Winter Break in Leadville, Colorado 2014

I rode with my mom and Dave to Colorado during which time I edited several of my poems and wrote another one. I started teaching myself Dzongkha, the chief language of Bhutan, and Tibetan, and came up with a way to have virtual conversations in different languages by typing phrases in my phone and playing them out loud using the speaker on my Word app and realized that poems would be helpful in learning a new language as they help you become better listeners. We stopped during which I realized that I could print of all my poems, bind them into a book, and give it to Tyler, to help him better retain and understand verbal information. We kept going during which time I realized that Bilbo might met Aragorn in the third Hobbit movie because he met him and wrote a poem about him, and the movies are Bilbo’s story, and the extended version of the Hobbit movie showed Bilbo seeing the shards of Narsil at Rivendell and that I could use my non-crown bottle caps to make a peace sign honoring American Buddhism’s counter-culture roots. We kept going after another stop and I worked on my travel plans to Bhutan. Mom and I went to Whole Foods where I got two new bottle caps, one crown and one non-crown, from a drink Mom got me and one we got to share. We drove on during which time I told Mom about my robot idea for Tyler, and she thought it was great. We stopped at a liquor store later and got beer. We rode on and finally we got to our house. Then I got another bottle cap for my collection from the beer we got. I also helped Dave and Kate unpack. After that we ate dinner during which I had a delicious roast beef sandwich and I said to Dave, "Dave, you know what I think is gonna happen in the third Hobbit movie?"

"What?"

"Bilbo's gonna meet Aragorn."

 "I think so, too."

After talking a little bit about the movies, Cate said, “Dad, I think Ben’s outknowledged you on Lord of the Rings.” I also helped Dave with some more stuff later and he and Mom agreed to pay for my help. Later I got an e-mail from Caitlin saying she had a good time, and I texted her back saying the same thing to her.  

The next day I found that two people had sent e-mails to me saying they were interested in peer mentoring, and I e-mailed them back and found out the head of the Nursing Department sent the word out about it to UCM’s Nursing student group. I took a walk through the woods, hoping to see some wildlife, getting several great pictures of the sunset and the landscapes, and as I walked back it was so dark, and my phone was dead. Suddenly the house I came up upon didn’t look anything like ours. I felt panicked realizing I was lost. Eventually I knocked on a neighbor’s door, called Mom, and got a ride home, and thanked the people who helped me. My mom went on, “It’s dangerous out there! This is the wilderness!” Eventually she got a hold of herself and said, “It’s fine. I’m glad you’re ok.” Later I helped Jamie and Graham put the bunk beds together.

The next day, I heard from my mom of a petition to start an American girl doll with a disability. Then I went on a hike around our property with my mom where I took some great pictures and learned the creek will be filled with birds during the summer. I went into town with my mom, Dave, and Kate during which I decided to not be too stingy with my money knowing how in the Third World vendors want people to buy something from them as they have themselves and their families to support and I bought some miniature prayer flags, some red yarn and a clay button to make a belt using a chopstick for a yarn needle, a bullet pocket knife, a round mints box with a woman from the old West, some cinnamon balls deciding to try new things as part of mindful travel, three old West postcards, one with bison, one with Native Americans, at a well, and one of a Native American coming-of-age ceremony with a sacred dwelling very similar to what I learned about in my North American Indian class, each having something to do with the sacred, as buffalo are sacred to some Native American cultures and wells are sacred to the ancient Celtic people, for me to frame as wall art, and a Native American arrowhead to wrap in wire and make into a necklace. After I got back, I saw Wally had chewed apart my mala, but I found most of the beads and could use one straw to replace the rest and use some of the yarn I bought as a cord. The next day Cate’s boyfriend Josh arrived. I went into town with my mom and got some new hiking boots and we went to a coffee shop, and I got a new bottle cap for Tyler from my drink. After that we had our pre-dinner New Year’s Eve celebration during which I told Josh about my screenwriting class, which he was impressed by, and he told me about his local film projects. My mom then brought up my meditation. Josh asked about that, and we exchanged meditation stories. We went to dinner and afterwards Dave, Cate, Josh, and I went bar hopping afterwards, though I didn’t drink anything as I had already drunk a beer and I like to have my wits about me. 

