Something to keep you occupied

So I wrote this long poem while I was camping down in the Sonoran Desert basically comparing my experience in Arizona to a saguaro cactus, but the notepad I wrote it on has gone missing and has yet to turn up, so we'll have to make due with more of the same boring old journaling for now. Hope you don't mind too much....

Day 2 in Prescott.... let's see how much I can remember... it feels like so long ago! I remember Reuben and Jourdie were going to go pick up their chickens for the chicken coop that morning, but the people they were going to get them from sent them an email or text or something a bit before to inform them that the chickens had been killed by a coyote the night before, so in a fit of frustration they decided to drive out to Phoenix to buy some chickens from this guy on craigslist. I spent most of the day just trekking around town and checking out the sights. I visited downtown Prescott (everybody's hometown), checked out the arts district, visited the local info shop (complete with community kitchen, free box, and some lady complaining about water politics), got some lunch at the local greasy spoon, hiked down the creek, picked up some gatorade and more minutes for my phone. In some ways less eventful so far than my first evening in town, but fun, informative and enlightening at the same time. Did you know that if you pull bananas apart from each other when you get home from the grocery store they won't ripen as fast? Also, if you peel from the other end of the banana you don't have to deal with all those stringy things that come off! Interesting stuff!

So I came back from my little walk and chilled for a bit before Reuben and Jourdie got back, then we finished building the coop, put some posts in the ground for the fence and chucked the chickens into their new home. Jourdie made some food for a potluck dinner we went out to after we were finished working. The potluck dinner was more of a party with food, and all they had to eat with were chopsticks, so that's what I used. Ever try eating a pound cake with chopsticks? Not easy!

Made some new friends, chatted it up with an old guy (the dad of one of the guys at the party, tagging along for fun) who apparently went to Michigan back in the 60s (but after my dad had graduated, unfortunately), drank some Jaeger, listened to some MJ and generally had a merry ol' time.

I like these small towns with small colleges. It feels like everyone in my age group knows each other and lives really close to each other too. It was pretty wild going into the InfoShop and finding out that the volunteer working the desk was a friend of Reuben's, then going to the party in the evening and finding all these new people (and a couple familiar ones) who all seemed to know everyone else that went to school with them. I'll bet it makes for some interesting dramas at times.....

The morning of day 3, before I left for Phoenix, I met up with an old family friend and got some breakfast (at the same greasy spoon I went to for lunch the previous day, nonetheless. Small town, right?) and chatted about life, the world, the future, and all that big heavy stuff. It was quite a nice morning. I then headed out to Phoenix, but about 45 minutes into my trek I realized I had forgotten my pillow! Tucked inside the pillow was Geronimo, my stuffed giraffe of significant personal value (yes, I sleep with a stuffed giraffe), so I had to turn around. It's all good though, I had left a couple hours earlier than I was originally planning anyways, so I ended up arriving in Phoenix about when I said I would. Not bad, right?

I was welcomed into Phoenix with open arms by my aunt Pam, which was a great feeling, as being with relatives always is. This was especially poignant this time because I hadn't seen Pam since I was really little, and to be honest I really didn't even remember what she looked like! But when I saw her answer the door it all came back to me and I began to remember bits of memories from my first time in Phoenix (I must've been 6 or 7 at the time), beyond the large-breasted lady in Old Tuscon who danced with me (the visceral experience of having my head stuffed within her busom being the only part of that memory that stuck). We ate spaghetti and caught up that night, and I got to sleep in a real, very comfy bed for once. It was awesome.

Last thought for today, Pam's dogs: Bakhi and Gizmo. Both dogs were gifts for other people from Pam, and they both ended up back in her home through strange coincidences and long stories. Both little toy doggies, Bakhi was the energetic, needy and emotional one, light tan with shaggy hair and floppy ears. He was cute, yes, but I personally preferred Gizmo, the "regulator," as I liked to call him. Gizmo was a dark ash grey color, short hair (except on the head) and shorter ears, and a much more confident stride to his step, as if he knew he was the Boss. Bakhi would try to mess with Gizmo and he would just stand there and ignore him, it was hilarious. They were the cutest dogs too, I can't believe I didn't get a good picture of them! Oh well, c'est la vie.

Ok, next post I will talk about my week in Phoenix and the desert, then we'll be almost caught up! Until then, my friends..

Big ol' hole in the ground

So. The Grand Canyon. If you've never been there you probably won't understand, but it truly is the most epic sight you'll ever see in terms of natural geography, hands down. Standing from the South Rim, looking out over the canyon, it's hard to fathom how huge it really is. It looks more like a huge painting, beautiful and magnificent, but something to look at, not really something you could go down into and explore. So after about 2 minutes of standing there on the rim, saying "ooh, aah" and taking lots of pictures, I was asking myself, "what else?" With such a large area it was really hard to decide where to start. I wanted to be home by dinner-time, which limited the length of any hike I could take. I wanted to avoid large crowds of people, and seeing as how there were really only 4 day-hike trails, 2 of which were "easier" and more popular, the other 2 more "difficult" and less scenic, the options were fairly limited. I decided then and there that next time I visit the GC I would bring full backpacking gear and go on a 3-day minimum overnight hike through the canyon. There's really no other way to experience the Canyon in all its glory, I figured.

Nevertheless, I had several hours before I needed to return home, so I decided to go hike down the Hermit's Trail for a while. Seeing as how it's farther down the canyon from the main touristy area and in a part of the canyon that is not as deep or magnificent, I figured it'd be less congested in terms of hikers and I'd have more of a chance to experience the wilderness sans interruption. And I was right! I only ran into a few people on the trail, and (aside from the European tourists whose english didn't seem to good) they were all very friendly and talkative. Experienced hikers they were, none of these silly city-folk who are used to walking with their heads down and their eyes forward. The first guy I ran into had been out in the canyon for something like 5 days and looked just exhausted. But he was still really friendly and took our encounter as a chance to catch his breath and prepare for the last leg out of the canyon (he was really close, considering how far he must've hiked the past few days). We chatted for a while and talked about the midwest (he was from Wisconsin, I think), and then parted ways.

