Happy Birthday Grace!

because it's officially midnight in all of the time zones we've been in...
HAPPY 23rd B-day, Bacer!

The Longest Post Yet: Santa Fe, New Mexico

(it reminds me of a keyhole... I really really like it)

This morning, I woke up on the very edge of our bed with Krista’s head basically on my shoulder. How she managed that in a king size bed I have no idea. She was probably going through withdrawal from being so close to me in the tent. Or she just is a serious bed-hog – you pick. Either way, that woman can SLEEP. It also made me realize that because I’ve been staying with friends all summer, I think I can count on one hand the number of nights I have slept alone. I guess I’m getting used to it  So then I got up to take advantage of the gym to run a hard workout and she slept in – activities we both didn’t realize just how much we needed.
Later, we wandered into Santa Fe which was a super picturesque South Western city. All the stores (and many of the homes) are made to look like they are constructed from Adobe, nothing is more than two stories tall, and there are flowers everywhere! Our plan was to see a bunch of different Art in Santa Fe and oh boy did we! This is probably going to be a pretty long post, but everything we did just flooded me with thoughts and feelings, so long post it is!

First stop: The Chuck Jones Art Gallery

Chuck Jones was the artistic director for Warner Bros when they were developing all their cartoon characters (like the Roadrunner, Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd, etc). He is also an incredible classically trained artist so much of the gallery is his painting replicas of famous artists (think Van Gogh, Dali, Picasso, Cezanne) with Bugs Bunny or some other cartoon in it. My favorite was the Dali Painting, where carrots draped over the walls instead of clocks and Bugs’ shadow took up most of the forefront. The gallery director, Mike, was super friendly and gave us a ton of background on the gallery as well as recommendations of what to do and see in Santa Fe. The rest of the gallery was mostly Dr. Seuss paintings, some of which are part of his unpublished collection and are definitely worth checking out!

Second Stop: Georgia O’Keefe Gallery

I apologize for how long this is going to be, but I felt like our trip to the Georgia O’Keefe Museum was a bit of a pilgrimage for me. We walked in and the first thing we did was watch a short film about O’Keefe and two major things caught my attention:
1) She described the intentions of her art as capturing not necessarily the lines and forms of nature, but the emotional experience one has when one is confronted by it.
2) Because she was the subject of much of the photographic work of her husband, Alfred Setigliz, who described her (and her work) as incredibly sexual, her work was misinterpreted? Or maybe it’s better to say overly interpreted as sexual.

I have always loved O’Keefe’s paintings, but this particular exhibit was strictly her abstract work and was extraordinary, even for her. I’ve also always loved thinking of them as yonic (which is the female version of phallic and is the proper, artsy way to say that they look “vaginal”; little shout out to Chase here). But having heard in the video that her vision was more to take small pieces of nature and create them in such a large scale that people were forced to notice the little details, and even more, the emotional experience of noticing the little details, I found myself having a different interaction with the paintings. They captured the experiences of being in so many beautiful places these past few weeks like none of our photographs ever could! After standing in front of one painting for over ten minutes, I realized I had a knot in my throat and tears in my eyes, because it evoked all the feelings I had about Utah. Sometimes with art, I feel like you just have to stand in front of a piece for a little while and see what feelings rush over you. It doesn’t always happen to me, but this gallery hit me hard. Other paintings stirred up my thoughts and feelings of the Redwoods , the Oregon Coast, the Olympics, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming… it was incredible.
Throughout the museum, I wondered why we have to decide if her paintings are nature or vaginas – one thing I have definitely pulled from these past few weeks in some of the most outstanding nature in the country (and world) is that NATURE IS YONIC.
We also went a little wild in the museum gift shop, so a bunch of you should expect an O’Keefe card soon!

Third Stop: Lisa Kristine Gallery

Recommended by a friend of Krista’s as a not-to-miss Gallery, we found huge, striking portraits and scenes from the most colorful places around the world. Kristine’s philosophy is that if we push back the initial fear of differences, we reach of a place of deep connection and understanding. She aims for her viewers to really connect with her subjects – and with the richness of color and intimacy of angle of her photographs, it’s hard not to.
Strangely (or maybe not), I find myself noticing all sorts of medical problems with portraits of people – misaligned eyes (stigmatisms), jaundice in the sclera (anemia), a slightly drooping nasal fold and cheek (Bell’s Palsy), blue clear-ish eyes (glaucoma), darker patches of skin on the neck (insulin resistance), darker skin around the eyes (extra estrogen). It’s exciting to notice things that other people might not and surely I would not have before medical school, but it’s certainly a shift in how I used to view portraits of people.

