Going East to Go West
- By Brittany Davis
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- 02 Feb, 2016
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When road trips change reality
When you stand on the West Coast, and you see the Pacific Ocean, maybe you think that you're as far West as you will go (at least in the lower 48). By geographical measurements you might be right. But this winter I traveled East, across Nevada covered in a sheet of snow (a state that I personally love driving through) and then North, and into country that embodies a history, a culture, and a kind of wild beauty that until now was somehow never fully impressed upon me. The West, with a capital W, the one that I hold in my mind as being distinctly different from the rest of this country, is hundreds of miles to the East of where I live on the west coast.
Soon after driving out of Reno, NV, the ground was covered with snow every day of the trip. The open rolling fields of Southern Idaho waiting for spring potato planting were blanketed with thick, perfectly smooth white snow. Driving over Pine Creek Pass into Teton valley the full moon rose behind the Grand Teton mountains and the valley and the mountains glowed blue-white in the bright moonlight. Snow fell in tiny, perfect snowflake shapes in Big Sky, Montana.
Somehow, I wasn't expecting that the whole of the 4 states we drove through would be totally covered in snow, but covered they are.
I stood on the edge of the river where the Oregon Trail forked South West to California, and North West to Oregon. I stood overlooking the stunning Shields Valley, named and crossed by Lewis and Clark in 1804. I stood on peaks of the Rocky Mountains with 360 degree views of an endless, craggy expanse of rock and ice.
In The West, snow boots have fur because they need the warmth, men and women wear cowboy boots because they're good for riding horses, and if you slide into a snow-filled ditch on a back road while looking at a heard of elk, the first four people (including a semi truck driver) will stop to help get you out.
East of California, the gas prices are consistently hovering under $2 per gallon so far this year. That should be more than enough of a reason to jump in your (all wheel drive) car and drive East to get to The West...even if you hate driving through Nevada.
She asked me a series of questions that really got me thinking about my business- mostly how I started, and why I do what I do the way that I do it.
When the magazine went to print she wrote me and said that my bag was featured in their "Top 100" section and her exact words were "find attached the small but mighty! blurb on Brass + Blade." She was unable to include a longer piece (I got 8 words!) but the interview questions prompted me to put into writing the more personal and in depth story behind Brass + Blade.
Just like it’s impossible to pick a favorite child (or so they say…) I have a hard time picking a favorite Brass + Blade bag. They’re all so different, and each with its own qualities and use cases that picking a favorite wouldn’t just be an act in futility, it simply doesn’t make sense because it always begs the question, “favorite for what?”
However! (of course there’s a “however,” otherwise this post would have stopped right there) However, every so often I find that I have made a bag, usually just a first attempt at a new concept, that I absolutely will not part with.
This backpack design came together quickly and I decided just as quickly (before I was even finished) that it was my new go-to bag….for test purposes! That’s what prototypes are for, right?
While testing for strap length and comfort, weight limit suitability, magnetic snap strength, interior pocket position, and all around easy and joy of use, I traipsed around the East Bay for a week collecting compliments on my new bag!
The most recent and final test came on a two-hour waterfall hike in the Hawaiian mountain rainforest (poor me) when half way through the hike it started to rain enormous Hawaii rain drops. Both the backpack and I got very wet while the contents of the bag stayed surprisingly dry.
First, I had a return customer who requested a woven lanyard made out of bison the day I left on a road trip to Montana. I had made him a bison leather bag and he needed a holder for his dog whistle. The problem was (and still is) that nobody makes bison "lace" for weaving...it's all kangaroo and cow leather lace. But as I was on my way to Montana, I let him know I'd look around while I was there.
In Montana I stopped by saddle makers, tack shops, antique horse equipment stores, and even a custom hat maker (check him out- most incredible hats I've seen http://www.rockymountainhatcompany.com/ ) where I leaned so much about the beauty of braided leather and about Deer Lodge State Prison where the inmates make incredibly beautiful horsehair hitched hat bands.