I just want to say, when I'm hiking in the wilderness I really enjoy the encounters I have with fellow hikers. Some people are more reserved and shy, but by and large, hikers have been hiking for so long either by themselves or with the same person/people, when they run into you, a lone wandering soul, they just get so excited that they have someone new to talk to the conversation can end up going on for a long time, and I'm usually the one who ends it, since I want to continue on my adventure. It reminds me of the inherent good and companionship of wandering souls and makes me smile.

So anyways, I ended up making it down to the bottom of the canyon (which wasn't as deep as other parts, since the part I was in was formed by a feeder creek instead of the full Colorado River), ran into some more hikers and asked them how far it was to the "dripping falls", and they pointed to a distant canyon wall (the white one in the pic, if you can figure that out). It felt very far, so I walked a bit more, took a picture and turned back, expecting it to take twice as long to get back up to the rim as it did to come down (I had been hiking for about an hour and 15 minutes or so by that point). Well, I dunno, maybe I'm just good at meditating on long uphill hikes or something, but it really only took me about 10 minutes longer to get up the wall as it did to get down, so I still had an hour and a half to kill before I had to leave. I guess they were right, slow and steady really does win the race.

So I drove back into the main area and searched around first for some postcards (which were easy to find), and then a belt buckle (which, it turns out, are not sold anywhere in the Grand Canyon tourist area. Surprise!). By the time I decided to send the postcards though, the post office was closed (bastards closed at 4:30!) so I couldn't even get stamps. The postcards are still sitting in my car..... lol. I suppose I'll send them next time I get some more postcards, though by then I kinda feel like they'll have lost their significance. Postmarks are important to me, so if it's not postmarked in the Canyon itself, what's the point? Meh, oh well.

After driving back to Flag and eating some leftovers for dinner, Leigh, Heidi and I headed out to check out this Reggae show at a local venue called the Orpheus. The band itself was....okay, I suppose. Not worth the $15 cover charge, but it was fun nonetheless. They were really weird, they kept switching between reggae and hard rock. And the guy's voice was really weird, it kept wavering all over the place and to my ears sounded really pretentious and annoying. But I'm a bit of a music snob, so if you're not as critical as I am you'd probably like it. Heidi left after only a couple songs to help some friend who had been taken to the hospital, and around that point I lost track of Leigh, who didn't return that night.... but still had a good time, apparently. Whatever, it's all good. No 40-year-old republicans to buy us drinks this time though, but $2 pbrs so it's all good. I hung out and listend to a couple more songs, giving them the benefit of the doubt, but then got tired of it and headed outside. I then ran into a couple friends from before and hung with them for a while, smoking cigs and chillin outside, before heading back to the casa and hanging out with Heidi for a little while (they wouldn't let her visit her friend in the hospital because she wasn't related). Then it was bed time and I passed out on the couch once again.

So that was Flagstaff. Crazy college party town, I had a really fun time. The next morning, Kelli and I drove down to Sedona, had lunch at a Panera-esque restaurant with a beautiful view of the surrounding red rocks, and hiked around for a bit on some trails near town. Then Kelli went to hang with her old golf friends and I walked around Sedona for a while before heading down to Prescott for my next couchsurfing experience.

Sedona is full of fortune tellers, mystics and psychics, and rightfully so. It really does feel like the twilight zone, or maybe a martian oasis, with the crazy red rock formations and the super expensive tourist shops. I did not get my fortune read (I'll save that for the wildnerness of the northwest), though I did see some pretty cool art in "Sedona's number 1 art gallery" or something. I guess they're too rich for Artists' Cooperatives though... didn't see any of those.

On the way from Sedona to Prescott I stopped in the little mountain village of Jerome and found it quite endearing. Very narrow roads up and down steep mountain inclines with 15 mph speed limits, rickity old buildings repainted so many times the paint was peeling underneath the peeling paint, very eclectic little stores and art galleries, and...lo and behold...an artists' cooperative gallery right there in the middle! I went straight in there and looked around for a bit, but the postcards were all $3 each and I'm poor, so I left emptyhanded (save for a photograph of the gallery's sign). It was really cool though, to see a successful co-op out in the middle of the mountain/desert. Artists are the shit.

I then arrived in Prescott to my hosts' house (Reuben and Jourdie) to be greeted by Reuben's friend Clancey, who was also there visiting from California. We hung out for a bit, then Reuben came home and we talked for a minute before heading out to a friend's house to witness a pig butchering. Apparently the way they slaughter pigs in the third world is by taking a sledgehammer to their head to stun them before stabbing them right in the forehead and again in the jugular (or something like that). Well, the only sledgehammer this guy had was a small hand-sledge, so whacking the pig with it really just shocked it more than rendering it unconscious. So it wasn't the most humane slaughter, but I guess it worked, since the pig was already dead by the time we got there. Surrounding it were four mexicanos with blades who obvoiusly knew what they were doing, and while we were there they were shaving all the hair off the pig so that the skin could be left on the meat. Hot water, knives and a sharpening block was all they needed. It took forever, they were still shaving after we went to visit another friend in the neighborhood, walked home to grab my camera and walked back, but it seemed like once they got that done it was just a matter of chopping up the pig itself, which really couldn't have taken too long.

Anyways, visiting the other friend was another interesting experience in urban farm animal raising. These guys had just purchased about 100 chicks, which were all chilling in 3 big tubs under some heat lamps, chirping their hearts out. One had managed to escape and was running around the floor of the garage, but we grabbed it and put it back. It was a trip seeing all those little baby chickens, apparently they have a farm out of town a little ways where they were going to take the chicks once they got a little bigger to begin producing eggs. But 100 chicks, it really was kinda ridiculous. They were super cute though, so I can't complain.

After all that excitement we went home and had dinner, then headed over to another friend's house for a little party/jam session and I got to play the bass for about 45 minutes, which was super awesome. I haven't played bass in years, and it all came flowing back to me really quick. It felt good to make music again. :)

While at the party I met one guy who had been working as a park ranger for a while, another guy from Vancouver who was coming back from some sort of desert living-off-the-land convention and stopped in Prescott on the way, got to eat some tasty Caribou and Elk meat (wild caught game is the tastiest!) hunted by the sister of one of the guys at the party (I really wanted to meet this girl, but alas, she was not there), and drank some tasty Tecate beers. (note: Tecate is not tasty beer). All in all it was a fun and very surprising afternoon/evening. Who knew there was so much urban farming going on in Prescott?

