Monumental fun.

Alright, if I thought the scenery was exciting on Tuesday, yesterday it was fascinating! What started as an average morning of waking up, going out to get some breakfast (Arnold's Diner in Rapid City does a perfect greasy spoon breakfast!), and hitting the road, turned out to be one of the coolest, prettiest days of my life! Everything was so beautiful, especially the sky.

I'm the type of person who is totally in love with the sky. Really.  Taking pictures of the sky has been a favorite pastime of me since I had my first camera.  Especially clouds.  Love me some clouds!  And there's nothing but sky and clouds out here!  I don't know if I'll ever be able to live in the city again...

In the Black Hills National Forest, there aren't only tons of trees and sky, but there are also national monuments (go figure!)  Now, I haven't really seen many national monuments, aside from a day trip to Washington DC about 7 years ago, nor am I insanely interested in seeing many.  Or at least I didn't think I was until we went to visit Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse yesterday:  how astonishing! Even the journey through the Black Hills to get to these places was super duper.

Mount Rushmore was exciting: it's like we turned a corner, then boom, I caught a glimpse of George Washington's giant mug over the tree line, and I shouted out like a little kid "Dad, ahhhh, we're here!!!!" Until I saw it in person, I thought it was kind of dorky, but damn, call me a dork, because I loved it!  It was super early in the morning, and pretty cold, so there weren't many people there.  It was so quiet and peaceful as well, so it was a good time to reflect and restore some additional patriotism in my heart..  I know it sounds cheesy, but it's totally true!  I'm proud to be an American and all, and I support the troops overseas (love you PK!), but the past decade hasn't really done anything to ignite the patriotic spirit we're raised to have in grade school, that feeling of being so happy to be an American because of the freedom and liberties afforded here, and the fact that everyone looks great in red, white and blue :) 

Anyway, it was totes awesome and I loved it!  Also, to contemplate the fact that someone built it there; presidents' faces didn't just grow into a rock.  At the base of the monument there's an exhibit that tells you how long it took to build (14 years!), who designed it (Gutzon Borglum), how many workers there were, and many photos of the progress they made. I definitely have a new appreciation for artists, sculptors and monument builders!

After seeing all there was to see, we headed the 11 windy miles down the road to check out the Crazy Horse Memorial Monument, which turned out to be just as cool. There was an informational video you watch when you first get there, that tells you all about how the Crazy Horse monument came to be.  It's actually fascinating that one guy (an incredibly talented sculptor by the name of Korczak Ziolkowski) worked on it for many many years, and now his family has taken over (he had 10 children and 7 of them continue work on the monument).  Apparently, after Mount Rushmore was constructed, the Ogalala Lakota people wanted to show that they live here too and have also had great leaders, so Korczak Ziolkowski was approached by Henry Standing Bear to take on this "monumental" task (hardy har harrr), which he made his life's work. 

The monument is still many, many years from being completed, as it is privately funded (no government sponsorship like at Rushmore) and the work crew is much smaller.  Still, the unfinished product as of now is still absolutely breathtaking!  There's a small Ogalala Lakota museum at the site, among other things, where you can talk Ogalala people and ask about there art and handmade goods that are sold there, which we did. I definitely felt a connection to my ancestors while we were there (despite the fact that we're descendants of Cherokee, not Lakota people).  And this all took place before lunch!

Once we left Crazy Horse, we took a long, winding road through the Black Hills to Deadwood, an authentic old west town (not a fake one, duh).  There we stopped in a cute little cafe and had mochas (now he's hooked, he'd never had one, and he's a chocolate lover!), a chai cupcake (yum!) and a chat with the sweet lil woman running the show there.  She's a Chicago native (what's up!?!) so we connected on that point, and she really hooked us up an an alternate route to get out of South Dakota into Wyoming, up to Devil's Tower without taking the freeway.  I think she was sweet on Dad, but he can never tell with that kind of stuff :)

Deadwood was kind of magical.  A snow squall started while we were sitting cozily inside, sipping on our hot, chocolaty, espresso delights.  Once we left, tiny snow showers continued while we were driving.  At times, you could look out over the landscape and actually see the snow line, which I found to be AMAZING!  Though I felt at times the roads were a bit more dangerous, and Dad's cruise control was getting some.  It would want to fly uphill around a corner at 60 mph, kickin' it up to 5000 rpm's, lol.  Had to slow her down a few times, as well as hold onto the OS bars, lol. We were saying "Get up and go? Silverado got up and WENT!" We also saw some signs that advertised a curve up ahead, and to drop speed down to 50mph, which still seemed pretty fast, lol.  I thought for sure the Silverado was gonna take us for an unanticipated off-road, off-mountain adventure!

