Carleton Update I

Hi All!

So, I've been spending this time (spring break) visiting family. I have had an excellent trip, and saw my dad, and my family back in Ohio for the first time in a while!

I saw my grandma, who is 87 and recovering from breaking her hip on Christmas. She is doing very well, and although she's confined to a walker, she's still living big. She is traveling around, and was tickled pink when she walked through the grocery store only using the cart. It was super cute.

My aunts are doing well too. My Aunt Susan seems very happy at her job, and has recovered nicely from her accident several years back. Gotta love technology, huh, Aunt Susan? My Aunt Cindi looks amazing after her heart surgery. I honestly cannot believe that after 6 months she is running around like a normal person again after being at death's door.

I also saw my dad, who is doing really well. He loves his judicial job, and is apparently super proud of me! So yeah! Probably the most memorable bit of our two day escapade to Pittsburgh was seeing the Phipps Conservatory (know that's spelled wrong).

Have some pics!

Some flowers at Phipps.

The sunset on the last day of classes for Winter Term.

Homemade baking to start spring term with!

Doesn't she look so happy and healthy for 88 and 3 months after hip surgery?

Here's me playing the piano for my aunt.

Aunt Susan. She saved my butt at the airport. 

Doesn't my Aunt Cindi look incredible for someone who had heart surgery 4 months ago?

Grand Teton National Park

Continuation of my Bryce trip.

We left Bryce yesterday, and drove 9 and a half hours to Jackson, Wyoming, right outside of the Grand Teton National Park and Yellowstone.

Shortly after arriving, we had dinner with one of the couples my dad married, who was on their honeymoon/ 20 year anniversary. We had an excellent dinner, and walk around town with truffles afterwards to boot! Then we said our goodbyes and parted ways, which made me very sad because I enjoy their company quite a bit!

We went back to our hotel, and then prepared for the morning (today).

We got up bright and early at 8am, and then got ready and had breakfast at a local restaurant known as Cafe Genevieve, where we ate fabulous food. Then, we drove up to the Grand Teton National Park. We were a little worried about the heavy cloud cover, but it slowly dissipated over the day.

Once we arrived, we explored the main Visitor's Center. Here I learned that "Grand Teton" is French for great tits. The entire day, I walked around telling my dad, hey, look at the tits!

After this hysteria/stupidity, we showed our multi-park pass and drove on to Jenny Lake for a boat tour. We pulled into the Jenny Lake Visitor's Center around 11:55, and found out that there was a tour at 12:15, so we raced to the dock like bats out of hell. We arrived in the nick of time, got onboard, and left.

Our tour was excellent to say the least. Our navigator was very informative and engaging. He loved what he did, which helped him come across as real to our group. He showed us the damns, the Tetons, and explained to us the difference between Jackson and Jackson Hole. The hour flew by so quickly.

Then, we went back to shore and continued to drive around for an hour and a half. During this drive, we decided to count the licenses plates of different states (we ended up seeing 28, in three hours).

Finally, we drove to the Teton Village, where we boarded a gondola (we were too cheap to pay for the tram), up to the top of a mountain, about 3,000 ft higher than where we were. Once at the top, we ate dinner at a nice little restaurant before heading back down and going home.

As I sit here writing this, at 11:50 am, I am struck by sadness because I know that my trip is halfway over and that I only have six days more with my father before I leave for three months. Before I get too sad, I should go to bed, we have a long day tomorrow, and Yellowstone!

Anyways, have some pictures:

From the top of the highest driveable mountain, Signal Mountain.

The scenic view from where we ate dinner today.

Probably my favorite picture of today. It sums up everything. 

A panorama of the Grand Tetons.

A photo from Jenny Lake

Bryce National Park

Continued from our leaving Zion National Park.

We left Zion around 3:30pm, and rolled into Tropic, Utah (right outside of Bryce National Park) around 5:00pm. We then checked into our hotel, a cute little cabin in town that had nice beds and rooms and all of that jazz!

After checking in, we ate dinner at a local pizzeria and planned our single day in Bryce (September 1st). We woke up around 7:30am, left at 8:30, and arrived at 9:00.

