mario - level 4...

As someone who is completely obsessed with nature and immersing myself within in it was extremely exciting to hear that we were going to spend four days, almost in a row, at national parks during the course of our trip.  While visiting the Redwoods, Glacier National, Yellowstone National, and Mt. Rushmore, I experienced an interesting array of emotions and perspectives…

 

Crescent City – Redwoods

At my lofty height of 5’4’’ I am used to feeling much smaller than my surroundings, whether they include people, places or things.  However, when we stepped into the Redwood forests of California I found myself shrinking to a size that I could never have imagined.  The plus side: Everyone else had to shrink with me.  While I had seen hundreds of pictures of Redwoods and knew the statistics behind the wooded giants, there was nothing comparable to the intensity I felt standing amidst them, attempting to arch my neck back far enough to see to the tops of the trees.

 

We spent the day in the forest, allowing time to be mostly alone as well as having a class discussion alongside a creek.  It was thoroughly refreshing to simply Be in nature as opposed to the multiplicities of places and people we’ve been experiencing through the first half of the trip.  I was able to mentally soak in the serenity and calm of the landscape without feeling as though I was missing something or being unproductive.  This feeling led me to think about what life on the American frontier would’ve been like years ago before the artificially created replaced the naturally existent.  In his 1983 essay “The Significance of the Frontier of American History,” Frederick Jackson Turner wrote: “And now, four centuries from the discovery of America, at the end of a hundred years of life under the Constitution, the frontier has gone, and with its going has closed the first period of American history.”  In reflecting on the weight of this quote while sitting under a Redwood, I realized that the tree I was leaning against had been living since before Christopher Columbus “discovered” America.  The idea of that much history existing directly behind me astonished me as I realized the amount of change it must have lived through as the land began to become smaller in size and in value. 

 

I thought about the idea of the appeal of the frontier as we drove through the park and after passing a number of small parking lots, each with about three to five cars, something struck me as surprising:  There wasn’t really anyone here.  In juxtaposing the number of tourists/visitors that we saw at Disneyland versus the handful of people that were currently in the forest, I began to wonder about the way in which the appeal of the frontier has changed and diminished with modern times.  Obviously the impacts of technology have created significant shifts in the things that now hold people’s attention (i.e. cell phones, televisions, video games, etc) but I feel as though the majority of people I talk to enjoy the idea of being in nature and separating themselves from the technological toils of everyday life.  Furthermore, I found in interesting that the symbolism of the frontier remains the same, yet within a slightly different context:  Before the frontier represented a place for settlers to explore and claim new lands so as to escape the overcrowded ports and cities.  Today, people and families go to places like national parks in order to vacation (escape) the barrage of images and people that we, as Americans living in a consumerist society, constantly face.  

just beat it...

So I was awoken at 3:00 this morning by Ken, telling me that the bus was breaking down and that we were going to have to turn back to Los Angeles to get it fixed.  This was immediately followed by the words: “We might have to skip San Francisco all together.”!  By 7:00 I was still trying to process what exactly was occurring and I started making phone calls informing the people whom we were supposed to meet with throughout the course of the day that we weren’t going to be in the city until at least 2:00 pm.  However, given the stressful nature of the hours of re-planning, the morning was speckled with incredible music, conversations, card games and just an overall stillness of being awake without running off the bus in the usual fashion of this trip. 

 

After reworking our plans and realizing that we weren’t going to have a rental van, we decided to take the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) across the city.  Regardless of the fact that we had to pay for transportation, riding public transportation all day (in a city that advocates living “green”) thoroughly excited me.  

Our day began at the airport, where we jumped on the BART to 16^th St Mission.  This stop was about ten blocks away from the Castro district, wherein the majority of San Francisco’s gay population resides.  As we walked up towards the district from a less-safe area of town, I noticed the gradation from working-class restaurants and shops to higher end locations, surrounded by Gay Pride rainbow flags and a slue of ethnic restaurants and stores.  

