Merry Christmas!

Dear Readers in the Blogosphere,

I hope you all had a wonderful and joy-filled Christmas (or if you don't celebrate Christmas, that you just had a great day)! I am on Long Island until mid-January so I got to be with all of my east coast family for the special occasion.

On Christmas Eve my cousin Lucie came over and we made a delicious Cranberry Cake with Butter Sauce. I got the recipe for it from that amazing Amish cookbook that I love called Cooking from Quilt Country. My parents, Lucie, my aunts, uncle and I went out to dinner at a restaurant in Huntington called Dao and then they all came over to my house and we had the cake for dessert. It was a great hit!

Working hard or hardly working? :)

Today, Christmas Day, after a morning of stockings, presents, pancakes that only my mom can perfect and lots of smiles and well-wishing phone calls, my parents and I headed over to my cousin Aisha's house for dinner. About fifteen of us gathered together and ate a German inspired meal of Sauerbraten, red cabbage and mashed potatoes. We used to have a more traditional American meal of turkey and ham but as of last year we have evidently been on a German kick so we are eating the meal that my uncle's German mother used to make for the holidays. Even though I am not German and I do tend to prefer a more traditional menu it is still interesting to be exposed to a dish that is so popular in another part of the world. After all, Sauerbraten is a national dish of Germany! As long as it is made with beef and not the historically traditional horse meat I am okay with it! The large amount of beef used for the dish is marinated for a few days before it is served which is fascinating to me because I don't think I have ever made anything further in advance than the day before!

My cousin Aisha with her husband, Don in the kitchen getting ready to serve dinner.

I love Christmas. And not just the day. I love the Christmas season. I love the smells of pine trees and sap. I love the crisp air on your face while your body stays warm under a nice sweater. I love Christmas music. NPR plays interesting Christmas music from all over the world; I am partial to that of the Irish.

I love sleeping under layers of blankets so I stay warm except the tip of my nose is a little chilly; it's a great excuse to burrow deeper under the covers or maybe to delay getting out of bed for a few minutes more. I love cups of hot tea that seem to warm your bones and loosen your muscles. I love white Christmas lights and tastefully displayed ones with color. I am not, however, a big fan of the huge inflatable snowmen/ Santas, sorry! To each his own! ;)

Every since I was little I have loved this angel.

I love shopping for presents as long as I start early enough that it doesn't become a chore. You have to look for long enough that you can actually find something that speaks to you for each person on your list. I don't believe in giving presents because you have to; what is the point of that? It's all about sincerity.

I recycled a Vanity Fair magazine to wrap some of my presents!

I love Christmas decorations and seeing mysterious presents of all shapes and sizes with unique wrapping jobs. I love stockings hanging in the living room. My dad still has the stocking that his mother made for him when he was very young!

I love this stocking!

I think the anticipation of Christmas is almost better than the actual day only because when it's actually December 25th I know that soon the decorations will come down. I get so excited when people open presents that I have gotten for them! Luckily we get Christmas every year so I know it's never too far away from being that time again!

My mom always does a great job making the house festive!

I think it is good to reflect a bit about the holiday season and what it means to you as an individual and what you want it to mean to your children, if you have them. Yes, it is about gifts and food and family but it is also a celebration of the birth of Christ. No matter your religious convictions I think it is fair to say that Jesus had an admirable character and I think we could all better ourselves if we applied his principles of compassion and forgiveness and generosity to our every day lives. Ironically the birth of this simple man who gave away all of his worldly possessions has spawned a holiday that has become synonymous with consumption. So even though wish lists have already been made and presents given, I think it is good to reflect on this day and to realize how much each of us already has in our possession. I have a family that loves me. I have a warm bed to sleep  in. I have food in my belly. I am grateful.

Beauty in the details: the considerably large shadows cast by the small white lights.

I will continue the saga of the Fierce Asparagus adventures within the next couple days. Forgive my digital absence this past week and a half, the real world was calling!

Blessings and Peace to each and every one of you.
Over and Out!

Marisol

Day 26- Navajos & The Grand Canyon!!