Oh yeah, finally, a note about Prescott's geography. The city of Prescott is located in the middle of a "valley," though really it felt like a crater, since there were mountains in every direction but the area surrounding Prescott was very flat. It was really cool, and seemed like the perfect place for a city to thrive. Apparently Prescott used to be the capital of Arizona when it was still a territory, and according to signs around downtown, it is also the Cowboy Capital of the West, being one of the first thriving towns in the southwest and also a capital. There was a lot of history to this town, and it all felt strangely familiar.... I definitely have cowboy genes somewhere in me. It was cool.

Ok, that's it for today. This afternoon I'm going to Tucson with a couple friends, then tomorrow is Beerfest at the Tempe Town Lake (yes, they have a man-made lake in Tempe, just south of Scottsdale. It' a big waste of water, but hey, who can really complain about a significant body of water in the middle of the desert?), so the next post probably won't come until Sunday. But stay tuned, there's much more to discuss! Prescott day 2 and Phoenix/Scottsdale, coming up!

Alpine Hippie Wonderland

The drive to Flagstaff really was quite a trip. Before I crossed into Arizona I was under the impression that I had entered the desert and wouldn't be leaving until I got to California. Little did I know, Flagstaff (and most of northern Arizona, for that matter) is in a world of its own. As the altitude rose, the temperature dropped. Even though it was still sunny as all get-out, I started seeing snow patches in the shade. The wind got chillier, to the point where I had to put the top up on my convertible. I could begin to make out a very large, snow-capped mountain in the distance.

As I got closer I realized that Flagstaff was at the foot of this mountain, and I began to realize how different of a world it really is up here. Flagstaff has four seasons (well, three and a half, but still). The air is thinner, the wind less predictable, there are occasional morning mists and a constant buzz of conversation about how to get into the expensive ski parks without paying an arm and a leg. There are few places in this country as unique as Flagstaff: a large State-funded university, a thriving tourist/skiing industry, an altitude of about 7000 feet, and the crisp, low-precipitation desert weather, Flagstaff is pretty much beautiful 90% of the year. Though it was still "winter" when I was there (a fair amount of snow was still in the shady areas), it felt like early spring in Michigan, highs ranging in the mid- to upper-60s, sun shining, winds not too strong. I immediately felt at home. And then there were the people!

The couch I surfed while in Flagstaff was hosted by three peace-loving hippie girls, covering the range from über-shower-once-a-month-subsist-on-granola-and-tofu hippie to the still-semi-religious-laid-back-river-guide hippie. They were all hippies and all their friends were hippies too, and pretty much everyone I came across in the town had at least some tinge of counter-culture to them, so that only increased the sense of kinship. I only noticed a few Generics (i.e. frat boys/sorostitutes), and they seemed to keep to themselves. This town was like Austin minus the big-cityness/government, like Ann Arbor minus the frat-dominance. And then there was the mountain, which attracted all the skiers and the tourism and the money. It was really quite an interesting dynamic, I can only think of a few other places that might be like it (Boulder? Somewhere in Washington?).

So anyways, back to the story. I arrived about an hour earlier than I was expecting to Flagstaff, but it ended up working out fine. When I finally found the house, Heidi came out to meet me and led me into the kitchen where there were 4 people (all with varying degrees of hippie indicators on their bodies) standing around chatting, none of which actually lived there. This came as a startling surprise, particularly because all of the communications I had had with Heidi had indicated that they were all going to be super busy with school work and wouldn't be much fun. But hey, it was Fat Tuesday, I guess a little letting loose was in order right?

A few minutes into meeting all these people, more people came in, and one (Leigh, who did live there) was carrying a 30-pack of cheap Mexican beer. Beer for dinner! Works for me! So I cracked one open and by the end of it Heidi was like "oh yeah, by the way, you're in a high altitude, so alcohol's going to affect you more." I'll be fine, I thought, I can handle beer... lol, well that was something of a mistake. 2 beers in I was already pretty tipsy (probably much of which having to do with the emptiness of my stomach), so I made some salad and ate that along with some bread, and then drank more. We did some shots in celebration of the festive occasion, as more people kept filing in and out of the house. Then eventually, after we were all good and crunked, we headed out to the Green Room, where there was a reggae/funk band playing (no cover, yay!). [pic to left, me and my hosts, Kelli, Leigh and Heidi, several drinks in...]

At the bar we met up with another friend, so it was Heidi, Leigh, their friend and I. Heidi said "watch this" and then somehow managed to convince this 40-year-old republican guy to buy us all a couple rounds of drinks, so we got to drink for free! All I had to do was, well into the second round, argue with him about Obama's stimulus policy. His main argument was "research more," and when I told him I had, and made some valid arguments about success versus opportunity for success he got kinda quiet, then just repeated his research mantra. It was kinda funny. At one point Heidi jumped in and said something about McCain wanting to reinstate the death penalty for children, and I think I heard him say he was in favor of capital punishment for 12-year-olds... some guys I'll just never understand. But hey, free drinks, so what the hey. I'll roll with it.

During the band's intermission (around midnight, probably), a drumming troupe came in and performed on the floor. We lost Leigh a while before to the crowd, but I think at one point we noticed her with a drum, or maybe just dancing like a wild thing in the middle of it all. Towards the end of the drumming we decided to head out (after Heidi noticed her foot was bleeding profusely from accidentally stepping on some broken glass). After spending about 20 minutes trying to get Leigh to come with us (she was very resistant...and also very drunk...), Kelli told us to just go home, she'd deal with Leigh (ominous, but effective). We went home and started fixing up Heidi's foot, and not 10 minutes later Kelli and Leigh walk in. We were dumbstruck. Kelli must've just hauled Leigh off by her keester, kicking and screaming. At any rate, it didn't last long. Kelli went to bed and about 15 or 20 minutes later Leigh grabbed her dog Luna and headed into the night again. We didn't see her until the next morning. A Wild Child, that one. She's gonna go far....