We decided to break into groups to have different lunch experiences and converse with some of the locals.  (I chose sushi!)  As my miso soup arrived and I recognized I had no spoon, we leaned over to the man sitting next to us and asked, perfectly displaying our touristy-selves and uncultured nature, if we were supposed to just sip it out of the bowl.  He slightly chuckled in answering yes, and continued to ask us where we were from.  As our conversation developed, we began to detail the encounter we had had in Salt Lake City with the LGBT film festival and how we had been inspired by the energy of the gay rights movement throughout the country.  He quickly became excited in our perspectives on the matter and we carried on a 45-minute discussion, learning that he was a professor at a college in Oakland, and had traveled outside of the US for the majority of his life.  When we asked him what it meant to be an American, he explained how due to his travels abroad, he didn’t feel like he truly had a sense of American identity.  So in slightly altering the question, we asked what the majority of people in other countries thought being an American entailed.  These were the responses we received: 

            à Africa – idealized American (land of honey and milk, gold streets) false illusions that America most likely perpetuates through media and other displays of global power

            à Europe – more cynical view on America (especially France and Germany), not placed on a pedestal like with Africa

            à Japan – most xenophobic country, but is also in love with America due to closely tied histories, still attain a “Hollywood” version of American identity – something they strive for

Through this breakdown, I realized a multiplicity of thoughts: 1) America displays what it believes others believe it to be quite accurately (an application of Cooley’s looking glass self upon national identity if you will).  2) In thinking about how similar these perspectives were in comparison to what I expected Africa or Europe or Japan to display, I began to question where these reflected identities come from, and further, how they are perpetuated throughout society and then internalized and projected by our own citizens upon the identities of other countries?

 

After lunch, we regrouped and took the BART to Montgomery Station, in the North Beach area.  As we walked through the streets, we passed the financial district of San Francisco, including the Transamerica Pyramid (tallest building in the SF skyline).   We continued North, heading towards Vesuvio Café, City Lights Bookstore, and the hotel San Remo– all of which were key locations in the early development of the Beat Generation, which included figures such as Jack Kerouac, Alan Ginsberg, William S. Burrough, and Neal Cassady – and then continued to the Beat Museum directly down the street.  

 

An interesting thing that I’ve been experiencing on this trip has been the self-embodiment of “tourist” that we’ve been analyzing.  This feeling was in full form as I stepped up the stairs into the Poetry room in City Lights Bookstore.  This room was where these literary geniuses would read their poetry, and as I walked in, camera in hand and unknowledgeable, I felt as if I was walking through Graceland, following the course that led to some spectacle that lent itself to idolism and remembrance.  I felt the slightest animosity from the ‘locals’ in the room, who were reading some of the more obscure pieces of literature as our group flocked around multiple copies of Howl. 

 

While we were in City Lights, my brother – who is currently going to the University of Cali at Berkeley – joined our group for the rest of the evening.  Seeing him was absolutely incredible, and definitely provided that sense of home that I’d been missing. 

 

Our next step was just a block away at the Beat Museum, which was founded about three years ago and displayed the personal collection of a Beat historian who decided to present the history of these visual artifacts to the larger public.  As we walked around the museum, I noticed many similarities in presentation to other iconic historical places we’d witnessed.  I felt momentarily troubled by this drawn parallel as I fought the association of the Beats to cultural ‘heroes’ like Elvis.  While Elvis remains a key idol in the eye of the American public, I hold the work and influence of the Beat generation to much higher standard.  

The idea of these individuals recognizing a fallacy in the way American literature was written, and then creating an entire movement to inspire a new form of writing in academia and expression in biography moved me to such emotional depth.  It was through realizing the strength in their foundational work that allowed my discomfort to be quieted; and I believe I recognized a connection between some of the students’ participation in stepping outside of the four walls of a classroom, and this historical idea of progress and (r)evolution in regard to the experiences we’re currently attaining through embarking on this journey as we continue to alter the system through which education traditionally occurs.  

what happens in Vegas... happens everywhere

So to be completely honest, I’m not a very big fan of Las Vegas for a number of reasons… I feel that, on top of the obvious sexism, the city perpetuates a culture of addictive behavior and underdeveloped ideals.  However, to state that Las Vegas stands alone in this ‘escapist’ vacation mentality would be a seriously dishonest statement…

 

Our first stop of the day was at the LVCVA (or Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority if you’re not into that whole brevity thing).  We met with the Director of Customer Experience – interesting title in itself – and got a somewhat backstage glance at the economic workings of the city.  As someone who has always been interested in marketing, the market of Vegas presented a perspective that I had yet to encounter.  Due to the recent economic recession our country has found itself in, Vegas finds it difficult to appeal to the target market that has been booking its excessively luxurious rooms throughout its history.  In fact, many of the rooms at the ornate Bellagio that had been booked years in advance in the past, are now being booked only a couple nights in advance, as tourists unexpectedly see a ‘great deal’ online and click “Buy”.  As the Director at the LVCVA presented the visual of a man he had recently seen in the Bellagio lobby with a baseball hat and Budlight beer in-hand, I thought about the implications of this significant shift in the class of tourists that Vegas is now attempting to entertain and appeal to.  We heard about a new promotional idea called “staycations” which aims to encourage locals of Vegas to experience its tourist locations as a way of escaping everyday life without the usual cost of travel.  This concept was being used in tandem with destination marketing (selling the brand of Vegas, which comes second only to Google in recent polls of identifiable brand-marketing) as Vegas now places more focus on international visitors.  Through appealing to locals and tourists, Vegas acts as a vehicle in causing a paradigm-shift in tourism identity.

