Laura's Graduation, Synergia Ranch, Bantu, Lucinda Williams concert

After a swift and bittersweet departure from Puerto Rico, I returned home to MN for my sister Laura's graduation from Saint Mary's University in Winona, where I used to go. I was really excited for her, and it was fun to visit the campus and see a few people I hadn't seen since leaving. The day after her graduation I flew to Synergia Ranch in New Mexico. The ranch is lovely and the landscapes of New Mexico are breathtaking, with mountains in all directions. The mountains here are the biggest I've seen and I stare at them a lot. The weather here has been really lovely, although when I first arrived I had trouble dealing with the crispy dryness of the air. Mostly it's been nice and blustery. The other night I watched one of the most dynamic sunsets I think I'll ever see. I actually had set out to see if the dead chicken I put in the desert had been taken by coyotes and was pleasantly surprised by the sunset. The wind was nearly knocking me over, zipping through the desert plants and streaming through my hair. The sunlight was piercing through little holes in the clouds, shining onto other clouds and the desert. The sky was golden, deep orange, and a goregeous blue, glowing over the mountains. Anyway! It's really beautiful here, and I love it.

I got to explore downtown Santa Fe which is heaven for a developing artist. There are galleries all over with AMAZING art. There are leather stores and shops with names like "Indian Trading Company", "Cowboy Bill something", "something Corral". There are Native Americans selling things in the plaza, like lovely turquoise jewelry, copper guitar picks, and tin matchbox holders. I can't wait to explore there more. I wouldn't mind living there actually.

A woman I met here named Nikki asked me to help her at one of her jobs. She's a hospitality provider for Fan Man Productions, which means she sets up dressing rooms, buys things, and does whatever.. for artists and musicians who have concerts around Santa Fe. the concert I helped her with was Lucinda Williams, The Flatlanders, and .... Ryan something. It was cool because my dad has always loved Lucinda Williams. Plus my friend Molly and I happen to adore this song named Julia by the Flatlanders. So Nikki and I had to run around all day getting things on the dressing room lists and the bus lists for the artists. It's pretty funny what they request, for example Lucinda Williams wanted 6 protein bars, no Clif bars "no exceptions!!". So we spent the day cleaning the dressing rooms, making them look cozy, and stocking them with all the stuff they had requested. It was really sweet to be behind the scenes. I called my dad during the concert and he got to listen to Lucinda for awhile. He wanted me to get her autograph ofcourse, and said "If you meet her, tell her 'Long may you sing'" I watched the whole show from backstage and met her afterwards. She was nice, and I told her what my dad said. She wrote him a little note, which was sweet of her. I also met some guys from the Flatlanders. One of them gave Nikki an autograph that said "Nikki, where's the whores and blow?" Apparently he has a different idea of what a hospitality provider should be providing hahaha. How strange it would be to be a star.

Ohhh BANTU. There was a singing and dancing African workshop here. I can't tell you people how awesome that was for me. I've wanted to go to Africa for a long time, so to be around peopel from Africa and their culture was such a privelage. I took some dance classes which I adored. I had a lot of fun with a girl here named Jennie, wandering around at night at Bantu. We also spent some time with an awesome girl named Nicole who is from a Pueblo here in New Mexico who had spent some time on the Hericlitus, the ship that's related to all these projects. I bought a drum from a man named Akeem, except somehow I payed $60 more than Jennie for mine. I didn't know I was supposed to barter! Having Bantu here was so incredible, despite the somewhat INTENSE constant drumming. However, there is currently a silent retreat here, which is nice. The people in this retreat also have some excercise to concentrate on their walking, so there's often a silent crowd of people walking very slowly across the ranch. It's funny for me when I go to their kitchen to grab the compost. I have a desire, a really mature one, to run around and sing in between them.

All in all I'm having a good ol' time here, learning an infinite amount about myself and enjoying the pretty terrain. I want to blog again soon with pictures of the chickens, garden, orchard, and ranch stuff.

Mani with Schnoogledoogle

Laura and her roommate Janelle

Grandparents Marianne and Jim

Mark Nelson, Biosphere 2 participent. I took this through my binoculars as an experiment because my zoom is not good at allllll.

Ortiz mountains

The Tower, where I sleep

The hill I still need to climb!

Cholla cactus

ooOOOooo

Lucinda signing away

Molly this is for you!!
Performance of an African drum class

The last chunk of Las Casas and Puerto Rico, Jonny visits the land of the Coqui

READ THIS POST BACKWARDS CAUSE I MESSED IT UP! :)
Puerto Ricans singing and dancing in the airport! What a lovely way to say goodbye to the wonderful island.

While walking around Old San Juan we came across this charming man, singing lovesongs and playing guitar while this couple danced on the hotel balcony. It was sooo romantic and classically Old San Juan. I put 5 bucks in his case which was not actually a wise choice considering the amount of money I had, but so worth it.

This is how we felt about eachother by the time our last night arrived! Just kiddingggggg Jonny. We were waiting at Bahia San Juan for Alexis and got yelled at for sitting on a railing.

Statue in the plaza

Reinactors meeting with some man of importance...?