 

The first day of the new year had come. I spent the morning playing Scrabble with my mom and managed to win. Then I typed up some of my poems for Tyler and edited some of them in the process. After that I made another rose from straws, and then I worked on making a list of my places I wanted to see and things I wanted to do when going to Bhutan. I thought of how amazing it would be to travel in the footsteps of the Buddhist saint Padmasambhava, who brought Buddhism to Tibet, ad is sort of the equivalent of St. Patrick in Christianity; getting to see black-necked cranes, muntjacs, wild boars, sambars, serows, Himalayan black bears, leopards, red foxes, etc. I also got to thinking that the money we should be spending to give autistic people access to society aren’t just for them, but for their loved ones as well who care about them and want them to be successful in life.

 

The next day my mom, Jamie, and I drove to the town of Minturn to pick up Dave from a ski resort and stopped every so often to get pictures of the mountain scenery on the way there. We ate at a Greek restaurant, where I had some delicious chicken cooked in spices and dipped in yogurt sauce. Then I looked at a shop called Scarab, where my mom had gotten the Buddha woodcarving I got for my birthday. I went in and saw plenty of interesting exotic and hippy-looking things, such as Ethiopian ceremonial crosses and a cabinet decorated with bottle caps, which Jamie said I make a similar thing to easily. We picked up Dave and then we drove back to the house.

When we got there, I talked to Tyler who said he had several bottle caps for me. I worked more on my travel plans to Tibet, even though it was a little boring, but I remembered reading that people who use self-control are more likely to succeed in what they want to do. While I made my lists, I heard a video my mom was playing about an Evergreen College alumni who started salvaging wood from torn down houses and learned how that would often goes straight in our landfill. I finished working on my plans for the day and then typed up a few more of my poems for Tyler, this time also tweaking many of them. 

I went snowshoeing with my mom and Dave the next day, getting to see several mountain ranges, and managed to climb down the slope of the hill our house was on to the abandoned train tracks on the property near a creek. Then my mom, Jamie, and I went into town where I got a book called Watching Wildlife: Tips, Gear, and Great Places for Enjoying America’s Wild Creatures. I got some souvenir rock candy at another store, and then an arrowhead at another to make an arrowhead necklace for Tyler, who often talked about being part Native American. We went to the grocery store afterwards, and I got two new bottle caps for my collection, one crown and one not, from drinks we bought there. I also bought some sandpaper at the hardware store, planning to sand one of my Altoids tins in my suitcase and make a belt buckle. When we got back, I made it and it looked pretty good. I also saw I had left my mala on the table and that Wally had chewed it up. After that I worked on my travel plans for Tibet afterwards.

The next morning, I had a dream that I was at a movie theater on campus with a guy from my hall where everyone lay on their own bed on these bunk beds while they watched the movie and an auburn-haired man from the OAS Office came and kissed the guy on the cheek while he said he loved him and said that to me to. I typed up some more poems for Tyler and again saw how I could improve a few in the process. I made another flower for a straw afterwards and then I worked on my travel plans to Tibet. 

The next morning before I woke up, I had a dream that I was taken hostage in Tibet, but I managed to escape and get back to the United States and went home to my family. On my way back I saw the Disney TV show characters Austin and Ally, the titular characters from a show I saw when I was roommates with Tyler Austin and Ally, of whom Ally once developed unrequited feelings for Austin, but he later reciprocated them. Later we dropped Jamie off at the bus to take him to the airport to Olympia before school started. He would soon also be going to work twenty to thirty hours a week at the senior center for people with Alzheimer’s and Dementia with good pay. I also realized that if I could be roommates with Tyler so easily, perhaps an intimate relationship wouldn’t be such hard work. 

We went to the grocery store, and I got two new bottle caps from a drink my mom got me, a non-crown one, and another, a crown one, from a pack of drinks we got for the house. As I thought about the dream, I found that stone Teresa had given me, saying “Take a risk and travel to the countries you plan to go to,” and “Love someone who will love you the way you deserve to be loved.”  In the dream it seemed I had done the former, and when I did, things turned out ok. So maybe my dream was telling me that if I did the latter, things would be ok to. I also realized that perhaps my family symbolized things being alright if they don’t go how I want, because I will them and my friends for support. I worked on my travel plans to Tibet some more, making plans to trek Mt. Kailash, a holy Buddhist mountain, based on the suggested itinerary, and realizing it looked very pleasant with a lot of down time even. My mom talked to Dave about Jamie and his new girlfriend in his apartment, and how they were enamored but soon would find out things about each other that annoy them. Then I said, “Well, when I was dating Emily, I realized that I could do things that annoy her to, just as she could with me.”

