Mini Winter Road Trip

I'm taking a break today. I gotta get out and stretch my legs a bit. I've been couped up too much and got to expend some energy. I hate the cold and being inside but I'm getting a good opportunity and clearing in the weather to make a break, a mini road trip just before Christmas. As this post goes up, (I'm loving the automatic timed schedule feature on the page, I can post even while I'm away from the computer!) I should be somewhere in the middle of a desert in Wyoming looking for a ghost town. If I can find it I suspect it'll yield some interesting things as I came armed with a shovel and metal detector. I've done a series of calculations using, map and satellite photo analysis, carefully measured distances, checked coordinates of original Union Pacific track surveyors, and read from historical accounts. This is about half a year in anticipation, I've just have not found a time to make a break on this one until now. I'm looking for a place that existed on a barren stretch of alkaline salt flats. I need to find an old railroad track bed, if you look hard enough you can still find spots of the original transcontinental track bed from the 1860's stretching across the western US along I-80. The place I'm headed to also has a branch of the Mormon Trail running to it. I have to act like a detective and carefully pay attention to my surroundings. It's crazy to try finding this thing but even after 140 plus years, I'm confident in my ability to find at least some trace of something in the location I'm looking. Actually I usually attempt things this crazy because I think others have a hard time believing this place ever existed. For me, the better the hunt is, the less people have discovered and the more there is for me to find if I find it. Odds are stacked against me at least 90% that I won't find a thing but in my gut I'm hoping on that 10% that I'll strike something. I listened to a man last Spring who found stuff from this area, he placed his finds on the counter in front of me. Old artifacts like an ornate Freemasons pin, a 19th century mini ball .68 caliber bullet, and an old coin. To me it's worth taking a stab at at least once. Today I must travel back in time to the 1860's try and put myself in the footsteps of pioneers. The railroad is coming through, old trails parallel and lead off into the barren landscape, local tribes are making their attacks on rail laying crews more frequent as the rails mark a death knell on their way of life and threaten to bring a larger invasion of settlers from east. Today I'm going to the end of track or also known as "Hell On Wheels".

They were way out there. No air conditioned modern automobiles, no paved roads, no convenience stores to stop and get some bottled water at. The United States basically ended back around Iowa & Missouri, this was just a territory. Once you stepped foot west, that was the "Great Desert" though not all desert being out here was really off the beaten path. If only I could travel back in time with an off road modern vehicle modified to burn an available fuel source, some good snacks to packed, a cooler, outdoor gear, some friends and an Ipod with some good tunes It'd be a blast (from the past).

Hard unforgiving work. Back in those days you just went up to a tent and said "I'm ready to do some work, point me in the right direction" and they said "We need some more hands over there, sign on this dotted line please" or "Let me see you swing a hammer, (wha-ching) your hired!" like it was so easy to get work. Sure there were no HR departments but it was pretty honest and straight forward, no messing around with follow up interviews and stupid office politics or work place drama.. and what are they gonna do, outsource ya? Work place hazards: dysentery, cholera, fever, no real safety code, gun fights, drunken brawls, indian raids. Some severance packages came with a noose clause and in place of the contemporary office going away party was what's know as a "neck tie party" rather than write ups there were string ups if the offense was severe enough. Where trees lacked, there was always plenty of sand, ants and turkey vultures. This gives a whole new meaning to somebody saying "I'm fed up with this lousy job, right up to my neck!" - One could find themselves literally up to the neck buried in desert sand on a scorching day with honey doused on their head, an army of ants closing in and the buzzards hovering overhead. Yikes.

Okay I guess that is all a little over dramatic, those things happened but walking away from the railroad and having new guys drift in was common. People came and went in the construction with no precise documentation on the exact numbers. getting neck deep was probably rare unless somebody had done something to really anger somebody.

We Made It!

Wooohoooo! Give yourselves a big pat upon the back, so we passed the Mayan apocalypse date with no problem. The world goes on! Of course I knew we'd make it, it's just not every day the end of the world is suppose to come and give me an opportunity to poke some fun at it. Now we all need to start making T-shirts that say "I survived the 2012 Mayan Apocalypse and all I got was this lousy T-shirt."

Well, on the bright side I'm looking forward to a cancellation of all the doomsday 2012 shows on TV. Surely they'll find another doomsday to predict but they may have to do some doomsday searching for a few years before they set another date. I'm just glad this one is over because I can remember all the hype back in 2007 even. Whew, finally, 'cause this one has been along time in coming. Of course I mentioned this TV thing before but I'll mention it again because I'm happy that we are on the other side of that date. Also there went the Winter Solstice! No more shortening days, they'll finally get longer again. If you don't already know, you could probably guess that winter is my least favorite time of the year. I'm totally a Spring & Summer person all the way. I don't like the short days, cold, and dead bland grey, leaflessness and lifelessness of the outside much.

Now we can look forward to the holidays and new year and hope 2013 is hella f-ing balls to the wall awesome! :)

Somewhere I can just imagine some pretty disappointed peeps. I can almost hear the groans of their disappointment, the collection calls coming, angry spouses calling, the answering machines with their automated messages all in unison coming from hamlets across all corners of the globe. Yesterday they were saying to themselves:

- Quit my job and told my boss to go  O_o  #^@*!himself, check.
- Withdrew all my money from the stock market, check.
- Sent a nasty letter to my ex and all my old enemies, check.
- Maxed out my credit cards on a spending free for all, check.
- Graffiti on the sidewalk in front of the homeowners association, check.
- Went car surfing attempting to whack all the mailboxes in town with a baseball bat from car, check.
- Got arrested for lewd, shrewd and drunken behavior in public, check.
- Booked a flight to the Bahamas, check.
- Reserved a lavish suite with a jacuzzi and balcony overlook on the beach, check.
- Throw the television out the window and into swimming pool, check.
- Purchased several pounds of illegal substances from some guy named Pablo, check.
- Spent every last penny on booze, check.
- Threw a giant shindig and partied like it's 1999 again, check.
- Have no back up plan, totally up the creek without a paddle should this all go south, check.