Randomly there was some reinactment of something. While my brother and I walked around town we had to make our way through a parade of ... this.

I thought my picture of him was awesome so I made him take the same of me, although wouldn't you say his picture taking wasn't as good? :)

Jonny walking in Old San Juan

I asked some couple to take our picture and Jonny was thoroughly embarassed. "Evaaaa....."

Spanish fort

Jonny in Old San Juan, where they were filming a Johnny Depp movie.

View from an old Spanish fort!

Night at Las Casas

Above the homestead

JPD, the leader of the pack

Back at the homestead, mmmmm the forest!

At the swimming hole, having the time of my life before the chaos. Sleeping in the Puerto Rican rainforest is not bad though. There are no large predators and nothing really dangerous. I even got bored and made a couple videos. I made a bed of palms and luckily had my towel for a blanket. It was incredibly magical actually. The coquis were singing their usual lullaby and the fireflies zooming all around.. owls rustling in the trees. I would certainly recommend sleeping on the forest floor, but maybe on the conditions that everyone knows where you are and you have adequate supplies :) It turns out the people back at Las Casas were VERY worried and looked for me for a looong time in the night and early morning. I thought I heard a "whoop" (the noise that carries well in the forest) at one point but decided it was my imagination. I had been whooping a lot because there was no way for me to contact anyone to tell them I was ok. It was really incredible to think how isolated I felt. My imagination started getting pretty creative. I also thought a lot about how incapable humans are at surviving out "in the wild". I'm definetly a domesticated animal with little knowledge of how to live in the natural world. Anyway, when I miraculously found my way back in the morning, there looked to be a meeting going on. Since I was unsure how worried the people at Las Casas might have been, I didn't want to interrupt the meeting in case the visitors were trying to buy wood. But I realized how wrong I was when I stuck my head through the door and waved and I was greeted by a worry-stiken 3t who introduced me to my search and rescue team. I can't explain how AWFUL and silly I felt. So anwyay...there were pictures of me all over the table that they were going to post everywhere and a description of everything I was wearign including all the rings on my fingers, in case they were to find my body. It was a really weird feeling to see all that. I apoligized a million times but really they were just happy I was ok. They had thought I went to a public swimming hole called Charco Azul, and had imagined that I was abducted or murdered. My poor brother Jonny was minutes away from calling my parents to tell them they thought I had been murdered or abducted. He had just arrived in Puerto Rico and didn't really know the people at all! I felt awful for him, especially because he had been out the night before looking for his injured or dead sister. Norman told me that Jonny kept wanting to look further for me, and that even though Norman knew I wouldn't have gone there, he tried to humor him. What can you say to a person who is looking for their lost and possibly abducted sibling? If they had known I was on the property, they wouldn't have gotten so scared. So now I am an example of what NOT to do when hiking in the forest. Never be over-confident and under-prepared!!! KIDS!! IT'S NOT SMART!!!!! If that does happen to you, make a bed and stay put. That's the best thing you can do. :)

The day I decided to go to the swimming hole by myself. Little did I know.... I would get lost on the way back and spend the night alone in teh rainforest!

Jonny doing his first welding type thing!

Cutting chicken wire for Norman's Plumeria sun nursery

Waiting for Norman in Rio Piedras. After awhile I had to go into the bank to get him directions. The bank staff got Norman on speakerphone but I had to translate. It took forever and Norman's phone battery was dying and he had to keep calling back. He got lost a bunch but the bank staff cheered when Norman was on the right street. They all went outside and yelled "NORMAN!!!!!"

Sunburned sleepyhead!

Arriving back to Fajardo

Vieques

Kim and Mark, our travel buddies

Leaving Vieques :(

The annual Easter figurines from Grandma H! Jonny brought them from home and I planned to take a picture of them everywhere, but kinda forgot about it after awhile.

We let Mark and Kim crash on our floor

Our room has a great view of the mountains and sea. We had our own porch :)

We decided sleeping in a guest house the second night would be better. It was cold during the night on that beach!

Breakfast. ( Lollipop)

What a place to wake up huh!

Jonny sleeping on the beach along the Caribbean in the morning

Hanging out our first night in Vieques with our new friends Kim and Mark. During the night I woke up to see a beautiful white horse staring at me. We stared at eachother for a few minutes, and then it galloped into the forest. I hadn't realized there were wild horses on the island!

The moon was insanely goregeous but my camera didn't undestand.

Our bikes kept breaking. But Jonny is a bike dude in training and fixed them every time! Lucky for us too, because people kept stopping on the road telling us to be careful because "things happen in Vieques".

While hiking in Arecibo with Alexis and his friends, we visited this old couple he had met years before. They told us the story of how they were robbed months ago. The robbers had put a gun to the head of the man and taken him away with them. Luckily the car died and the robbers discussed what to do with the man. They decided to let him go, and here he is, telling his story (to which I nodded a lot, but found his Spanish hard to understand, like many Puerto Rican's)

ferry with our buddies

forest before I knew I was kinds lost

lost in the forest, waiting for morning I realized I had my camera. It was quite a comfort actually. I watched videos of my family and even made a video of me singing an N*Sync song that a I quickly deleted :/ . I got a little bored.

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