So yeah, first night in Flagstaff, epic win. Made lots of new friends, heard some fun music, got some beads, some free drinks, and ended up with a great story! I think I'm beginning to like Flag... The next day I decided to explore the town. First I headed up towards campus and found a relatively empty cemetery (compared to cemeteries I visited in places like New Orleans, Savannah and the like), then I turned around and headed into town, finding lots of eclectic stores and art galleries, murals and restaurants. There was a crepe store right by this one really cool mural, but it was closed (why I could not tell...), so I hit up the Flagstaff Brewing Company, drank some beer and had a killer green chili burger. While I was sitting at the bar, I got into a conversation with the guy next to me and he told me to check out the Walnut Creek National Monument. I had seen it on the NPS website and on the way into Flag, but hadn't really considered going there, as I figured the Grand Canyon was enough. But hey, from what this guy said, it was only like 15 minutes away and there were some really sweet Indian ruins. And with my annual pass, how could I pass it up? So what the hell, I thought, I've got an hour and a half or so before the park closes, I'll check it out.

I got back to the house and was going to invite Heidi along for the excursion, but she was napping and I didn't want to wake her, so I headed out solo. Walnut Creek really was quite a sight. Half the trail was closed off due to a rock slide, but even still, seeing the way these Indians lived was amazing. As opposed to the last Indian ruins I saw on mountains, these guys actually lived IN the mountain. There were different types of sediment along the side of the hill, and so the Indians dug out the softer rock and used the harder rock above as the roofs for their houses. It was so cool! These Indians were mountain goats true and true, it was quite impressive.

I returned to the house around 4:30, about when Heidi was waking up from her nap, and proceeded to nap myself. That evening was pretty chill, just sat around, read, put photos up online, just chilled. It was nice, especially compared to the craziness of the previous night, so I was thankful. I had to get my beauty sleep, for the next day I was heading to the Grand Canyon! More on that in my next post, to be continued..........

Catching Up round 2...Natural Wonders and Jake the Snake

Full Day Numero Uno in Santa Fe. Main excursion: Bandelier National Park. Bandelier was about an hour or so away from Santa Fe, right in the first big canyon of the mountains to the west. The main attraction of Bandelier was the Native American ruins. There was a pretty standard pueblo at the bottom of the canyon, but once you got up the north side a little you started seeing man-made holes in the mountainside, with blackened ceilings and small holes at the top for exhaust. Turns out the Natives that lived in this area actually built their homes attached right to the mountainside. From the pictures in the brochure, it looked like they would dig holes into the rock to insert poles into and build roofs and walkways along the side of the mountain. So they weren't actually living "in" the mountain, more just attached to it. But it's all good, these were my first Indian ruins so I was excited nonetheless.

So I don't know if it's St John's' curriculum or just the people I was staying with, but every time they came back from school we just jumped right in to some deep intellectual conversation, complete with points, counterpoints, arguments and counterarguments. It was really something else! I'm used to Michigan, where you get home from school and your brain is mush and the last thing you want to do is talk about the day's intellectual conquests. Maybe studying only primary sources instead of all of the varied criticisms and rebuttals of said primary resource leaves peoples' minds more ready to form their own opinions. I think I like this way of schooling. Apparently they have an Eastern Philosophy graduate program at St John's, I might have to look into that when I get back from PC. Talk about throwing your head into a spin! The farthest we got in Eastern philosophy in any of the classes I took on the East (particularly Chinese Politics and Zen Buddhism) was the conclusion that the fundamentals of eastern thought are pretty much the polar opposite of that of western thought. I can only imagine what spending an entire year immersing yourself in only those fundamentals would be like......awesome!

So yeah, if I remember correctly, that evening was the night of the Oscars, and my hosts also had "band" practice (they're in a band that started out as a joke then became reality. Anyone want to be in my joke/reality band?), so I met up with some friends of Greg's who he got me in touch with on the way in to town for some drinks. This was when I came to the stark realization that Santa Fe really did have no nightlife. First we met up on the town square around 8 or so (the square was virtually empty). Then we went into a bar/restaurant on the square that they recommended as being pretty good. We sat down and I noticed how high the prices were (yes, everything is expensive in Santa Fe), then I noticed how few people were in the bar (maybe a total of 6 people not including us or the waitstaff). The TVs were on to the Oscars but the volume was all the way down, so it was really hard to tell what was going on. This obvoiusly was not the scene on a Sunday night. But then my new friends told me that this is pretty much what it's like every night of the week. Crazy! I guess people only go out for gallery openings and other rich-person-type things. Or house parties for the college kids. It was kinda sad, to be honest. I don't think I could handle that in a town. I like going out too much!

But Greg's friends were awesome! Eddy, Greg's bud from volunteer stuff over the years, is working for the State restoring New Mexico's riverbeds, pulling out invasive species and replanting native ones (among other things). Tia, Eddy's girlfriend, is a struggling artist, like so many of Santa Fe's socialite hipsters. Maybe she can get with Jodie, the other struggling sociarthipster I met, to start that Co-op I think they should start! One can only hope..... They also told me I should visit Prescott in Arizona on the way down to Phoenix, as it had a similar young/artsy scene as Santa Fe and was cool, so I took note of that (but in the end ended up having a completely different experience in Prescott, as I'll get to later).

It was around this time that I found out that a few friends of mine were going to be in San Diego at different points during the second week of March. Originally, I had planned to be in San Diego the first week of march, but in light of this revelation, I decided to slow down my trip through the Arizona/New Mexico desert so that my arrival in SD would coincide with that of my friends, creating a greater chance that we might be able to meet up. So, taking this into account, I decided to extend my visit in Santa Fe by a day, along with stopping a couple extra times in Arizona on the way from Flag to Phoenix. In effect, I just decided to make my trip through the desert a bit more relaxed, which I will never complain about.

In the morning of full day number two in Santa Fe, Annie and I walked down the local art street (where all the galleries are, just a block from their house) and saw some interesting stuff, then went to a local coffee shop and read for a while over tea. In the afternoon, I decided to make use of the national parks annual pass I picked up the day before and go visit the Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks national monument. This place was not even listed on the NPS website, as it is maintained by the Bureau of Land Management and thus not deemed worthy of note by those elitist National Park Service goombahs. It not being listed at nps.gov got me excited though, it made me feel like I might've found a gem that not so many people knew about, and in the end I guess I was right! There were certainly still people there, but it felt much less crowded than Bandelier, and thus more personal of an experience. I hiked up a trail, through a narrow canyon, up the side of a mountain and onto a high mesa with an absolutely beautiful vista of the surrounding area. I could see mountains of all different colors in every direction, and below me were the most phallic rock formations I'd ever seen. It was a remarkable experience, not only because of the view but also because I was the only person on the mesa when I got up there (there were a few people heading up as I went down, but not more than 2 or 3 groups). It was so peaceful, I could just sit there watching the birds, letting the hard (but warm) wind blow through my hair. Awesome.