October 10^th 2010, Sunday

When I finished The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo I left it with Rayne in Steamboat Springs, CO so that she could be wowed by it, as I was. About a week ago I started The Girl Who Played with Fire and if I thought the first book in the Millenium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson was intense and gripping then with this second book I am positively obsessed. It opens with a bang, the first sentence pulling you in, and it really doesn’t let go so please do yourself a favor: if you’re going to read this book don’t do it if you can’t devote at least the next three hours of your life to it. We have been obviously moving around a lot and staying very active so I haven’t had a lot of time to devote to reading but whenever I get the chance I read a couple chapters.

In driving through the little bit of New Mexico that we go to see, and not liking it very much, we decided we did not want to pay to stay at a campground surrounded by dust and not much else so we spent the night in Farmington, NM in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart! It’s actually a very safe, *free* place to stay because they have security cameras. They actually encourage RV campers to stay the night because they’ve found that people tend to spend money in the store if they’re their overnight. Problems like, “Oops, we’re almost out of toothpaste” or “I wish I had some popcorn to eat while we watch this movie” could be simply solved by a quick trip into the store. We had planned on staying in Wal-Mart parking lots whenever possible also to cut down on costs since we’re not currently making any money.


This morning we quickly got on the road; I was shaking my head at the swarms of cars parked in the Wal-Mart lot so early in the morning. Who wakes up on a Sunday morning and forgoes lazily stretching out of bed, making a yummy breakfast and reading a newspaper with a cup of tea/coffee for a trip to Wal-Mart?! I mean, really people, come on!

Farmington, New Mexico is not really my kind of place. It is basically a city of about 45,000 people that just sprawls with big box stores and lots of traffic and confusing roads. Mining for petroleum, natural gas, and coal is huge in the surrounding areas. The Navajo Indian Reservation lands are close by so Native Americans make up a significant portion of the population.

In 2005 the US Commission on Civil Rights completed an investigation called, “The Farmington Report: Civil Rights for Native Americans 30 Years Later” (http://www.usccr.gov/pubs/122705_FarmingtonReport.pdf). This investigation was initially done in 1975, looking into the Farmington area after 3 Navajo youths were brutally murdered there in 1974 and there were complaints of discrimination and unequal treatment by the Native Americans. The three white high school boys who committed the killings were sent to reform school instead of prison. This most recent report was a follow-up, 30 years later, because there were several more instances of abuse and mistreatment http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9903E1D91331F934A2575AC0A9609C8B63.

Even after the report was published the Navajo community continued to experience acts of racial violence against their tribal members. Hopefully with the work the community is doing today these crimes will become more rare http://www.navajotimes.com/news/2008/1108/112008racial.php. Although, another incident this past April would suggest there is still work to be done http://newmexicoindependent.com/55674/swastika-branding-in-farmington-part-of-ongoing-violence-against-navajo-people.

On a happier note, Tyler and I were both very excited because today was the day we would go to the Grand Canyon. We took off, passing through Shiprock, a town named for a huge rock formation that looks like a ship emerging from the sand.

Shiprock!

Soon we crossed over the border into Arizona and Apache/ Navajo land. Arizona is kind of a funny place. It doesn’t observe day-light savings time changes but the Navajo tribal lands within the state do (however on tribal lands it is illegal to serve alcohol). To avoid frustration about the time Tyler and I took a general view of not caring what time it was exactly, made easier by the fact that we didn’t have anywhere to be at any particular time. We were headed to the Grand Canyon and we would get there when we got there!

At this point we were in the Painted Desert, known for the beautiful color variations and layers in its geologic formations. The actual desert is made up of easily erodible sediment from the Triassic Chinle Formation. The abundant iron and manganese provide the pigments for the various colors of the area (http://www.scienceviews.com/parks/painteddesert.html).

I love how boldly the colors contrast in the badlands of the Painted Desert.