Once we got out of the Black Hills, we finally made it out of South Dakota (we were there 2.5 days, whew!) and into Wyoming, which I'm totally loving so far.  We managed to find our way to Devil's Tower, which proved to be quite the sight, before we found a hotel for the evening.  At one point, on the way there, we stopped for gas.  I ran in to use the bathroom and fill my water bottle, and when I went in, Ben Kweller was playing on the radio!  I never hear him, anywhere, and Wyoming is the last place I would have expected it.

So, I was super excited to run outside and tell Dad all about it, where he was pumping gas.  I'm like "Dad, there are bathrooms and Ben ---- ahhhhhh!" Gas was pouring out of the gas tank onto the ground and I didn't even have the words to tell him, I just screamed and pointed, lol.  Then I burst out laughing, but Poppa Bear didn't think it was so funny. Oops.  I guess I distracted him, because he's always going on about how he plays by the rules and doesn't ever leave the pump out of eye-shot when he is using a fuel pump.  I think he thinks it's funny now, though :)

We arrived at a little town called Buffalo, WY around 6pm, and we were starvin' Marvins!  We were recommended to go to a local Mexican food joint, which I'm usually wary of out in the middle of nowhere, but I was hungry and looking for some vegetables and a cold one.  This place was called Sol de Vallarta, and it was pretty effin' good (Mom, it would give Don Juan's a run for it's money, seriously!).  The chips were fresh, the salsa was good, the vegetables fajitas were made with TONS of veggies, and the margaritas were perfect.  I haven't eaten Mexican food that good in a looooong time; I'm kind of even a Mexican food snob, which makes me all the more surprised to find it that good all the way out here.

Today, our stomachs will take us to Bozeman, MT, which will (hopefully) have plenty of  good food, good beer, and great sights to see along the way.  I'll be sure to let you know all about it :)

 Just me and the boys.

 Dead Presidents.

 Clouds.

 It's getting there...

 Downtown Deadwood.

 <3'd this place!

 FOR-EV-ER!

 Snow falling on the prairie.

 Sell it, you tino dino!

 Devil's Tower, WY.

And some more sky...

Speaking of soft...

Did you know that the Badlands National Park was formed by volanic ash deposits about 30 some odd million years ago? "Volcanic activity, probably originating in the Rocky Mountains to the west, poured vast quantities of wind-borne ash on the plains of South Dakota" (TLC).

Believe me, before today, I had no idea.  I actually didn't even know what to expect when we arrived.  Yesterday was a pretty, not boring but slower paced day, that I was hoping for some sort of awesomeness to make up for it on day 3.  So we woke up in Sioux Falls this morning and headed west, for the Badlands.  (I think we've officially arrived "West" by the way, as has been our goal thus far).

I was so excited to hit the road today I even woke up early and made a special playlist for the occassion, including The Animals, Built to Spill, Animal Collective, Iron & Wine, Andrew Bird, Led Zeppelin and other bands that start with letters in the alphabet that come before K that would allow for some serious rocking through America, haha.  My music collection has grown rather large in the past six months, so perhaps tomorrow we'll include music from K-Z. Maybe.

Might I add that once we left Wisconsin yesterday, things got pretty flat.  Really flat.  All of Minnesota is very flat, though there were plenty of windfarms along the way, which were nice to see, but we were wondering who all that power is being sourced to?  It didn't seem like there were too many people residing in rural Minnesota...

 Yet, as soon as we arrived in South Dakota last night, it seems like the landscape was increasing in it's excitement factor, though we stopped after only 15 miles in Sioux Falls.  We had bees and "dinner" at a place called Monk's House of Ale Repute.  The beer selection was excellence, but do note the use of quotations marks around the word dinner (it was more of a snacky menu, but we weren't so hungry anyway, though the snacks were good!).