“That’s true,” said my mom, nodding as she walked up to the kitchen near the couch I sat on.

“And,” I said, “When she does, I don’t have to direct my frustration at her. Anger is really just a way of covering up one’s vulnerability.”

 “That’s true,” she said, nodding again.

The next morning, I practiced my flute for half an hour, playing the first solo from my Lord of the Rings flute solo book The Prophecy. After that I sanded a shelf for my mom, who paid me ten dollars for it. I made another flower and a replacement mala from straws. Then I typed of more of my poems for Tyler again and edited a few while I was at it. I also watched the movie Tora, Tora, Tora, an older film about the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in World War II, which was fairly good, although we did find some flaws to it.

We took our recyclables to the recycling center the next day, and there I found another non-crown bottle cap for my collection when I was inside. We took our trash to the dump, a place which shocked my mom, and I managed to pick up some cardboard and paper and we took it to the recycling center. As we drove away, my mom said, “It just shows you that when you throw something away, it doesn’t go away!” Then she asked me if I had ever been to the UCM Environmental Club. I told her no and she said, “You should check it out. You’d probably be very good for that.”

 We went into town afterwards, where I enjoyed (for the most part) some soda flavored jellybeans. Then I went to the bookstore again and got Jamie a book for his birthday on the 16th called 100 Simple Ways to Prevent Alzheimer’s. I ate at the café next door before I rode back to the house with my mom, who was touched by the present I got Jamie and promised to mail it to him. When we got back my mom and Dave paid me to organize some tools for them. Then I saw a post on Facebook from my former middle school teacher with several rows and columns of letters like a word search, with a caption saying, “The first three words you see will be your’s in 2014.” I looked and saw, “Love,” “Experience,” and “Youth.” 

For the rest of the night, I worked on my travel plans to Tibet and practiced my flute for half an hour again. Before going to bed the next morning, I realized whatever frustration I experience from a partner in a relationship can be counterbalanced by meditation. After breakfast I heard my mom say my aunt Laura had responded to my Facebook post about my coaster made from receipts that I had a picture of asking me, “Can I order some?” I wrote back asking her if she really wanted to. I went to nearby Breckenridge later with my mom and Dad while Dave went skiing in the town, working on my travel plans to Mongolia on the way. My mom and I went to a thrift store, where I only bought a decorative Indian plate with an intaglio print of the Taj Mahal. Then we went to a small diner where I had a bacon and egg sandwich on a bagel and got a new bottle cap for my collection from my soda. After that we tried their mini donuts, which were really good. I explored the town on my own later, seeing several different shops, but in the end only buying two sodas at a general store, where I got some new bottle caps for my collection from. I did however meet up with my mom at Starbucks and we went to a nature shop afterwards and I bought a piece of a very old dinosaur shell, which gave me an appreciation for how big the whole egg must have been, and a prehistoric sand dollar.  

I worked some more on my travel plans to Mongolia as the three of us drove back. The next day I snow-shoed to the workshop on our property where the owner used to make several things. I saw a lot of leather which he left behind, I realized that some of it would be great for binding my meditation journals in. I snow-shoed to the tracks and back up the hill getting some amazing pictures of the scenery around me as I did, thinking irresistibly about Middle Earth. 

I got back to the house and cut out some pieces for wood burning pictures from old wood on our property, pausing from it every so often to help my mom nail a new coast rack into the wall. When that was finished, I drew the outline of the picture from one of them, showing Bilbo in Rivendell from the Hobbit movie. I was very pleased by it and so was my mom. I did another drawing outline of the Celtic Endless Knot, which we were both also impressed by. That night I also got in touch with Tyler some more and he talked about how he was worried he would never find a girlfriend, but I assured him I would help him to overcome any obstacles he faced in doing it. 

The next morning, I did some touching up on my wood burning drawings before helping my mom screw in some knobs for the drawers in her’s and Dave’s bathroom. The three of us ate out one last time where I enjoyed a steak burger with fries and beer as I had suggested because it was our last night to eat out while we were all in Leadville before I flew home the next day for Kansas City.