The badlands of the Painted Desert are largely made up of Navajo and Hopi tribal lands. In traveling through this area I became fascinated with the history of the people who had first inhabited the area and I discovered some very interesting facts in my research. The first is that the term Navajo was actually applied to the Native Americans by the Spanish, the supposed “Navajo” actually referred to themselves as Diné, which means “the people.” The other interesting thing that I learned is that the Navajo/ Diné are traditionally a matrilocal tribe, meaning that when a man and woman get married they go and live with the wife’s family. Also, women were the only ones who could own land or livestock!

I am continually fascinated with history, but unfortunately I don’t think Native American history can be accurately discussed without it being fairly depressing. The extent to which they were crippled as a people is truly disgusting. Their children were taken away to boarding schools to be assimilated into white and modern American culture, and were punished for speaking their native tongue. Most people know about how the US government systematically killed off thousands and thousands of buffalo for the express purpose of weakening the tribes that relied upon them for food and materials, leaving the corpses to rot and waste. Something else that I just discovered was officially called the “Navajo Livestock Reduction.” In the 1930’s the US government put a livestock quota system in place. They said it was to prevent over-grazing and they went onto the Navajo reservations and killed off 80% of their livestock. To the Navajo, who view livestock as being sacred, this was absolutely devastating. I can understand the need to prevent overgrazing but the Navajo must have been specifically targeted for this enforcement because there are plenty of white Americans who overgraze their land and nobody says anything about it. This system is still in place today.

So anyways, we wound up the road that led to the Grand Canyon’s eastern entrance to the south rim. I wasn't expecting to already by winding around the canyon lands that lead up to the Grand Canyon and the views were spectacular, the colors beautifully muted pinks, browns, greens and beiges.

The amazing canyons around which we traveled to enter Grand Canyon National Park.

When we got into the park we found the first possible campground in which we could park our travel trailer. We had expected there to be a good amount of people because it is a very popular park but luckily the campground didn't have too many people set up in it yet.

After unhitching our trailer and getting slightly settled we immediately jumped back in the truck and drove to Desert View Watch Tower, an almost 80 year old structure, 70 feet high, with a platform at the base over which you could peer down into the depths of the Grand Canyon.

One of the beautiful views approaching the canyon opening.

Desert View Watch Tower

I really wish we had had the chance to look inside the watch tower! Supposedly there are murals painted inside by Fred Kabotie, a Hopi artist. 

Fred Kobatie working on a Hopi mural in the Desert View Watch Tower.

The views are amazing! There's really no comparison between seeing the Grand Canyon in photos and seeing it in person. The sheer depth of the canyon is truly breath-taking. I was amazed to find that the rock at the bottom of the canyon is over 2 billion years old! I mean, I hear that and I know it's a big number but I cannot even fathom how old that is! 

Tyler and Hanz checking out the view

Gorgeous view over the Grand Canyon!

It's so beautiful!

Photography Nostalgia

In working on a Christmas gift, that shall not be discussed so as not to give anything away to any unsuspecting individual, I went through many old photos. In doing so I stumbled upon some old pictures that I had taken when I was in high school and when I was starting to learn how to use Photoshop. I became obsessed with the program and, I admit, still am in total awe of the realm of possibilities for photos within it.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude's installation art, The Gates, was in Central Park for over 2 weeks in 2005.

I have always loved taking photos. I love portraits, as unposed as possible because I feel looking at them can be a real study in the essence of humanity. I love the lines in people's faces. I love the little quirks that make each individual just that, an individual, a unique specimen. Especially in a society obsessed with physical (and social) conformity these unique qualities can be overlooked. I think when someone alters their appearance to such a degree that they lose what made them individual (à la Heidi Montag) it's a deeply profound loss not easily regained.

I haven't done much portraiture but I hope to remedy that in the future. It's a difficult thing to do and something that I ponder rather frequently. How do you get someone to pose for a portrait shot without really posing? If someone knows they are being watched, even if they tell themselves to relax, I think there is still a tendency to pose to a certain degree. And I am always astounded at photographers who can go to far-off places and take beautiful shots of people in their every day life. I have contemplated doing that when I have traveled but always feel like the person is going to think I'm weird if I start photographing them because something about them appeals to my aesthetics. Or else I would feel like a jerk asking some destitute individual if I could take their photo because I would feel like I was insulting them, like they were part of a zoo or circus, something to be looked at, awed at, maybe even pitied. But that isn't what draws me to them, it's those little things that I mentioned, the little quirks that make people individuals. Or sometimes it's my wanting to document everything I see, good and bad, the things that make me proud of America and the things that we as a society still need to work on. I especially love to photograph the people and things that have been forgotten or that get overlooked, both in the social justice sense as well as in the "there's beauty in the small things" sense.