Flash forward to today: after a brief visit to the Mitchell Corn Palace, there were plenty of rolling hills to be seen and oasis-like lakes spread sporadically along the countryside, complete with corn and cows, we finally reached some remarkable landscape structures.  The Badlands arose on the horizon like medieval, Gothic castles carved by the wind; they are really that spooky to see!  Especially on a cloudy day... They were definitely amazing enough to give any earth science lover an increase in heartbeat!

So we drove towards and into the park, stopping along the way and taking PLENTY of pictures; maybe too many.  May I add that it is really hard to take good pictures when you're zoomed in 20x in a bumpy truck at 50 mph.  Apparently, Dad has the knack, but he was driving so, I did my best.  Plus, there were about a zillion places to pull off the road and take pics, too.

We didn't really strategize our plan of attack, so we quickly drove through one part, then realized we had not only exited the Badlands National Park, but also were driving along a road riding parallel to them, depriving us of their mesmerizing glory.  Alas, we found a dirt road that would take us directly back to the park from the south entrance, which ended up being quite the off-the-beaten-path way to travel into the park.  It was SO incredible!  We got to ride back into the park and up into the Badlands (which are really like bizarre little mountains) and even took the "back way" out, which took us the long way out as well.  It really felt like we were the only people on the planet, on another planet, like Mars, aside from a herd of bison.

I can't remember the last time I was in a place so quiet.  India wasn't even that quiet, you could always hear the highway, even at night.  Here, the only thing you could hear was the wind, and it was HOWWWWWLING.  I felt like I could jump into the air and fly like a kite.  I tried a couple of time, but due to my weight and gravity, I crashed back to earth.

So after a few hours, we continued our journey west, and ended up in Rapid City, on the west side of SD, very close to the Black Hills National Forest, which we will be sure to check out tomorrow.  After some late afternoon relaxing, we ended up at a local pub called Murphy's, which had a really lovely menu that had delicious food made with fresh ingredients and a rather extensive beer menu; it's kind of a prerequisite on this trip :)  We each tried a cup of the beer cheese soup, while Dad had the shepherds pie made with lamb, and I tried the portabello sandwich with asparagus, both of which were pretty good (I took his word for it on the lamb pie).  Wow, I love food.  Besides seeing new things, food is my favorite part of traveling :)

I can't wait for tomorrow, for new sights, smells and tastes. Yum!

 Touched this one up a bit.

 University of Wisonconsin - Madison campus: beautiful!

  I'd apply for a PhD program just to get to live here for a few years....

 That'd be the Minnesota welcome sign: tricky bastard was on the other side of the freeway!

 These are EVERYWHERE!

 Finally!

 All sorts of fake, oversized livestock in this state.

 A waste of resources, lol.

 Proof that we're taking this trip together.

 

 Not just fake, oversized livestock, but also dinosaurs: very strange. 

 

Apparently, they're a sell point for tourists?

 Prairie dog.

 

 Super Mega Ultra Agro Crag!

 This was also in the area.

 Approaching the Badlands from the south, on a dirt road.

 View to the south.

 Trying to blow away in a wind gust. Partial success!

 I'm in love with the sky.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Cutie pie.  More like cow pie.

 "Slowly going the way of the buffalo [bison]"

1. “History: How the Badlands Were Formed,” TLC.com, accessed on October 25, 2011,                  http://tlc.howstuffworks.com/family/badlands-national-park-ga2.htm.

hello, America!

So, this past month has been beyond a whirlwind, filled with faces, places, spaces!  I can't believe how amazing and hospitable my friends in Chicago have been, really.  Opening their homes to me for weeks at a time (thank you Tricia Mahoney, Emily Smith and Misha Stone!), as well as taking me out and showing me a good time.

In the past few weeks, I've spent an abundance of time in Chicago, Cincinnati and Detroit, and everywhere in between.  There's been museums, parties, hangouts, pubs, grassy knolls, long conversations, short conversations, dinners, lunches, coffees and everything in between.  I am the luckiest girl in the world!  It's such an incredible feeling to get to hang out with the people that I love, everyday, without having to worry about getting up for work in the morning.  My life has been purely social, ranging from 1 to 5 social engagements each day.