 

After the Convention Center, we had lunch at Red Velvet, a popular vegan-friendly restaurant.  We spent some time interviewing some locals who were waiting for their food and unexpectedly ran into another sociologist who did demographic research for the city.  We began questioning her about the local response to the tourism capital that is Vegas, and she presented some interesting insight:  She mentioned how the city truly has no local identity due to its foundation being built upon this vacation mentality.  This was reflected in the low percentage of registered voters, in the lack of home-identity, and in the overall lack of locally constructed social space.  While the locals went to different casinos and different bars, the majority of the population remained distanced from the sense of community I’ve experienced in many of the other cities we’ve been to.  When I asked her why the feeling of community was so low, she described how 90% of the residents came from other places.  They were the type of individuals who left home to live in Vegas, and therefore perpetuated the tourist mentality of the city and its appeal. 

 

In reflecting on the combination of both of these descriptions of the city, I realized that the business community (created and continued through tourism) is one that is less consciously focused on political action (whether locally or nationally) and far more concentrated on social action (developing green projects, etc).  This makes complete sense economically, as businesses attempt to appeal to largest markets they can, and the best way to do so lies in not creating political barriers to shun those whose “support” they could win.  However, this simultaneously impedes the sense of community that I’m recognizing is absolutely necessary in the progression of society. 

 

As we walked the Strip throughout the late afternoon and into the evening, every stripper ad I was handed on the street reified the issues that came with the lack of community.  Vegas continues to target consumers of a culture that is based upon a vacation mentality, and that mentality fails to encourage the ideals that allow communities to prosper.  Furthermore, the complete commodification of every aspect of culture that Vegas capitalized upon further degraded the types of morals and ethics that build families in this country.  This thought became perfectly embodied through multiple conversations we had, wherein visitors would comment on Vegas as “a great place to visit, but a place I would never raise my kids.” 

 

When we returned to the bus, I found myself completely intrigued by these responses.  Vegas seems like a place where adults go to behave like adolescents or to express themselves in a way that would not be suitable in their everyday lives.  As I began to reflect on this “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” escapism, I realized that I had experienced a very similar disposition while on Bourbon Street in New Orleans or on Beale Street in my hometown.  As this trip continues, I expect to see many more places that fit this list, and I question the motivations behind needing to indulge in escaping?  Is it driven by a desire to be more ‘free’ even for a weekend, or is it stimulated by a lack of fulfillment in our own, possibly underdeveloped, communities?  (I’ll let you know what I find out… until then, bring on Los Angeles!)

old places and new spaces...

Salt Lake City has displayed the most dichotomous realities of America that I’ve yet experienced.  Among the numerous displays of belief and action I witnessed today, an overarching theme of the development of social space to satisfy personal and communal goals was ever-present…

 

Our morning began at Tony Caputo’s – an indie/artsy friendly restaurant, which included one of the world’s best specialty food markets – which existed in an extremely gentrified area of the city.  (The restaurant sold gourmet coffee directly across the street from a group of impoverished people wearing garbage bags in the park to keep from getting soaked by the rain.)  Now, it’s very important for me to emphasize that I’m not meaning any offense toward Mr. Caputo, who came to the town, recognized the necessity of creating a space for a specific group of locals, and then proceeded to do so.  Rather, I’m commenting on the inherent confliction of the creation of these subculture spaces in certain areas, in an effort to create community among a niche group, without taking into regard that same necessity in reference to the locals who already exist there.  I strongly agree with the idea of carving out a safe haven in a dangerous area of a neighborhood, but when the space that is created only displaces the community of that neighborhood and draws in individuals who represent a ‘safer community’, I feel that the social issue of impoverished community violence is perpetuated rather than resolved.  [Furthermore, I feel that this displacement is strongly driven by the Bobo (bohemian/bourgeoisie) culture that preaches the idea of “rich yet artsy” cultural space and only forces the poverty and crime elsewhere.] 