I have a deep appreciation for texture. I love the details in things. I love going to the beach and finding beautiful shells and rocks and then examining the sand and finding those same shapes and colors in a micro-form. I always want to keep them because I think they are so beautiful but how does one keep track of a grain of sand? I love the patterns that you find both on large and small scales in nature. I love when you can look at a photograph and you cannot tell if it is a picture of something on a grand or tiny scale. Or when you look at something close up and you can't tell what it is until the photo is zoomed out and then it seems so obvious, you should have realized what you were looking at!

I love the colors and texture of this huge plant I saw in Hawaii.

Shells and sea glass that I found on a beach in Hawaii... so much beauty in such a small package!

The broken stalk of a star-gazer lily on Long Island in early Fall.

A milkweed pod spills out it's fairy-like seeds to be swept away by a gust of wind.

A close up of a dandelion's full seed head.

These icicles hung in front of our back door several years ago on LI.

In the spring I am obsessed with the first flowers to brave the still chilly and frosty world. They are the pioneers that lead the way for all that comes in the soon warming weeks and months. Especially living up north the winter is wonderful because it strongly marks the time of year and distinguishes it from the rest, but come February the short days and slushy roads find me weary and I find myself holding my breath, hoping for the first signs of spring. I know spring will come but it's still such a relief when it arrives, as if one year it may decide it's just too cold for any one flower to take a chance and peek above ground. When I lived on Long Island often times that flower would be a crocus. The brilliant purple/blue of the petals was made all the more devastating in contrast with the snow. 

A brave crocus found outside my house on Long Island in early spring.

In Montana, where there is considerably more land in which wildflowers can grow, the pioneers of spring are more diverse. This past spring I saw the first wild flower of the year on my birthday, March 1st, when I was hiking in the woods with my boyfriend, Tyler, and our dog, Hanz. This one happened to be a buttercup which, interestingly enough, has a curious layer of starch that reflects the sunlight, giving the petals a glossy, waxy sheen. 

A Ranunculus (buttercup) found in the woods outside Missoula, MT.

I felt like I must have been doing something right in my life because not only was I blessed with seeing the first wildflower of the season on my birthday last year but I also saw the first birds performing mating displays (red-shafted northern flickers) and I found a coyote's skull in the woods! Certainly a birthday to remember! :)

Day 25- New Mexico & Apache Territory

October 9^th 2010 Day 25 Saturday

After enjoying the morning at Great Sand Dunes yesterday we decided to keep going. We had to make sure we would be in California for my twin uncles’ 50^th birthday celebration on October 22^nd and we still had a ways to go!

From the Mosca, Colorado area, where Great Sand Dunes is, we headed south on Hwy 285 and then cut West on Hwy 17 towards New Mexico. The only exposure I had had to the state was that my aunt and uncle have a home there and I’d seen beautiful pictures from their time there but I’d never actually been. What I pictured was dry desert landscape scattered with tumbleweeds and cacti and a hot, unending sun. I was surprised then when we started winding up into mountains of conifers and aspens as we neared the border.

The border of Colorado and New Mexico wasn't as arid as I had expected.

We finally came to the sign announcing we were entering New Mexico, “The Land of Enchantment.” Evidently it is also the land of shotguns!

Welcome to New Mexico! Land of Shotguns!

Soon after entering this 98 year old state the landscape flattened out and began to more closely resemble the land I had envisioned it being. We had initially wanted to go to Taos and Santa Fe but we wanted to be able to spend at least a week helping out at a ranch in Southern California where some family friends lived so we were constrained for time if we were going to make it to the Bay Area by October 21^st. So we kept close to the border with Colorado and drove across the northwest corner of New Mexico. 