I spent the last week or so in the Detroit metro area, catching up with old friends, going on adventures, attending the wedding of close friends (while having beyond a blast), as well as spending some quality time with my family (gosh, how I missed them!)

So now, Big Mike and I have embarked upon the most epic road trip of my life.  I've never spent more than 8 days on the road, and I really haven't seen much of America.  An old friend and I took a trip that spanned the northern east coast of the USA,where we visited Canada, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia; but that's really the last time I was afforded the time to do extensive traveling domestically.  I'm more of the stay-put-and-get-to-know-the-local-culture kind of gal, but now, I've got a chance to blast through the United States.

For the next 3 weeks, Dad and I will be taking in all the scenery and roadside shenanery of America.  We left Detroit at 9am this morning with a destination of Madison, WI, some 400 miles away.  We KILLED it!  Things ran smoothly until we hit Chicago.  Shit, I'm used to getting dropped off in Ann Arbor and hopping on the Megabus for the next 5 hours and waking up in Chicago, kind of like a teleportation.  It's weird to continue to entire journey all the way to Chicago, and then to pass it, in a car (or truck, in our case).

As to be expected, as soon as we hit Chicago, there were traffic backups.  It took us an hour to go about 5 miles, but hey, we're on vacation and it's all a part of the journey.  Luckily, I have a "Chicago Traffic App" on my phone, and Big Mike has GPS, so between the two, we managed to avoid any further delays by driving 94W up to Milwaukee, then driving west over to Madison, where we'll be staying tonight.

Along the way, we've seen plenty a dead animal (serious sad face, roadkill saddens me each time I see it, from rats to deer), peed at many different rest stops and been eating home-packed snacks.  I'm relatively organized in the grand scheme of things and stocked up on plenty of yummy snacks along the way (including Faygo Red Pop, Annie's Go Bunnies, leftover pizza, carrots and Tootsie pops, to name a few).

Also, we recently purchased an iPod tuner that allows us to listen to whatever music we want along the way, just in case local radio goes awry.  This tuner was on the cheap side, so I have to plug it in and hang the iPod in the visor with the adapter hanging in the air in front of the dashboard to get it to work properly, but there's plenty of good jams on the iPod to keep us going strong.  As soon as we put on Band of Gypsys, we managed to escape the nasty Chicago traffic.  Further, there have been many amazing local radio stations worth a listen (or ten), including WMUK's Grass Roots.  We were blown away by the bluegrass this station pumped out on an early morning in Michigan! 

Vacation magic has definitely been in effect so far, from radio stations to accommodation.  While traveling along this morning I realized that I have an accommodation card by the name of Wilson Kirkpatrick (my lovely brother) sitting in my back-pocket.  My sweet brother works for a Marriott property in Hot!lanta, and is always telling my family and I to make use of it.  So we did today, and our room here in Madison is beyond sweet, for an extremely affordable price. EXTREMELY! I am so lucky and blessed to have him and his influence with us on this journey; thank you, W!!!!

We were definitely in need of some rest when we arrived, and were in need of some serious food when we awoke.  So we cruised over to one of Madison's Great Dane Brewery's locations, for some beer and some grub.  We split the tasty little beer-battered, fried cheese curds (when in Rome, or Madison in this case), Dad had the walleye, I had the falafel and several Imperial IPA's (which I HIGHLY recommend, if you like IPA's). 

Which brings us to now.  We are hanging out, enjoying all the amenities afforded to us at this Marriott property, and planning for the week ahead.  Tomorrow, our goal is to arrive in Sioux Falls, SD, yet another northern state I've never visited before.  I am effin' PUMPED!  See you in South Dakota!

 I'm hoping to catch "Welcome" shots of each an every state we cruise through along the way, no matter how horrible they may look :)

 Milwaukee, from the road, while raining.

 Home of the Brewers, complete with a retractable roof!

Sunset in Madison.

these days aren't endless, but they are indeed numbered.

Wow.  I'm already home.  How is that even possible?  I started this travel blog almost 7 months ago, and I surely didn't write enough in it.  At all.  I was too busy "doing" to get wrapped up in writing it all down on a computer.  Don't get me wrong, I have a personal notebook I write in at least once a day (ha, who am I trying to kid, try once a week), but people can't read that.