 

After breakfast, we visited the Mormon Tabernacle.  It takes a lot for me to feel uncomfortable in a place, but the Mormon Tabernacle definitely showed a valiant effort in testing my comfort.  As two sisters – who felt it was there mission for the time being to fulfill this role – guided us around the place I felt my insides twist and turn.  We ascended a grandiose staircase, surrounding by curving walls with paintings of the starry sky and galaxy, only to find ourselves standing in front of a huge Christus, towering over the rest of the room and the multicultural tourists who were currently occupying it.  As the giant Jesus began to speak (first in Japanese and then in English) his American accent detailed specific Bible verses and was then applauded as he faded into the background.  The sisters then thanked each visitor for sharing that spiritual moment with them, immediately followed by telling the tourists that they were now to free to taking pictures with the iconic symbol that lay before us.   

As our tour continued, I felt a feeling alluding to the thoughts I had after hearing the scripted speech of the Duckmaster in Memphis, or the tour guide at the Alamo, or the etc… Even though the sisters were presenting their faith, there seemed to be a severe lack of passion, self-identity, and overall informed perspective in the dialogue we shared with them. 

 

After leaving the Tabernacle, we traveled to a different part of the city were we had planned to attend a LGBT (Lesbian/Gay/ Bisexual/ Transvestite) film festival.  The film was titled Outrage and examined the negative repercussions of closeted politicians and how their attempts to maintain socially straight identities counter the efforts of the gay rights movement.  After the film, the director had an interview and Q&A time with a local radio station as well as the audience.  

Feeling the energy of the individuals in that theater and the great sense of community they had created through simple accord in a goal, founded upon belief, was one of the most inspiring moments of this trip by far.  I found it so interesting that I had just spent a couple hours at a place of faith and worship where I had felt completely detached and unmoved, only to step into an old theater to discover an unexpectedly large community who were so active and positive in the creation of their own social space in a town where many people fought against their ideals and rights.  (The Mormon Church donated about $15 million dollars to fight gay rights during the recent Proposition 8 issue in California).  In juxtaposing this development of social space to Tony Caputo’s earlier in the day, I found myself being grounded in realizing how this community of individuals had carved out an area of the city where the veils of hidden sexual identity could be shed and shed boldly. 

 

After the film, the group went to dinner at a wonderfully delicious Thai restaurant and then headed back to the bus.  Overall, I felt like Salt Lake City strongly paralleled my Little Rock experience, in that I found an entire portion of culture that I least expected, and gained motivation to affect change throughout my life in whatever space I exist, regardless of the greater norm and identity of that place.  

that's a really big hole...

So today was spent in the Grand Canyon –

 

Though I’d already been here before with my family on vacation when I was younger, having attained the perspectives I’ve developed through the last few years truly allowed me to appreciate the beauty of this natural landmark in a much greater sense…

 

Part of the excitement of this trip has been greatly composed of recognizing the excitement in my peers, and today perfectly embodied that feeling.  As I saw other students standing in awe of the vast space that lay in front of us, a feeling of nostalgia spread throughout me as little moments of my memory of the trip resurfaced in my mind.  Yet, as the nature of the trip has displayed continuously, in every experience we’ve had there are new things to be had.  So regardless of my somewhat familiarity with the Grand Canyon, I found myself hiking down a new path with new faces in front of me and new patterns of sneakers in the dust below me.  (And hiking up with less lung capacity than I anticipated having!)

 

Overall the Grand Canyon was a beautiful journey.  I’ll add some pictures to complement this post, but in the meantime keeping checking out Chris’ flickr account! 

they herd, they saw, they fled...

We spent today at the Navajo Reservation near Gallup, NM and I can honestly say that I’ve never felt such a beautiful combination of overwhelming care, community, and commiseration. 

 

We met with Leland (Le) Silversmith, a Native American whose family had lived on the reservation for the past 150 years, and he detailed the history of his own life paralleled with the history of the Navajo people as a whole.  He had just gotten done working a 12-hour shift and was prepared to spend the entire day leading us through the reservation from his family’s home to the President’s office and through the canyons that surrounded us.  We sat for about an hour in his family’s Hogan, which was being used as a place of worship for the family and nearby community.  Le’s father recounted many stories of his life and faith, and I could clearly tell that some students were incredibly moved by his spiritual development and life struggles.  We were then joined by the rest of Le’s family, including his mother who reminded me so much of my own grandmother that it brought me to tears as she proudly displayed the ribbons she’d won recently for her garden vegetables and then began to cry over missing her children.  After these brief yet beautiful moments of insight into their lives, we went inside where they had prepared Navajo tacos for us (including a special vegetarian version for me), and as we sat in their home, eating homemade food and listening to their stories, I felt an unbelievable connection to the family and the space that surrounded us. 