I would like the opportunity to return someday and check out Taos and Santa Fe because we did not form a very favorable view of the state with our short experience in it. The roads, at least where we were, weren't that great and it was overall a pretty desolate and lonely stretch of road. We would occasionally pass through settlements on the Jicarillo Apache Indian reservation scattered with dilapidated trailers and worn-looking people. It pains me to say that we passed a billboard boasting that something like "83% of our high school students don't drink and drive!" I did a double take. Was this a statistic to be proud of? Are you telling me that 17% of your underage high schoolers do drink and drive??

We came across a Navajo cultural exhibit that shared space with a Burger King. They had interesting examples of the dwellings that their ancestors had lived in but the irony of one of this fierce Indian tribe sharing land with a Burger King to celebrate their heritage and educate visitors did not escape me. That has been the most depressing aspect of our trip, driving through numerous reservations that all have looked run-down. I would really like the opportunity to speak with a Native American scholar because from what I have seen the state of Native Americans in the USA is extremely tragic, infuriating, and extremely complex considering the history and psychology of the issue as a whole. I have many more thoughts on the issue but before I share them I need to get some outside perspective. It's something you can count on being discussed at a later date, however.

It is a curious landscape in this part of the country. It is generally flat but there are sudden spikes of rock that jut out of the ground, some more dramatic than others.

It was generally a fairly bleak landscape but I like this photo that I took of the interesting geology.

It has been really interesting to contemplate how the world views of people might differ depending on where they are from and what kind of life they know. I feel very fortunate to have been exposed to many different lifestyles and ecosystems. For example, Tyler and I were discussing what it would be like to grow up here, so far from any "civilization" and from any life in general, and how that would affect the way you viewed the world and your place in it. 

Day 24- Alligator Rodeo, UFOs & Canoeing Down Sand Dunes

October 8th 2010, Friday

Yesterday when we drove from Nathrop to Great Sand Dunes we passed through many small “towns” if you can even call them that. According to Wikipedia they all had populations of around 100 people. If you blinked you literally would have missed them. There were, however, three interesting things that are worth mentioning.

The first is that we passed a huge field of photovoltaic cells. It was so weird because they covered a huge expanse of land and since they were on the ground where you’d expect crops to be it was like they were growing them! I found that it was the Alamosa Photovoltaic Plant and that it covered 83 acres of land! I guess solar power plants makes sense in a place like this where there aren’t many people who could be aesthetically offended, there’s not enough water to really be able to grow anything and there is definitely a lot of sun throughout the year.

The second sighting was of a sign for the Colorado Gators Reptile Park in Mosca, CO. It started in the late 1970s as a tilapia farm and opened to the public in 1990 as a sanctuary with ponds fueled by geothermal energy that allow alligators and many other animals to survive. It is a refuge for migrating birds as well as abused or neglected reptiles. Every August the park holds Gatorfest, the world’s first alligator rodeo and roundup! Activities include roping, riding, and barrel racing! I wish that was going on right now so that I could see it. I mean, alligator barrel racing? How would that work? And the riding?? I hope they have an ambulance at the ready! Here is their website: http://gatorfarm.com/

The third and final sighting of note was a sign for a UFO Watch Tower just outside of Hooper, CO. Now I was sure we were getting close to New Mexico! The site is run by a female rancher named Judy. If you go to Roadside America’s website you will find descriptions written by people who have visited. This is one of my favorites: “In addition to the watchtower, she has a very strange garden consisting of rocks, sticks and an incredible amount of amazingly random junk offerings, laid out around what she describes as the location of a major Interdimensional Vortex. People leave offerings to the Vortex, which range from quite valuable items down to old hubcaps and half packets of chewing gum, all displayed with equal reverence. She will also show you a small dry shrub nearby, which has magical powers. I had to agree, it was the best small dry shrub with magical powers that I have seen anywhere in the world. It didn't do anything magical while I was there, but hey, I'm not about to argue with Judy.”