To capture my last few days at Sadhana Forest, I took a ton of pictures.  Honestly, I only took pictures my first few weeks and my last few weeks, or when I was on vacation, leaving about 19 perfectly good, un-photographed weeks, where I hopefully journaled about all the bad-ass stuff going on in my life.

The most I can say about the last few weeks is that they were awesome; I think the best of all the time I spent at Sadhana Forest.  The people that were volunteering there were all really amazing and had some really fabulous connections with them.  I think that when Jaspreet and Kate left, I was absolutely devastated and thought, how the hell am I going to survive for 5 weeks without them?!?

And then I persevered. And it was incredible.  I felt so liberated and I had to force myself to grow in ways that perhaps I had not been able to do, due to a built in sheltering system that had previously been in place (i.e. aforementioned friends). So, even though I was a cranky, crying biatch for a few days (ok, let's face it, it was probably close to two weeks), I managed to make friends. Easily, even, believe it or not.

It's not like I didn't want to make friends before, I just didn't have to.  I didn't have to interact with strangers at all beyond the superficial level, because I had close friends.  Why invest in someone who's only going to be here for 2 weeks? At least that was my attitude for most of the time I was there, which is kind of shitty.  Yet, it helped to preserve myself, because I had to interact with so many people, for varying lengths of time, it's almost impossible to personally invest in each and every one because it still hurts when they leave.

I figured that since I had grown up always coming and going, leaving and returning, that it would be easy for me to make fast friends at Sadhana Forest, and be able to have them go, no-strings-attached.  But it wasn't like that.  After I lost that first group of friends, that first group of people who I essentially invested my soul in and who were there with me for at least my first month, it was really really really hard to do that again.  So once Jaspreet and Kate arrived, I didn't really do it at all.

Sure, sometimes I'd flirt with some of the boys (hey, I'm shameless) or have small interactions with people because Kate, Jaspreet or Franziska were sick, but once they left, man oh man did I flourish!  I think I did more growing and freeing of my personal self in that time than the entire time I was in India.  I am a bit of a procrastinator so even my heart knew that it had some serious work to do after it'd been wasting away and sitting on it's ass all summer :)

 I didn't plan it; it just happened.  I was joking around with strangers more, I was making plans to go hang around or show people around Auroville more, I got rid of my moped, I stayed at the Forest more, I spent more time with the Family (especially Yorit and the girls), I went swimming late at night even though I was tired, I went out for chai even though I didn't intend on drinking any, I went out of my way to put myself in situations in which I would have once been socially anxious. As a result, I feel amazing.

I feel super-connected with myself (or at least I did when I left, the past few weeks have been a bit hectic with about zilch alone time) and I don't feel self-conscious.  I feel awesome wearing my own skin, and not being sheltered by anyone else's.  I feel the ability to act like myself and to speak my mind, even though it might not be the popular opinion or it might piss someone off.  I'm not as friendly to people in public as I used to be, because I don't have to be, which is something I was actually striving towards.

After working in retail for 10 years (that's right, 10 loooooonnnngggg years), the most recent establishment being one that I sacrificed a lot of personal integrity, energy, attitude and overall self trying to be the "ideal" worker, I've had to work really hard to figure out how I feel on any given day.  When I worked at the "Bounty", even if I felt awful, I had to go into work and pretend I was alright.  And it's not the only job I had to do that at, it's just the most recent example.  And it can even be a good way to get things off of your mind, to just forget about whatever nonsensical bullshit you had on your mind when you walked into work.

Yet, a lot of times, it left me completely detached from my overall sense of self and genuine emotion.  Not to mention I spent plenty of time drinking, partying and staying up til all hours, because my friends/co-workers were coping in the same way, so there's a lot of numbing that takes place in the emotional department.  Writing my thesis on this topic in particular probably didn't help me to cope any better, even though I was studying coping mechanisms, and I knew what worked and what didn't, I still was engaging in self-destructive behavior.

That's quite a bit to process. I'm still processing, after 6 solid months in India after the completion of my thesis.  As awesome as it is to say I finished it, it still doesn't feel like it's done.  I still will wake up sometimes and feel panicked, but then realize, "Nope, it's over. Go back to bed."  Having that thing hanging off my shoulders for over a year and a half, then finishing it 3 days before I left for India was pretty insane.  It definitely didn't give me any time to process before I left!

