Yellowstone, My Favorite Place

Yellowstone National Park, my favorite place.
For many years I have headed to this wonderland and gawed, with the rest of the tourists, at the geysers, animals and raw beauty. I have been to this place twice a year for the past 20 years. This year was the first year I have not been to my favorite place. This year was a milestone in my life, 20 years of marriage, so we decided to get brave and head out of the country. This was no small feat with my control issues and anxiety disorder. But, now that I have all of those things tamed I decided, what the hell lets go to Mexico on a cruise. So we did and had the best time of our lives. Then, the daughter, missing out on the cruise was hoping for a trip so we suprised her with a halloween Disneyland trip which was as magical as it sounds.
Now I stare at my past Yellowstone pictures and miss my favorite place.
One year while at Yellowstone we had driven the motorhome up from Salt Lake City and parked it in the West Yellowstone KOA. We had dragged our little Ford Aspire behind it so we had something to drive through the park with. One thing about our little car, well, it was little. Sitting in an animal jam I got to see just how little it truly was as I watched a buffalo come up next to us on the road. He stood there eyeing us with one big brown eye, his shaggy coat littered with grass and dust. I wondered if he would consider Blue Thunder (of course we had to name the little car) a threat to his masculinity. Well, he did not and kept moving along the side of the road. This animal jam was a doozy and as usual it was caused by buffalo. In the narrow, winding road that leads North from Madison Junction to Norris Geyser Basin the buffalo cannot do anything but walk down the road. Well, they mosey, as buffalo tend to do out here in the west and sometimes they will have a stand off. I have seen buffalo fight during the rut, quite the spectacle but this time it was a stand off between a buffalo and a small, white car. The buffalo and car were nose to nose in the roadway and that was the jam. As we creeped by I watched the driver gesturing to his wife, hands thrown in the air as if to say, "What? Where do you want me to go!" I wanted to tell the guy, dude the buffalo will win. I never found out who won that standoff but I am sure a ranger came by and took pity on the poor, fragile car and shuffled the buffalo off.
Next year, Yellowstone for sure. I need to sit among the lodgepole pines and meditate. I need to stand on the edge of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and contemplate what a small creature I truly am in the face of Mother Nature.

My New Obsession

Jared Leto, my new obsession. I discovered 30 Seconds to Mars a few weeks ago while listening to some shared iTunes at work. I fell in love with the voice, the sound of the music and the message. I had this urge to take a look at the band, see who these musical geniuses were. Much to my delight I found Jared, Shannon and Tomo. The more I read about them, the more videos I watched (I am in love with Jared in the video From Yesterday), the more I realized this is a band I have been missing out on. Watching Shannon beat on the drums spurs me to take up drumming again. Listening to Jared sing makes my skin tingle with excitement and my chest to squeeze with the emotion within. Hearing the drums get pounded with such skill makes me want to run and get a set once again to see if I can even keep up with Shannon.
I joined the Echelon community and have been trying to be a good member of the street team but there is not one, offically, in Utah. Sometimes I feel this place is a musical wasteland where if you do not listen to country you do not count. I do my best by promoting the band's video's and such on my facebook and other social networking sites. I have never had this sort of medium to help a band out, in the old days it was just buy the vinyl and concert tickets to support. I feel like I want to promote what moves me and now I can do so. Their CD This is War is fantastic. I have listened to it so much that I know the words to the songs and sing them aloud in my truck as I head here and there. I have been dragging my friends heads down to my headphones saying, check this out. They humor me, but they love their country music and that is fine. Music is music. The reason there is so many different kinds out there is so that the music can speak to the individual. Seems to me to be a lot like religion: there are so many so that we all may find our path to God/Goddess/Higher Power/Universe. It is all a way for us to connect to that light within.

I do stop and wonder at my level of obsession. I thought about how many 'rock stars' I have met over the years as a hardcore groupie and I realized I had gotten over the 'thrill' a long time ago. I really had no desire to meet anyone....until now. Right now the chance to meet them is in my face but I am not thinking it will happen. The New Year's Eve show in Las Vegas has Golden Tickets left but they are pricey. To me it is worth it, to others it is not and after a year of Mexican Riviera cruises and Disneyland, to take off for another monster trip to Vegas is tough to justify.
I waffle back and forth, do I want to tarnish the image I have in my head of these people or should I just hang out at home, listening to the music and day dreaming how they would even react to little ol' me.
Touring non-stop throughout the world, taking on every stress that has to come at them fast and hard, I am sure they are not warm and fuzzy at the meet and greets. Not that they do not care about those fans who do come to see them, but they are tired, thinking of home or thinking of getting on stage to do what they were born to do.
Do I envy a rockstar? No. I would not want their fast paced life. I like the background, I like to be the instrument in hand to make things happen. Such as writing the script, the lyrics, the poem.
Do I appreciate them? Of course. I appreciate the baring of their souls to bring to us the ills or joys of the world. To give us the pathway to see the world through their eyes, which in turn may open our own.
Music is life. Every moment of every day music rains down upon us. So many miss the symphony of the day that I feel pity. Each leaf rustling, the wind howling, the click of a car door down the road, the sound of a train whistle in the distance, these things all come together to create the music of life. So many do not stop to listen, they do not hear our world singing to us every moment of every day. Even the clicking of my fingers upon these keys while I type this is a chours of joy as I am able to pour out my words.
I put my vibration out to the Universe that perhaps someday I will stand before my soul friends, Jared, Shannon, and Tomo, and can properly thank them for their sacrifice to me so that I may hear the world through their souls. And I hope that they will hear me as a voice but something tells me that they will. They listen as well as they sing.
Thanks 30 Seconds to Mars
Whatever you are, be the best * Abraham Lincoln

As I Start to Walk

The doe did not take notice of me, even though I was not steathly upon approach. I watched her for a while taking note of the sheer gentleness of her being. A doe is a symbol of soft, gentle love and the perfect marker for the start of my journey. This place, Zion National Park in Utah, is a favorite of mine. Miles of trails that take you somewhere beautiful. Miles of trails to lose your cares upon. I will begin my journey here, in this special place, with the doe and remember my vibration as I move through out this life.