by Daniel Brodell-Lake

Created on: June 03, 2008   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

How did I get back here- back home? Since December of 2006, I have lived in or traveled through, Santa Cruz, CA, Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Bozeman, Montana, Yellowstone, Glacier, Calgary, Banff, Vancouver, Bellingham, San Juan Islands, Seattle, Portland, and all the redwood trees back down to the bay area, Buenos Aires, Argentina, Tigre, Mar del Plata, Ushuaia, El Calafate, Buenos Aires, Uruguay, Gualeguaychu, and back to the San Francisco Bay Area. I have been traveling and moving for a year and a half straight. I am either shocked by the new culture I'm visiting, or shocked by the culture I grew up in when I return.

Santa Cruz was home. College friends living together. Living a block from the beach, studying, in love, sharing music, art and long nights.
Traveling to Bozeman was a separation adventure. Driving alone through my home country, but in complete different cultures. What do the Mormon's in Utah know about the hippie/redneck culture of Santa Cruz? What do farmers in Idaho know of the Bay Area? What do University students in Bozeman know of California? Apparently nothing. I mean, my family visits from Wichita and they don't bring sweaters because they assume that California is hot. However, the folks in Bozeman are completely anti-California. The most common response I got to telling people that I was from the SF Bay Area was, "bunch'a niggers and queers over there." That was then followed by the common complaint that, "niggers, jews, Mexicans and queers," are destroying Montana. This was very offensive, confusing and plain weird to me. First of all, these are college kids. People paying money for a higher education who believe that a state with less than a million people, 90% of which are white, is being destroyed by common cultural scapegoats. I wondered how I could have moved from a block away from the beach, to the middle of the Rocky Mountains during winter. Living over there made me realize how G. W. was elected twice in a row. Martial arts, nature and bluegrass hot springs were my only safe places in Bozeman. It is great how, no matter where you are, it seems as though, music, martial arts and the natural world surpass racism. It feels as though they are naturally above ignorance and intolerance.
I had to leave Montana. Despite it's natural beauty, I simply could not live in a place where it is acceptable to spew out the most racist slurs in use today. I drove by myself up through Glacier National Park, hit a deer at 70mph near the Canadian border,

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