Road trips, Euro trips, and National Parks.
We recently did a road trip from Salt Lake City to Jackson Hole, WY. It’s been a bucket list thing for me to see the leaves change in The Tetons. Mother Nature did not disappoint. It was an amazing, beautiful trip. We discovered a little hidden gem called Alpine, WY and the Bridger Teton National Forest. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves. Bucket list check. Utah and Wyoming in October are a must see.
I have been silent this past couple of weeks. Observing, thinking, analyzing the current state of humanity. I’m a pragmatist, that’s generally what we do, we try to figure it all out with logic, common sense and fact. So after much reflection, here’s what I’ve concluded for our current dire times…
Racism is not the issue. You cannot have a few bad apples and label the whole bushel as spoiled. Yes there will always be extremists in any situation for any subject, for any reason, Racism in our modern society is not one sided. It’s spherical. Yes I said that, it’s 3 dimensional. It’s not white vs. black, or white privilege, every race has it’s own unique form of sub conscious racism. I don’t even think racism is the correct term anymore, it’s more like racial profiling. I mean racism to me is the blatant segregation that was prevalent before the 1960’s when things were actually labeled “colored only” mostly in the South, and that was a sad time of ignorance in our country! Now, I think it’s more the subconscious kind, labels that all races have for each other, whether it be white, black, Latino, Asian, Indian, etc. If you ask any random person of any race what another race is known or famous for, I guarantee they would tell you something about each and every one, including subsets in their own race! So is that racism? According to the temperature of today’s society…yes! That’s also absolutely ridiculous! That does not make you or an entire race racist! The term is used entirely to broadly! To the point it’s lost it’s truly hateful meaning to be taken seriously anymore. I don’t see the color in the George Floyd tragedy, yes it was a fucking horrific, nauseating tragedy, and I hope every single officer within eyeshot of what was happening gets prosecuted to the full extent of the law! But what I saw was an innocent man killed by a dirty cop! That’s where our focus needs to be! If not, there will continue to be more innocent people killed by dirty cops, black or white on either side! Remember they come in all colors!
Unfortunately there are bigger forces at work in our current society. Yes they are political, elitist and evil agendas! They all know that to take down a country, you have to divide it to weaken it. This is what’s happening in our country before our very eyes. The vast majority is falling for it hook, line and sinker, and it scares me. But here’s the thing…those mysterious forces lurking that are manipulating everything with their deep pockets and secret connections are an actual foe. One we will probably never be able to control, not with our current tactics anyway. But they are not the real enemy…
This is the epiphany that finally came to me after my weeks of reflection, my A ha moment if you will.
The real enemy is EMOTION!!! Yes Emotion!
The lack of control of them, and the forces that are manipulating them for personal gain! Think about it, think about the damage one person can do to a single situation when decisions are based on emotion. That email written out of emotion, that text that gets sent, the words that are said out of emotion, the hurtful ones you can’t take back! Now, multiply it times society…300,000,000 people! You now have a powder keg! This is currently where we are. People saying and doing and reacting based solely on emotions and the evil puppeteers pulling the strings know this! If we could all take a breath, and try and gain control of our own personal emotions, we would win this battle currently raging, that’s the new tactic we need to deploy! You can’t control a society in control of the trigger! The worst thing any human can do in any situation is let their emotions get the best of them! Has that ever turned out good for anyone?
Racism is not the issue. Can you honestly look at yourself in the mirror if you’re reading this and admit to yourself you’re a racist because you’re being guilted into doing so? I know I can’t, I won’t! So you see, we have to take the control back from the puppeteers. The people using us against ourselves We do this one deep breath at a time, we have to take control of the one thing we can and it’s our own enemy within…Emotion. At some point we have to say…enough!
Deep breath…logic in…bullshit out…
M.