By the time I got home from Kasha-Katuwe, it was naptime, so I slept for a while until my hosts came back from school. That evening I taught them how to play Euchre and then they taught me how to play a game called Dos Manos (or something). All the while we drank beers and then I broke into the whiskey and ended up losing a lot of games, but still had a great time. Thankfully there was no betting or money involved, or I probably would've lost a lot more than my wits... lol

So that was pretty much my experience of Santa Fe. Adventurous day trips into national monuments and low-key evenings hanging with friends. A little art here and there, but I really didn't do a whole lot of exploring of Santa Fe itself. Guess I'll have to save that for next time.

Tuesday morning (again with a bit of a headache from the night before) I headed off to Flagstaff. On the way I stopped at a couple more national parks, first at El Malpais, an off-the-beaten-path national monument of million-year-old lava flows. Driving down the local highway to get to the park I picked up an Indian hitchhiker who called himself "Jake the Snake". Jake was hilarious. He told me stories about how his woman in Albequerque is always complaining, how he was married for four years, had six kids, and then his wife died of a heart attack, how good piñon is hard to find these days (he was in Albequerque looking for piñon... I still haven't figured out what piñon is.....), and how he was only going home to change clothes and then head out again to Gallup to meet his uncle for some sort of event (maybe a Rodeo?). It was an entertaining 20 minutes or so before I turned into the park and let him continue on his way. I would've driven him all the way to Gallup, since it was on the way to Flagstaff, but I was on a fairly tight schedule and didn't have the time to wait for him to get washed up at home. Oh well, I'm sure he made it there soon enough.

El Malpais is one of those parks that is really not very well developed. In order to truely appreciate the area you have to go backpacking for at least one night. It's a big park with lots to see, but only two roads that run on the north and south edges of the park, so the only way to see the inner parts is to hike in. I had to get through the Petrified Forest and on to Flagstaff by dinner time, so I only had time to trek in for about 15 or 20 minutes before turning back. Another thing to add to my to-do list for next time. I did see some pretty neat caves and sinkholes though! Shoulda brought my (currently non-existant) headlamp!

After El Malpais I stopped at the Petrified Forest national park. First of all, let me say that the Painted Desert is probably one of the most magnificent vistas I have ever seen. Absolutely beautiful scenes of desert hills in all different shades of red, orange and yellow in every direction. The air was so clean and clear you could even see the mountain neighboring Flagstaff, something like 90 miles away. Absolutely amazing. Almost more amazing than the grand canyon, if I do say so myself. Even just driving through the park was amazing, with all different kinds of millions of years old rock and petrified tree remains, the sense of natural history was so impressive.

The petrified trees were pretty awesome too. Beautiful colors in those rocks, so many different shades and hues. Great photos from there, here's a taste.



I'll leave it at that for today. Next up, Flagstaff hippies, the Grand Canyon, and more!

Catching Up....Borderline alcoholics and desert yuppies

I have fallen behind in my blogging duties. My apologies to all, I will try to make the next few posts concise and digestible, as there is much to discuss. I shall begin where I left off, taking in the rays in Terlingua. My last night in town, it was just me and Cynta chillin at her place, so we decided to watch a movie. After first deciding to watch the Motorcycle Diaries but failing to find the DVD (Cynta assumed she lent it to someone and forgot... same thing that happened to my copy of that movie!), we decided to watch a film that was made right in the area we were living, titled Los Trés Entierros de Melquiades Estrada, or the Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. The story of the film is about a Texan cowboy (Tommy Lee Jones) who befriends an illegal immigrant, who is killed by a novice Border Patrol guard (boo hiss) after he discharged his rifle trying to kill a fox or something. After the local authorities decide not to investigate, the cowboy, Pete Perkins, decides to take the law into his own hands, abducting the perpetrating border patrol guard and taking him on an epic journey along with Estrada's body to the place where Estrada was from to bury his body.

Aside from the obvious connotations regarding Texan cowboys' lack of confiedence for local law enforcement, I also took away a keen sense of how strong the cross-border camaraderie was (and still is) between rural Americans and rural Mexicans (we're all just people trying to get by, after all). There is a sense of understanding and comfortability that arises when a white man walks into a Mexican bar and begins conversing with the bartender in fluent spanish, without prejudice or preconception. It is as if they have been living next to each other for centuries, the only thing separating them being their skin color. The conflict only arises with stupid border patrol guards who don't know the lay of the land and don't bother trying to learn it before swooping in and imposing their own rules.

Speaking of border patrol, did you know that the officers in that specific branch of law enforcement are only there because they failed ALL of the other tests to get into other, more significant positions? Yes, border patrol guards are the cream of the crap, the top of the bottom, the worst of the best. It's sad to think that that's how much we value our relationship with our neighbors to the south.

Anyways, moving right along, the next day I drove to El Paso. The first part of the drive was awesome, heading up right along the Rio Grande through more national parkland and beautiful rocky passes. I passed through Marfa (again) and continued northwest, into the mountain time zone and into a whole new world, one really unlike any I have encountered so far.

El Paso sent my head in a spin upon first arriving. Highway signs to Juárez all had "no firearms" images attached to them. I would look north, towards New Mexico, and see mountains and occasional glimmers of fancy mansions and mercedez benzes surrounded by rocks and trees. Then I'd turn my head south and see vast and endless ghettos of shacks and one-story pueblos, probably only getting electricity a few hours each day. I heard stories of journalists in Juárez being massacred and strung up in the trees of this one park to warn others of what would happen to them if they went investigating about the drug problems in the area. I saw cars all over the place with pieces of paper saying "untitled" in the place of a license plate. Cars obviously boosted in Juárez, stripped of their plates and serial numbers and resold on the cheap to needy mexicans only to be driven back over the border again, possibly even smuggling more drugs in. Did you know that 2/3rds of the metropolitain population lives in Juárez, crossing the border every day to come work in El Paso? There's also a 40 mile radius around the city in which the mexican workers are allowed pretty much unfettered access to, provided they don't bring any guns and go back to mexico when the work day is over. The cops are all corrupt and the drug cartels run the show. The level of danger here was much higher than it was in New Orleans, but, interestingly enough, this time I felt much safer, if not more comfortable.