Our first stop was an overlook, where we were able to view the entire valley. As we were taking pictures, and unbeknownst to us, a tour bus unloaded behind us, so we were swarmed by 75-100 tourists, all on one overlook. My father and I charged out of the crowd and down our trail (The Navajo Trail/ Queen's Garden/ Sunset Loop) only to be chased by tourists with their designer purses, wedges, and no hiking gear.

However, as we worked our way down several hundred feet in switchbacks, we lost the crowd and were able to enjoy the last two miles of our hike. The best part of the hike was being able to ascend through the canyon in such a way that we could see the entire valley and National park.

We finally made it back to the top and to our car, where we ate our sandwich lunches and split another salad, yay food!

Then, we went on the Rainbow Tour, where we went to several overlooks, learned the history of Bryce, and ecology of the park. It was a wonderful tour, although it poured rain right at the end, and I left a water bottle in the park.

After this, we went home, made some dinner, and watched Big Brother 15 before going to bed.

Overview of the canyon

Another overview of the canyon

My father hiking

Some wonderful natural formations.

Me, sitting on my throne.

Zion National Park

This post is a continuance of my last one. 

We rolled in Springdale, Utah around 4:30pm, Utah time. The first thing we did was check into our hotel, and then got dinner at a local restaurant known as Wilde Willie's, which wasn't very good, but pretty expensive (damn tourist town).

After that, we went to Zion National Park and had an evening tour with a ranger named Carolyn Flaherty. She explained a ton of the history and geological formations that created this national park, including the recurring 15 disasters that take out roads and buildings. My favorite story was when a man who had never been on time to work at Zion for the 5 years of his working there, magically gets up on time for work. As he's leaving, a huge boulder crashes through his house and lands right where he would have been sleeping, if he had hit the snooze button that day. He was never late to work again.

Then, we went back to our hotel (this is the 30th), and go to bed to have a bright and early day tomorrow. We decided that we would hike a river hike if the weather permitted (bad weather= high chance of flash floods). Guess what happens on the 31st? A massive rainstorm sweeps in to the north, creating flash flooding in the Virgin River (When I first learned that the river on my road trip was called the Virgin River, I immediately thought of a perverted sloth meme saying: "Virgin River? Not after I'm done with it."), so no river hike for us!

Instead, we hiked three different trails. We first hiked the river walk, which was a 2.4 mile roundtrip easy hike that took us through beautiful gardens. Second, we hiked the Emerald Pools trail, which was a 1.8 mile hike that was super intense. Afterwards, we ate our delicious salad and sandwich lunches, and got ice cream for dessert. Finally, on our way out, we hiked our third trail, the over pass trail. Here we got to see an overview of the entire valley where Zion National Park was located.

Anyways, have some pictures:

A flower alongside the path of our first hike, the River Walk. 

Menu Falls, where our ranger Carolyn told us that many people get married.
 

Pretty rock formations

An overview of the Valley from our Emerald Pools hike.

Another gorgeous rock formation. 

The overview of Zion National Park from our final hike, the Canyon Overview.

Monument Valley!

Hey Everyone,

So sorry for not updating my blog, it's been several days since I've had a long block of time at a computer. I was away for long because we have been road tripping since August 29th

Our first stop was Monument Valley. We left Taos around 11am, and drove through Abiquiu, Farmington, Shiprock, and on our way to Kayenta, the small town outside of Monument Valley.

We arrived around 6pm local time, and immediately set up our campsite.

Our adventures began on the 30th, when we went to Monument Valley itself and drove through the rock formations on a very windy and bumpy dirt road. I loved being able to look through our sunroof and watch the rock formations tower far above us.

After we finished our two hour drive, we went to the Navajo Code Talkers museum up on the hill. It was incredible to look at the exact wording that was used in both WWI and WWII to stop our enemies in their tracks in terms of intercepting our communications. What was really cool is how they posted the translations between Navajo and English, so that we could understand how difficult it actually was to crack the code.

When we were done with the museum, we drove 5 hours to Springdale, Utah, where our next adventure began (in the next post).