Fourth Stop: Market Square Concert Series
So in the middle of Santa Fe, there is a park where each Saturday, there is a large Farmer’s Market. We were pretty sad to be there on a Thursday, missing the market, until we found out that Thursday is the CONCERT SERIES! Around 5pm string bands started to come on to the stage, people started selling fajitas and kettle corn around the edges of the square, and everyone came out in their cowboy boots, faded Levis, and ten gallon hats to dance! Krista and I tried to make eye contact with some old cowboys to lure them into dancing with us (just kidding, mom), but ended up dancing together and getting tips from the adorable older couples all around us. We couldn’t stop smiling and only stopped because we had to get to the flamenco show for which we had already bought tickets.

Fifth Stop: Juan Siddi Flamenco Theatre Company Performance

We took our seats at a table on the edge of the stage, ordered delicious drinks, and prepared ourselves for what they told us would be “an exploration of the essential nature of human being and spirit”. Flamenco is a type of dance developed by people who had migrated from Andulacia and settled in Southern Spain, and is a performance about exile, despair, but also hope. I have only really seen clips of flamenco in movies and had no idea how POWERFUL it is. The first number was called Nataraj, the name for the Hindu God, Shiva, when he becomes the Lord of the Dance. Almost immediately as the drum beat kicked in and the women started stomping their feet, flailing their ruffled dresses, and making intricate finger movements, I was hooked.
There’s this expression in Brazilian Portuguese, “fogo demais”, meaning too much fire or so much passion. It’s often used to describe people who dance samba or compete in capoeira who seem to explode passion out of their every pore. That’s how I feel about these flamenco dancers, especially Juan Siddi himself. Man, that man can dance. At the end, one of the performers sons, probably both about 7 years old with long curly hair and white suits, came out to dance. Krista and I sat back thinking this would be some cute kids jumping around a little – but NO WAY, those kids started stomping, gyrating, and clapping just like all the rest of the dancers, perhaps even more amazing because they were so small and young and maybe just shouldn’t be able to dance like 10 million times better than us.
Finally, we drove out to our campsite, arriving per our MO, around midnight. But now we’ve become pros at setting up camp, so we were in bed, fast asleep in about fifteen minutes, preparing for our drive across the state of Texas tomorrow. Austin, here we come!



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“When one begins to wander around in one’s own thoughts and half-thoughts, what one sees is often surprising” – Georgia O’Keefe

Breezing through Southern Utah and CO

Utah à Colorado à New Mexico

Saying “See you Soon” to Utah:

For our last morning in Moab, I woke up a little bit early to go for a run along the road and be surrounded by the big red rocks one more time (also because we had a nine hour drive ahead of us and I didn’t want to get antsy). The run was amazing – I think I saw one other person and maybe a few cars, but mostly it was just me and the red rocks all around.

Then I came back and woke Krista and Chase up and we headed out for breakfast before our long drive to Santa Fe. We lingered for quite a while around the breakfast place because it was so fun to hang with Chase, but finally we got on the road and drove out of Utah, looking wistfully behind us at what had been a beautiful few days (the longest time we have spent anywhere since SF).

Our only stop before dinner was in Mesa Verde National Park. Because we purchased the "interagency national park pass" we're like super VIPs in all national parks, so we have sort of unofficially decided to go through as many as possible. Mesa Verde was 1) at a very high altitude, 2)a loooong way into the park because of traffic, and 3) completely different than the other parks we have been to because it is a park mostly because of the human-created cave dwellings that exist in the park. You can hike down to a variety of locations where people built bricks out of the clay and mortar out of rocks, clay, water, and sand to create huge dwellings underneath overhanging rocks. The dwellings can't quite be described as homes, because they're too expansive - they're more like cities built into the rock.

