The Myth & The Majesty

While I'm off in Korea, I thought I could share some pictures from Shorty's and my Christmas Eve in Denver. We did a little last-minute shopping, ate a pile of junk food -- but most importantly, we took advantage of the great weather and free hours and hit a park. With his kite. Definitely refreshing before a long flight. Woot.          

Never heard a snowman talking Never seen a reindeer fly Nor seen a wooden soldier walking Nor met Santa eye to eye I hope I'm not the only person under 40 that pulls out the Statler Brothers at Christmas. Now there are those who don't believe In miracles or Santa Claus But I believe what I believe And I believe in Santa's cause But I might be. Never heard an angel singing Never known a Scrooge to smile But I have heard sleigh bells ring And light a spark in some small child It's not been a year for me to feel particularly ... Christmas-y. As I mentioned last week, w e've gotten good at chaotic Christmases -- which detract from the calm. They're certainly fun and interesting in their own right, but they don't lend themselves to a season of peace. For kids and trees light up at Christmas As well as preachers and our lawns And light a Santa way at Christmas I believe in Santa's cause Now as I hang out in my brother...

A quick plug: A friend of Storm and fellow blogger has a book out! Check out Amy Kirk and her book right here ... She writes about life on a working cattle ranch in South Dakota and the book is a collection of the essays she's written in the last few years. I've been reading it a few essays at a time since I got my copy on Sunday and ... well. It's pretty much awesome. So go check her out!

There was a point in my life where I could pack for a weekend trip in one bag and fifteen minutes. Those days are gone. I say this because, at this exact moment in time, there are five bags out in my living room: two suitcases, one backpack, one carry-on, and a computer bag. Three of those are going to Korea with me while the other two hang out in Denver. I will have no fewer than three coats, four pairs of shoes, and six books packed by the time I'm done. In all fairness, some of this is strategic. I'm trying to minimize how much stuff I need to move from my Denver suitcase to my Korea suitcase so as to not leave something behind (in either place). And the books are a simple case of a lack of self control. (I'll make up my mind as to what stays by Wednesday morning. I don't really feel like hauling those along.) There are also a pile of small Christmas presents in there or I could probably get away with not checking a bag. (I really miss those days.) There may...

When I was younger, Christmas seemed to be very ... consistent. And it was, mostly. We usually stayed home. My grandparents only lived half and hour away, so we would have Christmas Eve and morning at home, and then go over there. (Sometimes slightly shuffled, but pretty much the same.) For a lot of years -- the first third of my life, really -- that was the way it was. Then my grandparents moved and the chaos started. We still usually stayed home, but now the relatives that had stayed with them before stayed with us. In 1997 (I think), my aunt and uncle were visiting when their house was robbed; most of my memories of that Christmas involve playing with my two young cousins (5 and 3 at the time, if I have the year right) while their parents spent hours on the phone, sorting things out from 1,000 miles away. A couple years later, everyone on my dad's side turned up for a Y2K bash. Eighteen-ish people slept under one roof, eventually. The year after that, we went to Houst...

I am, wholly and completely, a (mid-)rural Midwest kid. I'm still thrown by how empty the train was that day. This means a lot of things. I am familiar with many versions of tator tot casserole. I've gone trick-or-treating in so many layers that my costume was rendered indistinguishable. And though I'm not yet thirty, I've been driving for well over half my life. Out here, you learn to drive about the time you can reach the pedals ... and then you drive that first car until it doesn't run anymore. It's easy for even non-motorheads to have long, drawn-out conversations about their vehicles and the ailments they've had. All you have to do is mention mileage in a group and it quickly becomes a contest to see whose car has racked up the most miles so far. In this unleaded upbringing, buses and trains are less than practical. Amtrak doesn't cross the state (although they used to have bus service to a couple of places) and buses don't seem to dr...

Rapid City sits in just the right part of a time zone to make for really long winter days. When you add the Hills on the west side, the afternoons get truncated a bit more, meaning that Mines students walking to dinner at 5:00 get to do so in the dark this time of year. It was with a relatively clear head that I moved into this little valley, having had five semesters of dark dinners. But short of living in Alaska, I'm not sure I would have been totally prepared for our less-than-four-hours of direct sunlight all through December. Now, it's just after ten when the sun peeks above the eastern hills, and just before two when it vanishes over the western ridge. When I go to work in the morning, I know the sun's come up but I can't see it. And by the time the day is over, it's dark enough to make me walk home a bit more quickly. (Blame the mountain lions. Because once that thought's in your head, you can't shake it.) It also means that home feels just a l...

Denver had been my intended stop from the very beginning. When I'd first considered vacation, I figured I'd head south -- visit Shorty and a bunch of college friends, sleep on someone's couch, hit a few of the stores I can't find in RC and hang out downtown. It wasn't until I got more time off that the third Great Western Trek was fully realized and Denver became the end game. Denver, however, seemed to be the center of things that went wrong while I was on vacation. The day I left on my grand road trip, the flooding started there . And the morning I left Moab was only hours after the demise of the Gaslight . Five miles later, the snow started. So it seemed only natural that, among other things, this day was the first time I hit weather that impeded traffic -- this time, in the form of snow. At the top of the mountains. Sophie did not enjoy the altitude. Particularly combined with the incline. All the same, we made it to Daz's downtown apartment ...