On our way to the airport, my mom paid me twenty dollars for all the work I did. I also promised my mom I would scoop up Peter’s litter box before I got home. I got to the airport and through security and found the gates alright without much trouble. While waiting to board I saw my former coworker from Hen House, Jacob, who I learned was in Colorado over the winter break, and in school at Pitts State University. 

My dad picked me up from the airport and drove me home. On my way I showed him my two wood burning drawings and he was really impressed. He also told me he had several bottle caps to give me, although he wasn’t sure many of them would be new ones.  After I got home, I texted him with my UCM account username and password so I could find the course numbers for the classes I was taking and order my textbooks. Tyler and I agreed to go see a movie that night. I also thought of making that bottle cap peace sign as a reference to Thorin’s quote to Bilbo about how the world would be so much better if more people valued food and drink over gold and silver. Tyler’s mom picked me up and, on the ride, I gave him all the different duplicate bottle caps I had and the first necklace I made from a bottle cap that said, “Peace within one’s self, peace within the world.” He gave my two books called 3:16: The Number of Hope (referring to that passage from the Bible) and The Seat of the Soul: A Work on Thought, Evolution, and Reincarnation. All of that meant a lot to me. 

We ordered dinner at the theater to eat while we saw the movie, which this theater that Tyler worked at did, and when we finished our drinks, Tyler told me about how Disney Channel’s Friends for Change showed how they can be turned into paper airplanes, so I decided not to throw mine away. Somehow, we got an extra water too. We saw the movie while we ate, and in one scene I saw the girl who was the protagonist shake her boyfriend who she believed to be dead in the tournament, screaming and crying, while the world watched, and when he turned out to be alive, President Snow’s granddaughter said to Snow, “I hope I love someone that much someday,” to which Snow said, surprised, “You will.” I really enjoyed the movie that night.

While we waited after the movie for Tyler’s mom, Tyler took the cup from the water and said he plant on using it to plant seeds. After we meet up with Tyler’s mom, she had trouble finding where we parked, and Tyler suggested turning on the car alarm. His mom tried to explain she didn’t want to do that, but Tyler took her keys anyway and turned it on, so in the end, we found her car. When I got back, I packed up my stuff to go back to UCM the next day.

The Cradle of Civilizations

I emptied the cat’s litter box and packed some more before we went to the airport. We got on the airplane and took off to Boston, Massachusetts. We took a bus to our hotel where there was a jar of chocolate and macadamia nut cookies for visitors. Mom, Dave, and I each took one then took the elevator up to our room. It had a living room with a foldout couch, a television that hung on the wall, a dark wood desk with steel legs with wheels, and a lamp in the corner. There was a microwave and a sink in the corner facing a dark wooden framed mirror and a trash can. The floor had rectangular ceramic tiles a carpet with orange and gray waves on one side and dark gray and light gray waves on another. The only other rooms were the bathroom and the bedroom.

Mom and Dave looked up restaurants and decided on the Garden of the Cellar. We took a taxi and reached Harvard College. Mom and Dave liked its gothic architecture, but I thought it was kind of ugly.

We made it to the Garden of the Cellar where we sat at a small table. Mom sat next to Dave and I sat across from them. I drank a glass of water then had a keg beer. The appetizer included bread with olive oil and for dinner I ordered a cellar burger, medium, with mustard on the side. The burger was huge and came with rosemary fries. The mustard was rather spicy but that was good and I shared a small round donut with Mom, which came with several dipping sauces. After we paid and left, we walked through the neighborhood where I saw several bookstores until we hailed a taxi and rode back to our hotel. We each had a chocolate and macadamia nut cookie before we took the elevator up to our room.

The next day I got up, took a shower, and then went down to breakfast. I had two cinnamon rolls which tasted very fresh, a cup of orange juice, and a sausage patty. On the television was a man talking to a fortune-teller in Morocco then to a man in Mali.

After breakfast we brought our stuff down to the lobby and walked up the street from our hotel. We passed an antique shop with a brightly painted sign and after a taxi ride we passed several old-fashioned colonial neighborhoods and saw the obelisk, which was nearly thirty stories tall. I climbed the steep spiral staircase up the building occasionally holding onto the wall to let families go down and use the railing. I made it to the top where I could see Boston below through rectangular windows.  The walk down was considerably easier than the walk up.