Covid-19…hmh. Where do I begin? I guess I’ll start in the beginning…
January 2020. My husband travels home from Seattle in his old role as an Area Manager for his company, about a week or so later I start with symptoms of what I brush off as “bad allergies” because honestly, that’s what it felt like! Except this was a little different, it progressed to my chest rather quickly. I went to the doctor and was treated for a respiratory infection. I eventually recovered in about 2 weeks. Then, my husband gets sick with the same thing, same symptoms, same recovery time. Little did we know at the time, Seattle was a hot spot, the antibiotics I was given were useless, and we both with absolute certainty had Covid-19. (That was the early days before it was rampant in the media) so we were not tested for it. We both recovered pretty uneventfully. (As did most)
Fast forward to the end of February. My husband only watches CNBC and the stock market news. At this point, Covid is headlines. They are talking about social distancing as a possibility, and canceling large events. I’m standing in my kitchen and thinking “for a freaking respiratory infection?” Is this for real? The flu kills more people every year than this thing! I mean it’s not freaking Ebola! At this point I’m convulsively eye rolling every time a report comes on about it.
March 2020. All major events are cancelled, stay at home orders are in effect, most “non-essential” businesses are closed, you can’t go to church, schools are closed, but you can go to Walmart and Home Depot because they are deemed essential, (oh and liquor stores) the mask/glove controversy begins. The stock market is in a nose dive tailspin…All for a respiratory infection!
April 2020. Quarantine is in full affect with no end in sight, unemployment is around 33 million, the economy is in the worst shape in history since the Great Depression, the mask/glove debate continues, the divide in our country grows stronger between the left and the right, there is no consistency to anything. Reports in the media, our local, state and federal governments can’t get it together, social media compounds everything and makes it worse. Conspiracy theories run amuck, people are trying to be compliant, but are thinking in the back of their minds, something isn’t right! They think of the flu numbers, and the logical part of their brain says “all of this for a respiratory infection?”
May 2020. I get furloughed to 4 hours a day. I have to cram a 50 hour work week into 4 hours a day. But hey, I still have a job (so far) Then, we get the news from my husbands job we dreaded hearing, “you have to go work in the field to get billable. All of the planned projects have been canceled due to Covid. The closest working project is in Utah! For at least a year!” Everything we built and we’re working for changed with one phone call. We’ve lived this life before, we thought we were done with it. This isn’t happening! But it was happening. I know we will get through it, we’ve done it before for 6 years. We are grateful to have a job to complain about. So many millions don’t. So tell me, what is the real tragedy here? Lives and livelihoods lost, our forever altered economy, small businesses that will never recover, our new normal? The even greater divide this has caused in our society? Families that are one paycheck away from being homeless actually becoming homeless? People will argue it was all necessary to save the “at risk” population (before you attack me, remember I have an autoimmune disease and technically am at risk) and to not overwhelm the healthcare system because of ventilator shortages, and to flatten the curve…but still, the logical reason part of my brain screams out… “all for a respiratory infection?”
So we finally did it! We hiked down into Antelope Canyon. This has been way high on the Bucket List for some time now. If this isn’t on yours, add it immediately!
There are a few things you should know however before you go.
YOU CANNOT HIKE THE CANYON WITHOUT A GUIDE! It is located on Navajo land, and they won’t allow access without one of the local tour companies that are located both at the canyon sites and in the town of Page. We did the lower canyon, the main tour companies for lower are, Dixie Ellis and Ken’s. You can book in advance (recommended) or try your luck and buy tickets on site. We used Dixie Ellis, and our tour guide was awesome!
Now, lighting and time of day are going to play a big role in the colors you’ll see down inside the canyon. 10:30am is usually prime time ( for those famous sun beam shots) and is usually booked, but nonetheless, it is truly amazing any time of day.
If you’re going anytime from May through Summer, it’s HOT. I mean it’s Arizona, it’s the desert. So this is what to expect…
Once you get to the site and check in, be prepared for lots, I can’t stress enough, LOTS of tour bus people. You’ll watch a ancient Navajo ceremonial dance, and then you’ll line up. Hopefully you won’t get stuck behind one of the large tour groups, because this can mean a 30-45 minute wait in the Arizona heat, waiting for everyone to slowly descend the stairs (some steep) into the canyon. There is also about a 150 yard walk in the sun and sand to get to the stairs themselves. Bring a bottle of water, oh and backpacks of any kind are not allowed, so forget that Camelpack.
Once you descend into the canyon, man oh man, breathtaking! So worth braving that unfortunate bathroom facilities experience!
I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves. Bucket. List. Frigging. Check.
The real life adventures of a Creole Gypsy 