Here are some pictures.

The good morning sunrise from Monument Valley!

Passing a pretty rock formation on our way to Monument Valley.

The overlook at Abiquiu Lake

Inside the Navajo Code Talkers museum. 

An overlook where we had lunch. The lake you see is Lake Powell, right outside of Page, AZ.

Goodbye Taos!

Today was my last day in my home for the past 10 years, Taos, New Mexico. And what a day it was.

First, I oversaw the marriages of a dozen LGBT couples today, including the one of the PFLAG-Taos President, Barbara Sheppard and her now wife, Jean-Vi Lenthe. My job was to be the ring bearer, and witness, so my name is affixed to their marriage certificate. As my dad read the script for their marriage, I couldn't help but grin from ear to ear because it made me so happy watching these two wonderful people pledge their eternal love for each other.

After the ceremonies, I went to Anna Walters' house and visited her puppy Lara (yes, Lara from Dr. Zhivago). We went just to check up on Lara before lunch and a visit with friends.

We left Anna's house around 10:30 and arrived at Taos High School around 10:50. I showed her around the school and introduced her to the Sponsor of our GSA, Ms.Paul.

We promptly left THS and went to Old Martina's Hall, where we had a celebratory lunch. We were celebrating the new married couples. I ordered a crab eggs benedict (on Anna's recommendation), which was amazing. At 1pm Mountain Time, we had a moment of silence to stand in solidarity with the activists in Washington D.C., who were celebrating MLK Jr.'s "I Have a Dream," speech, and the March on Washington.

At 1:25, I wished my goodbyes to Barbara, Jean-Vi, and Anna Walters. Then I went to visit my self- appointed mother, Cat Bennett (who was my speech coach before her appointment) and we had an excellent conversation about her travels to Europe and the East Coast. I informed her of the drama happening at Taos High School (she was a teacher, but retired last year).

After I said my goodbyes to my self-appointed mommy, I ran errands, went home, and got ready to leave tomorrow.

I still can't believe that tomorrow I leave for college. I mean, considering that I was born to drug-addicted parents and put into the foster care system, I really shouldn't be here. Also, as an ADHD person, I shouldn't be here (only 8% of us go to college). But you know, I've never really fit into society's standards, so what the hell, might as well keep breaking the statistics because as my friend from GSA says: "YOLO!"

Same-Sex Marriage in Taos!

Hey Everyone,

The past few days have been super busy with getting ready for college and running errands in Taos.

However, today was the culmination of all hell breaking loose when a lawsuit was filed against the Taos County Clerk (Anna Martinez) because she denied a marriage license to a same-sex couple. The case was randomly assigned to the Chief Judge (Judge Sarah Backus), who recused herself for an emergency. So, the case went to my Judge Jeff McElroy.

I remember him texting me that the hearing was going to start, while I was playing rounds of chess with my buddy Pachin Guevara. In fact, we were in our tie breaker match when I got that text. He was awesome enough to let me leave (although we agreed that our final game was a draw) and go watch the hearing!

Anyways, I arrived right as the Judge was going on the record and beginning the hearing. Essentially, the plaintiffs (the ones suing Anna Martinez) were asking Judge McElroy for a writ of mandamus, (an order to an elected official commanding that they take an action) to force Mrs.Martinez to issue the licenses. Judge McElroy agreed to issue the writ because of the time sensitive nature, and the fact that the plaintiffs would very likely win on the merits in a civil trial.

Thus, Clerk Martinez either had the option to issue licenses or come to court on September 5th and explain why she shouldn't have to. She decided to issue the licenses, as she had wanted to anyways, but couldn't because she lacked clarity on the marriage law.

So, since she was ordered to issue licenses, same-sex marriage is legal in Taos County! Have some photos of the event. Photos of the actual marriages will be up tomorrow.

The Plaintiffs (in the yellow and grey), the attorney (Peggy Nelson, in the red), and a spectator (local broadcasting personality, Nancy Stapp).

Nancy Stapp officially serving Anna Martinez the writ of mandamus. 

Judge McElroy signing the order of mandamus.