The reason for this lies in my company. I was staying with my friend Monica, who I met through the computer lab at Michigan. Last Fall Monica moved out to El Paso to teach elementary school (don't ask me why she chose El Paso). She lives in a house with three other people, of which I only really met one. Shane (the guy I met) was the nicest guy. He's had a troubled past, spent some time in the marines, had it all and lost it all, and now he's getting back on his feet, getting ready to go back to school and trying to find work where he can. As I saw him, Shane was like the big papa bear; kind eyes and loving care for his flock, but pick a fight with him and he will fuck your shit up.

The day before I arrived, Shane had fallen off the roof of a carport he was working on for this guy up the street and torn the tenden in his achilles heel. Even so, despite all the pain and agony that came with attempting to walk around in his cast, even with the crutches, Shane went way out of his way to show me a good time. We drove around town in the convertible, checking out the sights and learning some interesting cultural facts about the town (did you know mexican drivers are terrible, and none of them have insurance, so if one runs into you they just drive off?). After that we went to the grocery store, picked up some hot sauce and orange juice, and went back to their place to cook up some of the bombinest wings I've ever had. Having satisfied our hunger, around 3:30pm we headed out to check out the bar scene around town. We hit up all Shane's favorites, from dingy dives with dollar beer grab bags to a tequila lounge housed in an old auto shop garage.

By 5:30 or so, when Monica met up with us, we had probably had around 4 beers each already, so I was feelin pretty good. We went back to the house for a minute, gussied up and headed out again to meet up with Monica's friends at a tasty mexican restaurant. Having drank all those beers already and ate those wings not too long ago, I refrained from ordering anything aside from sangría and eating chips and salsa while everyone else stuffed themselves.

By the way, Monica's friends are hilarious. Pretty much all of them are beautiful gay men, an artist, a teacher, a spokesperson for a Texas congressman. And they were fabulous! Post-dinner we briefly stopped at a starbucks to utilize their internet and buy some plane tickets, then we headed over to the local gay bar for more drinks and partytime. As the night wore on and the alcohol built up, I got jollier and jollier, as I do, and before long I was having the time of my life. We ordered a round of upside-down pineapple cake shots (which we had to explain to the bartender how to make), ordered a vodka martini for Shane (the first time they forgot to add the vermouth so it was just vodka and olive juice.....yuck), and I switched from beers to liquors. And you know how that goes.....

By the end of the night we had stopped at two more bars, one with a college feel (and way too many people for my tastes), and the back to the local watering hole by their house, where I ended up purging some of the last drinks I ordered and almost lost my glasses in the bush (good thing Monica was paying attention...). We stopped at Whataburger and I threw some grease in my stomach and then we headed back to the casa and promptly passed out.

The next morning, as you can imagine, was a hard one to wake up to. I had a six hour drive and a national monument ahead of me, and I had woken up late and had the worst hangover ever. The plan to leave by 10 turned into 11:30, and due to spending so much on drinks the night before I didn't feel wealthy enough to go out and buy a real breakfast. Gas station coffee and muffins, 3 dollars. Could've been better.

Nevertheless, I arrived at White Sands national monument still with a bit of a headache, but what I found pretty much erased any lingering hangover that I still had. The crisp, dry desert air, the steady breeze flowing across the tops of the dunes, the blazing sun, and above all, the beautiful scenery all around me. It was truly an amazing experience that made me completely forget about the night before.


Magnificent! If I had more time I would've tried dune-sledding, there were a lot of people out doing that. But alas, it was time to get a move on, gotta make it to Santa Fe by dinner!

I arrived in the Adobe City around 7:30 or so, only to find myself lost and confused. I drove around for 20 minutes or so trying to find the house of my couchsurfing host, Annie, but to no avail (it turns out I had mis-written the address as 1605 instead of 1065... I blame the hangover). To boot, Annie wasn't answering her phone when I called, so I felt like a stranger in a strange world, totally lost and amiss as to what to do.

I drove around for a while until I found a gas station. After gassing up I went inside and asked at the counter if it were possible there were two streets with the same name. The guy showed me a map of the city, but no further progress. Luckily I had the phone number of another couchsurfer, Jess, who was unable to host me but had expressed interest in meeting up for a beer or two. So I called up Jess and what do you know, he answers! "Oh yeah!" he says, "we're down here at this pub drinking beers and getting dinner, come meet up with us!" So I find the place on the map and head on down, walk in the bar and out back to the patio, and find Jess and his friend visiting from Houston sitting there drinking beer and eating chips and salsa. Yay! Friends!

Shortly after sitting down, Annie calls me back and we get the directions sorted out. I invite her out to the bar, but she's only 20 and they're super strict about who they let in (under 21 only with parental supervision), so we agree to just meet up at her place after dinner. Soon after getting off the phone, several more of Jess's friends join us at the table. Things get lively, I meet a struggling artist (who I recommended to start an artists' co-op) and a woman who's joining the peace corps in Morocco (whoa, she's actually leaving tomorrow! It has been a while since my last post....), along with a slew of other interesting characters. I ordered a tasty and satisfying burger and had a dandy time. We left the bar around 9pm and I headed over to Annie's house, this time with accurate directions.

When I arrived at the casa, I found one lone guy sitting at the dining room table working on his laptop. After brief introductions I find out that he is one of Annie's housemates and Annie and her boyfriend were currently out at Outback getting ribs with a gift certificate. We hung for a while and talked about St. John's University (which, it turns out, Cynta from Terlingua went to back in the 70s) and their academic style (all primary sources, like following the discoveries as they're discovered). A bit later, Annie and Cooper return from their outback/beer excursion and we sit around and have intellectual discussions over beer until bedtime. I get to sleep in the makeout nook and there are some interesting stains on the cushion, so I put a blanket down to sleep on top of, with an awesome down comforter to complete the Travis sandwich. I slept very well that night.