Thus, the past few months and weeks have been used to help get connected to my actual self, whatever that means, lol.  I started meditating more, instead of merely counting my yoga practice as meditation.  Though yoga is a form of meditation, it doesn't take as much focus as actually sitting down and sifting through your thoughts to separate the healthy ones from the poisonous ones. I started riding my bike more (ha, like 2 miles a day, 3 times a week, but still!). I stopped feeling obligated to uphold every single social activity that I committed myself to, but committing to those that would make me grow (i.e. feel slightly uncomfortable) the most.

Why would I do such a thing?  Well, there is some reason behind it.  Sometimes I make too many plans, then get overwhelmed and don't want to do any of them.  Or sometimes I'll make plans with people, and the thought of hanging out with them gives me anxiety, so I'll cancel.  On several occassions, an extremely attractive man, whom I've gotten to know relatively well in my time in Auroville, asked me to have lunch with him.  And I repeatedly bailed.

Why, you might ask? Though I may appear as a confident, unphazeable, brazen young woman, I'm actually extremely shy around members of the opposite sex, especially if they're extremely good-looking.  So in my last week in Auroville, I ran into this extremely attractive individual, who informed me that he knew I was leaving.  I mentioned lunch and he was like "How do I know you're actually going to show up?" And I rattled some shit about having phone anxiety (which is actually true) and that I absoltely wouldn't bail.

So we had lunch the next day.  I showed up on-time (a rareity for me in India!) and we had a good time.  I even managed to tell him why I had been so flaky around him the past few months, and I told him the God's honest truth: because he's so attractive, I feel dorky and unattractive and have anxiety thinking about what kind of topics to talk about with him.  He was very flattered, to say the least, and assured me that I was crazy and that those things aren't true about me.  I know this!  But he's so attractive it would make me insecure, how does that even make sense?

Anyway, this is just one example of ways in which I accepted and stepped up to the challenges that once used to plague me in my life.  I also managed to tell another friend I thought he was really cute and I wanted to kiss him.  He didn't really have a response, I guess it is an awkward thing to just drop on someone while hanging out.  Yet, we kissed later that day.  That's all it was, but it's a really powerful thing, to know that you think something or want something, and be able to reveal it or ask for it, regardless of consequences you might meet.  Previously in my life, it was the thought of those consequences that kept me from even asking or revealing something like this in the first place. Now, it's like Pandora's box has been opened: I feel liberated from myself.

Ok, blah blah blah, I know this isn't as fun of a blog post as some of my past ones, but I feel it's pivotal in explaining what happened to me while in India.  There are many, many other things which have helped me to become who I am today, but it would probably be trite and boring to keep making a list.  These are definitely a few of the most monumental I have experienced, though.

I need to reiterate how much I loved being at the Forest.  It changed my life! Now that I'm home, I realize how most of the people I know don't think like me, most of them don't want to live their lives they way I want to live mine, which is kind of sad, but at the same time I understand.  Living in a hut made out of casuarina, banana leaves and rope and pooping in a hole in the ground and covering it with sawdust isn't for everybody.  Yet, now that I've tried it, that's how I want to live in the long-run.  I feel so much less superficial, have zero drive to be a consumer, and have so much less patience for are. But I should get into that more in my next post, the one where I talk about what it's actually like to be home.

I'll leave you with some photos of my last days in the forest: it's only been 2 weeks, but it seems like they were taken months ago...

Love and light and hugs and stuff...

 Shalev and Sadhana: they live at Sadhana Forest permanently and they're BFF's!

 A kick-ass lunch (dal bhadi), whipped up by a houseful of Rajastani princes :)

 My favorite Rajastani prince, Vikram: doesn't he look like a brown Jeff Goldblum? I sure think so.

 Koot Road at night: partha master!

 Chai, the favorite past-time of many.

 Finally snapped a pic of the Matrimandir myself. I'm so sly.

 Sweating the days away.

 Crash 'n burn took took: one of the people involved in this accident actually died :(

 I <3 nature.

 View from 30 feet above.  Climbed to the top of the water-tower, the highest spot in the Forest, yet another growing experienced.

 Also from the water tower.

 At the entrance...

Good night, Sadhana Forest. Until next time... xo