon.

We're about to head back on the road for a long haul out to Portland - but we gain an hour, which is pretty sweet.

~L&R