Ok, I've written enough for one post. Stay tuned.... adventures in Santa Fe, Flagstaff, the Grand Canyon, and more of Central Arizona! Next time, on Midwestern Cooperation!

¡Viva Terlingua! Mi corazón del desierto (oh yeah, and Austin too)

So yeah, I spent over a week in Austin. It was pretty great, I got to hang with old friends, meet some new ones, spend some quality time with my relatives, and see the old sights so familiar to my heart. Austin is my home away from home, and so everything I did there, even the stuff I've never done before, felt familiar and comfortable. This was not part of my adventure across the States. It was more just a waypoint in between the real purpose of this trip.

I did get a chance to go to a pretty unique Lesbian Drag King show one night, followed by hours of dancing at a gay dance club, which was certainly fun. It was basically just a lip-synching, choreographed series of performances from mostly women dressed up as men (most of which probably used male pronouns on a regular basis). There were a couple of "femme" women, one of which did quite the burlesque telephone operator strip-tease, complete with spinning tassles. We left after the first couple of songs of the second half. The one that gave us that urge for going was a pretty sad Dubya spoof where someone came out in a suit with a Bush mask on and proceeded to prance around the stage, at one point pulling out a bag of white powder and shoving it in his face, at another pulling out a banana and pretending to shoot himself in the head. It was pretty lame, so we decided to bounce.

The next morning, after maybe 3 hours of sleep on Black Star Stephen's futon, he woke me up and we headed about an hour out of town to Lexington, TX, home of Snow's BBQ, for some early morning cooked meat. The place opened at 8am, and according to several news articles (including one from the New Yorker), it was highly advised to arrive at opening and expect about an hour wait to get your food. Snow's website said "open from 8 am until we run out of bbq!" We took all this advice to heart and decided to wake up at the crack of dawn and hit the road by 7:15 or so, to ensure that our trip would not be in vain.

Arriving at Snow's, we were pleasantly surprised to find a line that took no more than 10 minutes to wind our way through. And to boot, by the time it was my turn to make my order, Snow himself was behind the counter! This was a truly, uniquely Texan endeavor, I felt, waking up so early for a BBQ breakfast served by a guy who would have looked very comfortable in a cowboy hat and chaps, so I was happy. The food was amazing too! Sweet tea, beans baked in loads of grease and fat, cole slaw and potato salad to go along with the loads of moist brisket, succulent ribs and some amazing pork, all smothered with bbq sauce served from water bottles on the table. It topped off my experience of central Texas very nicely indeed, and I was home by 12:30 to take a 3 hour nap and get some laundry done before going to see Slumdog Millionaire with my aunt to celebrate the Valentine's holiday. The only thing I didn't get around to doing while in Austin was to go down to San Antonio for a rodeo. Maybe next time, I suppose. I did watch a bit of bull-riding on TV though, so I guess that counts....

By Monday morning I definitely felt the road calling me once again, and so I packed my bags and headed west. As I drove I became progressively more and more excited as the landscape around me became drier and less vegetated. Rolling hills turned to craggy rocks. Woods and forests gave way to arid arrays of bushes and occasional trees. By the time I hit I-10, the roads were flat and straight, the speed limits increased, and I could safely say I was in West Texas proper. I could feel my heart growing larger as I could see farther and farther into the distance. It was quite the amazing experience.

I decided to stop on Marfa on the way to Terlingua, since I had heard that it was a pretty neat place with a vibrant artist community and some interesting sights, including Marfa's Lights, strange lights on the horizon that can be seen at night. Unfortunately, when I got there I found out that most restaurants were closed on Mondays, and the fact that it was President's Day pretty much cemented that bet. After asking at the tourist info center and talking on the phone with my host in Terlingua, I decided to just head over to the local laundromat, which had a relatively new, completely unmarked ice cream/coffee shop attached to the side for some Bluebell Ice Cream and Big Bend Coffee. I then headed out to Terlingua at a quick pace, since Cynta (my host) and the other couchsurfers staying at her place were meeting for dinner at the local Starlight Theater, 2-for-1 burgers!

Driving into Terlingua was a trip. Being a "ghost town," I expected very little in the way of modern establishments such as restaurants, hotels, gas stations and the like. I was quite surprised, then, to find, after a 2 hour drive through arid desert and maybe one farmhouse every 10 miles, a very vibrant culture stretching from Study Butte all the way to the Terlingua ghost town. Many eclectic eating establishments, a new "camping hostel" with tents and a school bus on the side, possibly converted into restrooms or something, and a diverse array of housing accomodations ranging from trailers and RVs, to reconstructed ruins. It became clear to me very quickly that this ghost town was ghostly no longer. Many aging hippies and flower children had discovered this beautiful spot and decided to come out here and live on the land. Cynta was one of these.

Back in the day, Cynta was a serious athlete. River guide, surfer, hiker, the real outdoorsy type. Tough as nails, strong as a bull, skinny as a rail, she was at the top of her game. But maybe 15 years ago, it all came crashing down when her joints started seizing up and she was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. Needless to say, her career was ruined. You cant exactly be a hiking or boating guide when you can't do any sort of heavy lifting, let alone walk far without dealing with serious pain. But that didn't stop Cynta. She packed her bags, sold her stuff, came out here to Terlingua and bought an old ruin and the land surrounding it. Following that, she set to work restoring the building using her bare hands and the help of some illegal mexicans from across the river. It took 10 long years of hard work, but it has really paid off. She retained the original layout of the house, but added many modern additions, such as a composting toilet, a rain barrel collection system, even high-speed internet. Meanwhile, she cemented her place in the community and got to know her neighbors, to the point that now when I meet anyone in the area and mention that I'm staying with Cynta, they immediately respond with warm messages and hugs for me to deliver to her. Despite her disability, Cynta's heart has only grown larger while she has lived down here. She loves everyone and everyone loves her.

Over the past year or two, Cynta was recently turned on to Couchsurfing, and boy am I grateful! Her house is absolutely perfect for surfers, with no less than 7 sleeping areas aside from her own, a beautiful front patio to watch the sunrise every morning, a fire pit to hang around and make smores on at night, and the most gorgeous view of the Park (which I am staring at as I write this). On top of this great house, Cynta already had 5 other couchsurfers staying here when I arrived, so it just turned into one great big party! So awesome!