We stood inside one of the rooms and tried to imagine ourselves transported back to a time when this was where people lived. We ended up feeling pretty inadequate in any of our survival skills - there is just no way I would be able to construct a sound house, much less an entire underground city out of clay and sticks. amazing.

DURANGO, CO

We stopped in Durango for dinner and to stretch our legs. It just so happened that they were having a street market and we walked around checking out the different tents. Then we saw that the Cliff Bar tent and the Keen tent were right next to each other and for some reason, we felt the need to tell both groups of people how much their products were helping with our trip (we’ve eaten cliff bars as meals or snacks probably every day of this trip and have hiked every hike in our keens). This resulted in one of the Cliff bar guys donating 2 BOXES of cliff bars to our travels. SWEET! Then we went to Steamworks Brewery for a delicious dinner and got back on the road.

SANTE FE, New Mexico

We rolled into Santa Fe late last night, per our usual, but about an hour before we did, we both had the same realizations: 1) we felt really, really dirty, 2) we sort of needed the kind of sleep that is not so possible in a tent, 3) it was pouring, and 4) we didn’t REALLY know where the campgrounds we were supposed to be sleeping in were.

Solution? Splurge on a hotel: the Santa Fe Sage Inn let us check in close to midnight and gave us a room with a king size bed, a shower, and told us the hours the gym was open and when breakfast would be served. I immediately took a shower and Krista immediately jumped into the bed to pass out. After returning a few emails, I joined her.

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“A wizard is never early, Frodo, nor is he ever late. He always arrives precisely when he means to.”

-Gandalf the Grey (from LOTR)

…and yes, I know this is my third(-ish) JRR Tolkein quote. They just feel so appropriate in this journey.

desert photo shoot (take 1)

two superwomen, no sidekicks. the theme of our trip.

krista in a parking lot in southern Utah - I think it could be an album cover, it's so beautiful.

me running across Wilson Arch, just south of Moab (don't I look like I'm about to take off and fly? that dress is awesome)
krista looking hott (in more ways than one, yesterday it was 100+) in front of Wilson arch

Utah is the shist!

krista managed to do all our climbing around the Fiery Furnace in a DRESS.
Chase and I decide we want to free climb high up.
Krista and I climbing up Jacob's Ladder (or maybe we're climbing down?)
Krista and me and the Delicate Arch, one of the most beautiful arches in the Park
Upon entering Utah - where apparently the state motto is "life, elevated" - so we're trying to get into it.

UTAH:

No, that subject is not a typo- shist is a type of smooth black rock that lines the canyons of westwater- a section of the colorado where we went white water rafting on Monday. It's also 1.8 BILLION years old, making it one of the oldest rocks in the US (or maybe world?). It's surrounded by sandstone that is only 270 million years old, begging the question of what happened to all those layers in between? The sandstone is a rich red-brown color and is coated in parts by "desert varnish", a darker brown clay that has blown up and stuck to the sandstone, painting pictures that often look like wild horses running along the canyons. The clay contains mangenese whose source is completely unknown - a desert mystery!

So we woke up yesterday morning at 5:45 am after about three hours of sleep (thanks to the Utah wind in our beautiful campsite) and immediately grabbed coffee and headed over to Tag-along Tours for our white water rafting day. Even with the coffee, we both managed to completely pass out on the 1.5 hour bus ride to the river, but not before talking with our super cool guides, who made 2 separate Dune references during this conversation (which was AMAZING because being out here in the desert makes is making me think so much about Dune!)

The rafting trip was STELLAR. I had never been before and had no idea what to expect. What I should have expected: a spectacular sunny day of hitting high rapids with seven new friends, a boat flipping (not ours), a rescue mission for that boat (yes, ours), delicious “mexi-cones” for lunch, geography of Utah lessons, and some serious floating time in the Colorado River. Like I said: stellar trip.