God, I love travelling. The thing that makes these sightings even more awesome and definitely more random is the fact that this is literally the middle of Nowhere. I mean, Nathrop, as a ghost town, was the beginning of Nowhere so that would mean we’re right smack in the middle at this point.

But anyways, back to the awesomeness that is Great Sand Dunes National Park!

An amazing view in Great Sand Dunes National Park

Tyler liked it right off the bat because in order to get to a lot of the trails you have to drive on these crazy unpaved roads that are truly ridiculous. Tyler was in off-roading heaven in his new truck while I had one white-knuckled hand clutching the handle above the passenger door and the other trying to make sure Hanz didn’t get thrown around too much in the back seat! We got to the parking lot and the jostling came to a happy end. Hanz and I got out pretty quickly, happy to have two (or four) feet on the ground where things seemed much more stable.

I'm prepared with my Camelback! Take note of the canoe because it's about to become very relevant.

Somehow Tyler had talked me into bringing our canoe out with us with the plan being that we would hike up to the top of the biggest sand dune with it and then “canoe” back down. Well, let me tell you, don’t attempt this. Seriously, I mean, I guess it makes for a good story but it was some seriously hard work hiking that thing down this trail, across the dried up river bed and over to the dunes alone. And then you get there, realizing it’s difficult to carry something heavy and bulky in sand because with every step you sink into the sand. Then you realize that you haven’t even climbed the dune yet! That’s exactly what happened to us but we had come that far so we didn’t want to give up. 

Carrying the canoe

Almost there!

We did take period breaks to sit down and groan a bit. Hanz was super excited the whole time. He didn’t know what to make of this huge pile of sand! He was almost constantly in wild puppy mode, running around at top speed with his ears back and his butt tucked under, mouth open in excitement. So on our breaks we couldn’t help but play with him a bit, as well.

Tyler playing with Hanz who is in Wild Puppy Mode.

The wind was fiercely blowing and the desert heat was intense. You couldn’t open your mouth or you would get sand in it. We finally made it up the dune, looked down and realized that the angle would be fine for us in the canoe until we got closer to the bottom where it dropped off much more sharply and we would definitely hit the ground with the nose of our canoe and topple over. Wanting to avoid this we decided to keep moving along the dune to see if the angles would work any better. This was no small feat, again because of the insane wind whipping the sand everywhere, and with exerting a lot of effort with each step because of how our feet would sink into the sand. 

We eventually found something that looked like it might work. I got out my camera, prepared to film the whole thing, and Tyler and I got into the boat. I was super excited because we were finally going to do it and at least we would have a fun ride down. Tyler had his leg over the side of the boat with his foot in the sand to stabilize it so we could get situated. He put his foot back in the boat and we both push off with our arms…. I think we moved about a quarter of an inch. NOOOOO! It wasn’t going to work! I was so pissed. All this work for nothing??? And now we were going to have to carry it back down??? I don’t think so. 

Not a happy camper!!

Tyler, being the very nice and level-headed person that he is was able to get over it fairly quickly and suggested that instead, I stay in the canoe and he would push me down. Aww, what a nice boyfriend! I wasn’t going to turn down an offer like that so I got back in the canoe with my camera recording away and Tyler gave me a big running push. It worked! I was going! And, oh… wait… this isn’t a good angle…. Crash. It kinda hurt but it was worth it. So now I can officially say that I have canoed down a sand dune. Thank you Tyler! And Tyler continued on his awesome spree and proceeded to carry the canoe all by himself as he ran/walked all the way back to the truck! Wow. Check that one off my bucket list. 

Thumbs up!

Hanz went into wild puppy mode on the way down the dune. He was so excited and confused about my being in the canoe and then crashing and shrieking that when I finally got out he ran over to me super excited, making sure I was okay and then running around in huge circles in the sand. What a good puppy.

Me and Hanz

Hanz giving Tyler a big lick!

It rained that night as we slept in the campground. When we woke up this morning we walked around. The sand dunes looked so different because there were ripples of wet sand that shifted the dunes from a monochromatic smooth look to one of more contrast. Quite interesting indeed.