After that we saw Freedom Park and made it to where we could see the U. S. S. Constitution and a World War II destroyer in addition to a magnificent suspension bridge. In the distance I could see a tall clock tower. We followed a brick line known as the Freedom Trail until we reached an old cemetery, which was a great way for me to contemplate our own mortality. After passing several shops and old colonial buildings, we reached the Old North Church, where one lamp was lit to warn of a British attack on ground, and two lamps were lit to warn of a naval assault. I looked in the gift shop then went back to it so I could get some water from the vending machine for which I bought a homemade cherry lollipop, a blue and white candy cane stick, and while I was at it, a pocket owl as a souvenir. Then I bought bottled water from the vending machine before we went on a guided tour of the church.

We went into the foyer through a side door up a steep wooden staircase into a room then up another steep wooden staircase into the bell room. Our tour-guide, a short, dark-haired young woman, led our group back down the stairs and through an underground charnel room, explaining that parishioners wanted to be buried where they worshipped, before the city of Boston cracked down on it, proving to me that religious freedom is not absolute and does not cover practices that are harmful to the welfare of others.

We went through a door into low-ceilinged charnel halls one containing the tomb of a British general when the British seized the church. It twisted and turned every so often until we made it outside and the tour was over.

After the tour was over we saw the churches Garden of Assisi. Then we left through the back way and saw a giant statue of Paul Revere. We walked farther along and saw the house of Paul Revere before we went to a seafood restaurant, where I got a shrimp roll and some lemon tea. We ate lunch by a fountain where Mom shared with me some lobster from her sandwich and then we took a taxi back to the hotel, got our stuff, and drove to New Hampshire.

            We passed peaceful country road, coming across a bearded man sitting on his front lawn wearing only shorts and then we reached our house, a quaint little cottage next to the lake. We went a few houses down where I saw my grandmother, Uncle Andy, Aunt Marge, Uncle Kurt, Aunt Barb, and my little cousins, Kyley and Hunter. After dinner Uncle Andy and Aunt Marge drove me back to our cabin and my mom and Dave came back a while later.

The next day we went to see a waterfall and Castle in the Clouds, the mansion of Thomas Gustave Plant, who made his fortune in the steel industry. After dinner tonight we went out for ice cream. I got raspberry sorbet with gummie bears. We looked at the docks, which had several boats and one great yacht. We looked in a shop selling shirts before we went back to our cabin.

The next day I woke up and later I went down to the beach where I kayaked while taking pictures with my newly charged camera. I picked out several reeds, which I took to our cabin and laid them out to dry and then give them to people as gifts. For dinner we went to a seafood restaurant where I drank a Samuel Adams Summer and ordered some pan seared swordfish. After dinner, my mom, Dave, Uncle Andy, Aunt Marge, and I drove down to an ice cream shop where I ordered a two scoop Denali Chocolate Moose Tracks, which turned out to be much bigger than I expected.

The next day Mom and I went to the Libby Museum and then had lunch with my grandmom, Uncle Kurt, Aunt Barb, Kyley and Hunter. I ate a delicious grilled cheese sandwich with bacon and then Mom and I explored the town. After we looked in a jewelry store, I went to the bookstore where I had been hoping to go. I saw one book that really interested me called In the Shadows of the Buddha about an American Buddhist pilgrim in Tibet who saw the atrocities the Chinese are committing and went to great personal risk to smuggle out evidence.

            That night I had dinner over at Uncle Kurt’s, Aunt Barb’s, Kyley’s, Hunter’s, and Nannies cabin. After dinner Kyley and I drew on this portable sketch board she owned which you can erase when you’re done and start over. That night I felt I really bonded with her.

The next day Mom, Dave, and I climbed Mt. Washington. When we got to the top we took the train down and then went back to our cabin. That night we ate out at the town. I had a hamburger, which was rather big with some fries.

On the last day Mom, Dave, Uncle Kurt, Aunt Barb, Kyley, Hunter, and I ate steak Florentine, mangoes, potatoes, and tomatoes. The next day we dropped Cam and Graham off at an airport at Manchester, New Hampshire, then Mom, Dave, and I flew to Memphis, then to Kansas City. When I got home I called Hen House and found out I work on Monday from 7 to 10.