My first time on a normal passenger plane was in April of 2002. It was my senior year of high school; the band was going to New York City. It had been seven months since 9/11 but as our crowd of 60-some boarded early in the morning in Sioux Falls, we didn't really have any trouble. It would be some time yet before liquids were limited in your carry-on, and years before anyone would even consider charging for a checked bag, much less a carry-on. I had a cell phone ... that didn't work when I got that far from home. I had a calling card so that I could call my mother on a pay phone from the top of the Empire State Building. While I certainly had Internet access by then, I didn't know anything about my flight or the plane I'd be on. [There was a near-incident involving a foil-wrapped package of Pop-Tarts when we went through security, but it was mostly just hilarious.] My, how things have changed. Now, I find myself getting ready for the wedding in two and a half...

If you ever have the urge to visit Moab and/or Arches National Park, I would like to suggest two very simple rules. Do not arrive on a Saturday afternoon in the busy season unless you have a lot of patience to find a camping spot. Get to Arches as early in the day as you can. This didn't help things. I knew, as I left my cheap motel in Idaho, that finding a place to sleep in the entirely first-come-first-served region of Moab was going to be tough. I didn't expect to put an extra fifty-plus miles on my car and drive around (slowly) for two hours before I came across a campground with any vacancies. Maybe I should have predicted that one better. The Bureau of Land Management operates several campgrounds (ranging from five sites to over twenty) along most of the highways around the Arches and the Canyonlands. Given that this is a mountain biking Mecca (and a dream come true for outdoorsy types of many disciplines), these low-maintenance, frill-free sites fill up...

Maybe I've had too much sugar today. Maybe it's because I finally sent in a piece to the contest I've been meaning to enter. (Three whole days before the deadline, even!) Maybe it's the strange excitement of having a group in that's almost entirely within a decade of my age. Maybe it's my continued abuse of Amazon Prime Video. Maybe it's the fact that -10 is starting to not feel as cold as it should. Or maybe ... just maybe ... I'm starting to feel Christmas-y. It's entirely likely that it's a combination of all of these things that's making it hard for me to relax. I'd love to be drifting off to sleep right now, like a normal adult human that has to work in the morning. But instead, here I am, combing through the stuff Mia Sorella has sent for her wedding. It's only three weeks away. How crazy is that? I have one more group before then, the beginning of a renovation project, our mini-Christmas party ... And not until ...

Jef Mallett is regularly my hero. I am now quite comfortable declaring it winter. Forget the winter solstice -- the weather's not waiting. Heck, our first major snow was the first week of October. Now, after a Thanksgiving spent in the 50s, this morning led to it being around -10 (with no windchill) when I stepped outside. It's cold enough that I spent all day in two extra layers (but apparently not cold enough for the Bossman to forsake his shorts). It's cold enough that my fancy-schmancy thermostat is trying to find synonyms for "really cold" for its five-day forecast. It seems to like the word "frigid" an awful lot. And it's cold ... everywhere, from at least Bozeman, MT, to Wausau, WI. We're sitting somewhere near the middle of that 1000-mile swath of freeze. The kind of day where I'm finding excuses to stay inside my house where the temperature is comfortable and my feet stay warm. That trip into town I was considering tonig...

Yes. There are mountain lions in the Black Hills. I say this straight away because there have been plenty of arguments about that over the years and only vague ideas as to exactly how many there are around here. There is a hunting season and there are plenty of tagged cats, including several that cross our property now and then. Like this morning. This morning, I got a rather excited page (we have home-connecting intercoms... yeah) from my next door neighbors. Turns out the M-Man was enjoying his breakfast when he looked out the window and saw a big guy walking by. Those prints are roughly the size of my palm (actually maybe a little bigger) and about sixty feet from the house, headed up the road. Never a dull moment.

I am a slob. This is not by any means a revelation. Anyone who knows me even sort of well knows this. It's been a thing since I was quite young -- my fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Carlson, even told me, "Ashley, you can be anything you want to be. Just please don't become a cleaning lady." Yeah ... She would be alarmed at what I now do for a living. The thing of it is ... I've been taught better. My mother is an excellent maintenance cleaner. Every Saturday morning is spent sweeping, scrubbing, dusting, moving furniture aside to get to the hard-to-reach places. Her house is rarely more than twenty minutes from company-ready. My sister is even better -- she just plain keeps things clean. For some reason, I missed that skill. My desk and my bedroom when I was a kid, and now my car and my house -- always a mess. More than anything, it's always been paper. Books, half-used notebooks, old journals, scrapbook paper (rarely used for scrapbooks), notes and rec...