Just being here makes me want to buy a ruin myself and just stay forever. It's too bad so many people have gotten here already, there's very little land left for sale, and when there is it's like a fire sale at salvation army. I don't think people around here have really noticed any of this economic crisis that everyone else is freaking out about. They're just too far off the grid, they've created their own little cosmos very much independent from the rest of the world. Even the border patrol guys around here are chill! Now how hard is that to imagine?

Yesterday (Tuesday) was my first full day in the area, and I milked it like no other. In the morning, after our sunrise maté and coconut rice breakfast, we all went on a nice little trek around the ghost town with the dogs, checking out fossils, taking pictures and throwing the frisbee around. After that, Cynta, Taylor, Julietta and I went geo-caching (something I've been wanting to do since I first heard about it), and managed to find 4 caches on top of the 3 they found the other day, all within 4 miles of Cynta's house. It was awesome! I gotta get myself one of those GPS thingies so I can do some geo-caching of my own. 21-st century treasure hunt ftw!!

After geo-caching we went to lunch and I got a tasty Reuben. Then we headed back to la casa and I got myself together and headed off to the Park. Big Bend National Park is some of the most gorgeous land I have ever seen. I think I stopped at almost every turnoff on the road to take pictures of the scenery around me (being in a convertible made that really easy). I hiked around the Chisos basin for a while, all the time half-fearing half-hoping that a mountain lion was close on my tail, ready to pounce when I least expected it. It made the hike more exciting. :P

After the hike I was pooped, so I drove all the way down to the other end of the park and then 1.8 miles down a very rocky dirt road to the Hot Springs to get some healthy soaking in. At one time there was a bathhouse built around the spring, but today all that remains is the foundation. The spring is right on the Rio Grande, and I was advised by Cynta to get in the hot spring for a while, then jump into the Rio Grande and let the current take you down a little ways to some rocks where you can climb out and walk back. At first I was a little apprehensive, but after the initial hot-to-cold shock I was hooked, and did it not once but twice more before heading back. This morning I woke up and all my aches and pains from traveling disappeared, my body feels totally rejuvenated. It's so great, I just might have to do it again!

While I was down at the Hot Springs I ran into a couple my age (a rare sight 'round these parts). After talking for a few minutes I soon found out that they were couchsurfers as well, who were camping out in the park while they were here. Jeremy was from Chicago and Kathrine was from England. On top of this, I found out that we were both going to El Paso on Thursday for a night, so I thought to myself what a strange and fortuitous meeting! I told them about Cynta and how she was going to have some beds available the following night if they wanted to come surf here instead of camping again, and then maybe we could either travel to El Paso together and/or meet up while there for drinks or whatever. How crazy to finally find some fellow travelers who were more-or-less on the same path as me at the same time! We exchanged phone numbers and parted ways for the night, but I hope they end up staying here tonight, it would make for a much more interesting evening. Taylor and Julietta left today to return to Austin and the other three kids (Chirstopher, Andrew and Lauri) all went on an overnight hike in the Park, so it's just Cynta, her dogs and I. And while traveling alone is all fun and games, it does get a bit lonely at times. It would be awesome to have some companions, if only for a day or two.

So now I am here, just chilling out and basking in the dry desert air and the warm desert sun. I'm staying a day longer than originally planned because this place is just so much more beautiful, open and comfortable than what awaits in El Paso. Who knows what really awaits there, but I am not ready to leave yet.

I've swam the Rio Grande, climbed the Chisos mountains, almost ran over some Mexican warthogs (apparently half-rat-half-pigs that eat prickly pears), met many awesome desert people, and I haven't even gotten sunburned yet! This is the life. I am in love.

South by Southwest

Ok no, this post is not about the music festival, it's just such a convenient title! What I really want to talk about is my first days in Austin and my plan for the coming weeks.

I arrived here in the Live Music Capital yesterday and had an absolutely wonderful evening my first night in town! First I went out to a Black Star meetup at the Drungo Ice House and had a great time hanging out with them. I even made plans for next Saturday, we're gonna go out into "real" texas to get some "real" texas barbeque, then we're gonna head over to College Station for a day of binge drinking and partying! Woohoo! After that I met up with my aunt and we headed out for dinner downtown. I got this massive 1 pound burger complete with fried pickles, cheese, the works. It was really tasty, I was only able to eat half of it.

Unfortunately, that's when things started to take a turn for the worse... I was supposed to catch a plane to Chicago for a nasco board meeting that left at 8:30am the next morning, but we didn't get home until 1:30. So I set my alarm for 5:30 and hoped for the best. To my great misfortune, I woke up with a horrible feeling in my stomach. Gasses, nausea, dizziness, it was really bad. There was no way I was going to get on a plane feeling that way, so I made the tough decision to call it off. Looks like I won't be going to that board meeting after all... which especially sucks because I'm going into the peace corps, this was pretty much my last chance to see all my nasco board friends before leaving for the next 2 years! Oh well, c'est la vie I suppose. At least the weather is nice down here.

So now I'm in Austin for the next while, and I've already started thinking about where I'm going next. My cousin Tara grew up in Phoenix, and she gave me a great itenerary to check out the southwest, and since this is really one of my most anticipated parts of the trip I think I'm going to take her up on it. SO, as it stands now, I'm thinking I'll go from here to El Paso, maybe stop in Las Cruces, head up to Santa Fe, west to Flagstaff, back south again to Phoenix and Tuscon, and finally over to San Diego to begin leg 3 of the trip (the western seaboard). Sure, it's a roundabout trip through the desert, but I want to see it all! There's so many national parks and national monuments out there, I can't wait to take it all in. This part of the trip will probably take at least 2 weeks, maybe more. Also, I really don't know very many people in that area so it's probably going to be mostly couchsurfing, but that's great, I can't wait to couchsurf more! It's definitely been one of the most rewarding parts of this trip so far, so the more sleeping on random couches the better!

But for now I'm in Austin for the next week or so. I've got lots of people to visit and lots of stuff to do, so it's going to be great. Hooray for warm, hooray for the south, and hooray for more traveling!