We got back and immediately drove to Arches National Park, still a bit damp from the river and toting the popsicles they gave us when we got back. We hiked out to Delicate Arch as storm clouds started to roll in all around us – but somehow not ON us, so we just watched as the blue-green storm surrounded us on our red-brown rocks - it was absolutely breathtaking. Apparently this sitting in the middle of a storm and watching it go wild all around you is “SO UTAH”, according to our resident Utah man, Krista’s friend, Chase. We met up with Chase later that night at Woody’s, THE bar in town according to our rafting guides. Chase was super AGFA (our new phrase, meaning “always game for anything”), proven by the fact that he had just taken a greyhound back from Berkeley, jumped in his car (packed with burritos and gatorade) and drove down from Salt Lake to hang with us!

Before crashing at our new campsite (called Moonflowers and highly recommended), Chase took us climbing up “Jacob’s Ladder” – a wild climbing route inside nearby cliffs that involved lots of wedging ourselves between several rocks then doing a split behind you and using that leg to boost you up to the next level. It was AWESOME. Chase got some great photos of us scrambling up and Krista got some great ones of us on top of the cliff overlooking the most beautiful view of a fully moonlit canyon. We ended up staying up there until almost three before finally resigning ourselves to bed so that we could get up for our next day’s adventure!

This morning we are off to swim at Powerhouse (and bring our Dr. Bonner’s so we can finally wash our hair – or at least mine, since Krista’s is still mostly in dreds) and some bouldering on rocks in The Fiery Furnace, a distant part of Arches National Park. Since Krista and I are officially members of the National Park Association for the year, we can just go back in for free any time we want! It’s hard to believe we leave tomorrow for Santa Fe, New Mexico and begin the Southern (and final??!?) leg of our trip.

Song of the Moment: January Wedding by the Avett Brothers (thank you, Melissa!)

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“don’t try to do what the world needs, do what makes you come alive, because what the world needs is people who have come alive”

-the quote we left with our tip to our rafting guides

Number 43 does not exist (but the grand tetons do rock)

krista is the queen of the woooooorld
after our hike, I decided I just HAD to run in the tetons

almost 10,000 feet and no altitude sickness at all... yeah, baby
krista at amphitheater lake, proud and sweaty
k caught me doing yoga after my run in front of the tetons. so peaceful

Today we went from one of our lowest points of the trip to one of our highest - literally and figuratively.

After waking up in our glorious hostel in jackson (the mangy moose, we definitely recommend it - super adorable and the people were really nice) we drove out to grab food supplies for the next few days and breakfast at "the chuckwagon". It seemed ideal - the grocery store had everything we wanted, we ordered pancakes and eggs and waited at a table at the base of the magnificent tetons. 30 minutes later, I go ask if somehow we were forgotten in the mix. The waitress asks me what our number is - and, glancing at the placard they gave us w a number 43 on it on our table, I say "we're 43". To which she says: 43 doesn't exist. So she replaces our order and long story short, we got our pancakes, enjoyed them (and the view) and headed out to get a campsite for tonight in the tetons.

We get to the first campsite, jenny lake: full. We get to the second campsite, signal mtn: full. We get to the third campsite (which is practically back in yellowstone), lizard creek, to find that the last camp site has JUST been taken. But just as we're starting to think maybe we won't be hiking our 9 mile hike today, a man from wyoming in the suburu next to us steps out to tell us that they just got the last campsite here, but they had already paid for one back at signal mountain that they'd be happy to give to us. We almost hug him. Instead we follow him back to signal mountain where he gives us the campsite and refuses to let us pay for it saying only, "no, ladies, it's a gift. And now you'll remember us westerners as nice people" and smiles as he drives off. Krista and I jump in the air wildly for a few minutes singing " we have a campsite!" Then we set up the tent and get hiking.

The hike we picked was up to amphitheatre lake - a glacial lake that is located just under disappointment peak (which is only called that bc its not THE grand teton, but people think it is; it looked pretty grand to us!). It was un- freaking- believable. After 4 miles of switchbacks with stunning views of the tetons, lined with beautiful lupine flowers, we reached the lake and jumped right in. Freeeeeeezing but so refreshing. We stopped for a quick lunch then hiked up around the lake for a magical view down the valley. Krista and I each sat up on different cliffs collecting our thoughts and figuring out someway to show our deep gratitude for being able to witness such beauty.

Then we headed back to camp, with a slight detour for me to run around for a few miles, for pb&j and a goood sleep!

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"Tremble: your whole life is a rehearsal for the moment you are in now"
-judith malina