 

We spent a large portion of the day in Window Rock, where the President’s Office was located.  The naturally sculpted canyon towered over the Navajo Presidents “Mahogany Palace”.  I put this name – that the tribe has given to the office – in quotes for an important reason.  As someone who has grown up in Suburbia, USA I have been visually awed (and simultaneously disgusted) by some of the most ornate and ostentatious mansions.  Therefore, in juxtaposing some of the houses that I’ve seen to the Office of the President of the Navajo Nation, I was immediately stunned to see the unembellished architecture and décor of the space we briefly occupied.  As we were given an in-depth tour and presentation on the history of this people and the hardships they continued to endure, the lack of aesthetic of the building became more understandable.  The bureaucracy the Navajo have to deal with concerning even the simplest and minute matters clearly exemplifies the amount of control the federal government still has upon a nation of people who have been unjustly shunned and restricted throughout the entire history of America.  As the dialogue continued, we learned of the effects of this perpetuated injustice in the high rates of unemployment and alcoholism that have infiltrated the purity and serenity of the Navajo tribe. 

 

After the eye-opening and fact-filled experience at the office, we headed toward the Navajo Times office – the local newspaper for the reservation and the largest Native American publication nationally – for another presentation and some Q&A time.  One of the most interesting facts we learned about the publication was its contrasting nature to the majority of American media:  The Navajo Times upheld the ideal of never capitalizing on the blood and gore aspect of “Navajo misery”, but instead providing stories to the tribe in an ethically and culturally positive way.  This representation of honest and moral reporting reified the idealized version of media that I consider unattainable in modern society and its distasteful displays of violence and terror. 

 

We returned to the Silversmith’s home to spend the remainder of our day exploring the canyons surrounding us, and attempting to herd their sheep back to the farm by dusk.  We’re either the most impressive or most pathetic group of sheepherders, as we traversed a large portion of the rustic land only to find that, in the process, the sheep had returned themselves to the farm without ever laying eyes on us.  As the day came to an end, we prepared to leave the reservation and were almost to the point of climbing into the van when we were informed that we had to stay for dinner – which Mrs. Silversmith had already prepared during our trek through the canyons.  I could recognize how touched we all were by this display of grace and love, and for the first time on this trip, I felt completely at Home with a family who not only offered us delicious food and the comfort of their home, but also prayed for our safe passage through the rest of the trip and gave thanks for being able to share some time with us during this journey. 

 

As I hugged each of them goodbye and shed a few more tears, I realized how emotionally and spiritually attached I had become to these recent strangers in a matter of hours.  After seeing the beautiful portrayals of the concept of home that have manifest themselves throughout each day of this trip, any feeling of being homesick has been completely replaced with a sense of belonging to the larger community of incredible people whose undiscovered identities allowed for the emergence of this trip in the first place… 

we come in pieces...

This was the first morning of some relaxation since our trip begun and it was beautiful!  A little extra time to sleep, a little Honey Bunches of Oats (with Almonds!), and a little overview of the plans for the day. 

 

Our first stop in Roswell, NM was (obviously) the International UFO Museum.  As we walked a few blocks toward the museum, we already noticed the Alien culture’s infiltration of marketed merchandise, national brands, and local shops.  (Even the light posts had alien eyes on them!)  In seeing this blatant acceptance of the UFO culture into the city’s tourism market, I became somewhat eager to experience the museum.  Yet that excitement became short-lived, and as we stepped into the museum the only word that truly came to mind to describe what lay before me was ‘anticlimactic’. 

The museum was set up in a somewhat disorderly fashion, with all of its displays mounted on generic, wallboards much like that of a high school presentation.  However, I wondered if this was simply because of a lack of funding and tried to keep open-mindedness toward the experience I was about to have, regardless of the displeasing aesthetic quality.  This frustration however, only became strengthened as we maneuvered around and through the space, realizing that many of the chronologies were out of order or hard to follow.  The aspect that was most dissatisfying about the UFO Museum however, was the way in which it presented the history of Roswell’s culture (I still remain optimistic that we’ll see a place that Truly presents itself in an accurate manner).  Instead of attempting to depict facts or theories about UFO sightings in the last 60 years, the museum used a series of rhetorical questions to try and coax the visitor into a lack of argument against alien aircraft sightings.  However, the presentation and form of questioning only strengthened the lack of belief or genuineness as I realized that all arguments were disallowed or pointless.  The frustration in this arose from the lack of reaction from the viewer/visitor as we were somewhat forced into a passive position concerning the legitimacy of alien encounters rather than persuaded by the presentation of ‘facts’.  Overall though, I understood the museum’s stance on this key part Roswell’s tourism culture and the capitalism that ensued. 

 

(P.S. We did have a chance to receive some attention from local press at the museum – the link for the article that was printed can be found here: Roswell Daily Record  )

 

After the museum, we spent an hour interviewing locals in the community about their perceptions and feelings towards Roswell’s version of the tourist trap.  We spoke to one local business owner (a business that wasn’t geared toward marketing any of that Alien brand) who mentioned how she didn’t really like the commercialization (and increase in gas prices) that had occurred within the small city due to these collected biographies centered around Alien culture, yet she could understand the positive impact of this branding upon the economy of Roswell – especially during this period of recession. 

This reaction, however, was strongly contrasted by another employee in a local store that sold nothing but alien t-shirts, hats, and tours of a back room where you could take pictures with little, plastic green men.  We posed questions concerning the development of this commodified culture to which she responded that it wasn’t really until the 50-year anniversary of the 1947 sighting that tourists truly became drawn to this city and the strangely unique history it had to offer.  She had moved to Roswell a few weeks before the anniversary and began screen-printing shirts for the commemoration.  However, before the anniversary date, hundreds of tourists visiting the UFO Museum created a high demand for her products.  She explained how this recognition of a niche market created the opportunities for businesses like her locally owned Alien Gift Shop to exist.

So in one sense, we experienced the social issues with tourism’s impact upon smaller cities (Roswell only has a population of about 50,000), as well as the perpetuated image of the locals in that place who are placed in the same ‘box’ as those whose biographies and histories tell the story of that place.  But we also noticed the positive effects of the exploitation of these histories being the key factor in placing a town like Roswell on the ‘Tourism Map’ of America, and therefore creating opportunities for locals in the town to generate revenue in their economy.  (There are definitely some deeper issues within each of these perspectives that I realize I should take into my analysis, but they’re still being sorted out in my mind at the time.)

Finally, we conversed briefly with a man at an antique store in Roswell who presented some interesting information concerning a personal encounter with a UFO.  Something that I wasn’t expecting to find was the number of people to whom we spoke who had had some sort of Alien/UFO experience, and their openness in discussing, in detail, that happening.  I realized that the Alien culture of Roswell had strongly been impacted generationally, as the older people in the town who now felt that the passing of time allowed for the telling of their stories and experiences. 

 

After exploring the minds of some of the locals, we walked to Not of This World Café (a Christian coffee shop), were we indulged ourselves in delicious green tea smoothies and some very charged, interesting conversation.  

We met Guy Malone there, a key figure in the Alien Resistance Organization – www.alienresistance.org – with whom we spoke for an hour and a half.  The organization utilizes a biblical perspective on alien abductions that people experience, in defining these ‘trance-like abductions’ as representations of fallen angels or demonic spirits who are attempting to draw individuals away from their faith in Jesus Christ.  While I found myself strongly disagreeing with much of what was presented, Malone’s perspective and organization provided quite an interesting insight into the diversity of American mentality that I remain completely unaware of due to my lack of experiencing the varying and comparable cultures of our nation. 

 

After all of that, we felt that some personal downtime was absolutely necessary, so we drove to the Bottomless Lake of Roswell.  Absolutely Incredibly Gorgeous.  

This lake naturally existed in the middle of nowhere; surrounded by nothing than wide-open spaces and the biggest sky I’ve ever seen (I’ve fallen in love with the mid/western sky and wind after these last few days).  

We spent a few hours swimming, sitting in the sun, talking, and reflecting = all of which was Much needed after the overwhelming beginnings of our trip.  As I felt myself becoming somewhat grounded again, we headed back towards our bus, only stopping to refuel with some dinner while having class. 

Overall, Roswell portrayed an interesting lesson as it provided me with awareness in realizing how often we fail to even recognize the multiple ‘others’ in American culture.  Hopefully I will continue to encounter people with perspectives that allow me to be less ‘alienated’ from the people of this country…