If anybody knows somebody like this, please help these poor souls get back on their feet and forgive them as this is the charitable giving time of the year.

One can only assume that the Earth was in the sights of the Sloth Menace and a planet killing asteroid at the same time. The world's intelligence agencies learned of the sloth global domination plot well in advance. In fact the plot was learned about in the 1970's when a CIA operative went under cover disguised as one, he spent half a decade in the jungles of South America learning the sloth language and hanging out in trees, once the plot was discovered this provided ample time to prepare as sloths move slow, just a little slower than the CIA. Working with the world's space agencies they then enlisted the smartest scientists to come up with a solution. Kill two birds with one stone or rather us a very large stone and broadside a bunch of monkey like creature things with hook claws that dwell in trees. The plan called for flying rockets into the asteroid, nudging it's trajectory away from the earth and smashing it into the sloth mother ship thus thwarting the invasion and saving humanity and the planet. Of course they could not tell the general public, this keeps panic from breaking out and they keep the identity of their crack counter-space sloth team units secret. They only come together to save the world, then like everything else they return to bureaucratic in fighting. - This is just an elaborate sci-fi theory on why the "Slothpocalypse" was botched. The sloth mother ship has been some 4 billion light years in creeping here, or since the time Earth was allegedly formed if you count by the geological theory. By the time the sloths figure out on their home planet that the invasion failed, they might order a second wave but again they will be a long time in transit. By the time they reach Earth, they risk being consumed by the exploding sun turning into a red giant.

Thank goodness it's good to see today as it's officially the 22nd of December 2012!

It's Doomsday!

Happy Doomsday! ..and guess what, nothing so far! Surely by now I'd be standing knee deep in the Slothpocalypse, fighting for my life yelling "You dirty stinking sloths, you'll never take me alive!"

Today is December 21th 2012, the predicted end of world date. To be honest I think it's much hype. Perhaps end of something, end of the Mayan calender for one thing. End of some other things as well, maybe the end of well over half a decade, ramped up year by year blabber of the  "2012 Mayan Apocalypse" - one can only hope. I sure hope the Mayans don't have another trick up their sleeve. Of course people will look on to the future to find a new big end of the world date to set their sights on. The last big one was Y2K in 2000, that one is about the only one in modern history that I suspect much credence could be lent to. The plausibility being that it would be a man made doomsday event. The thought of as a bunch of archaic 20th century computers ticking away on binary code, once they hit 2000, the machines don't know the difference between 2000 and 1900. The result could have been a disaster wrecking havoc on machines all around the world, shutting off power stations, crashing computer reliant machines, crashing the stock market and plummeting the world into a financial death dive. No communications, shipping halted, cash registers unable to function, currency useless and the public in a state of panic. Luckily none of these things happened, the remedy was found and disaster averted. The one aspect that terrified me as a child about Y2K was the remote possibility it could trigger the launch of nuclear missiles automatically with no human interaction, those machines too could have faltered as it was thought the programmers never anticipated making it 2000 hence the machine would reboot to 1900, perhaps programed to think a war has happened, power has gone out and to launch ICBMs (That sure as put everything back in 1900 at least if not the stone ages). That terrified me as a kid and I lost some sleep over it but like everything else with Y2K, it never happened thankfully. Thanks to forward thinking software engineers, computer programmers and any other computer wizards of the 1990's, we are still here. They must have made everything flow smoothly into the new millennium because none of the before mentioned events happened as everybody well knows. To this end they are the unsung heroes of the last doomsday date (If you see one, thank him or her as the case may be).

Well now if anything is going to change, some people have suggested a shift in human subconscious thinking towards greater enlightenment. That would be nice, I guess it's ideal. I certainly don't see the world changing over night nor mankind in all it's existence going "You know what, starting today I'd like to be enlightened." It would be interesting, maybe people should laugh more, add more humor to their lives. One possibility is for more optimistic thinkers, all too often I'm confronted with eternal pessimists. I can accept some pessimism as reality but to chronically resort to it and totally give up on the glass half full way of thinking is only ceding to being defeated in mind. To me the power of the mind is a strong asset, your not ever fully defeated in your endeavors unless your defeated in your mind.

If anything is bound to change from this day on, I'm gonna take a stab in the dark here and say, please no more 2012 doom and gloom programs on the History Channel, Discovery, and Nat Geo. Well okay, the latter two have not been as bad but certain channels on TV have beat on the December 2012 drum pretty bad, that poor drum's head is beyond cracked, it's worn out, beat totally bashed through. Lets make a rock & roll analogy here. It's beyond the abuse Bonzo's drums took after a 10 minute onslaught of the song Moby Dick, it's more like the Who smashing their instruments in a fury all over the stage, alas save Keith Moon's poor drums! My hopes, we can stopping thinking so much about 2012 and the end and think more about 2013 + and hopefully a bright future, even though I know we all deal with our challenges, we shall overcome those. From this day on maybe people I know can stop saying "Well, but if the world ends in 2012.." Guess it helps to anticipate the plan B rather than plan A.

Ok, I'll hush up now as we still have some more time to go on December 21st. I realize the day is not yet over and there's an old saying "Don't count your chickens before they hatch." - There's another one that goes "It's not over 'till the fat lady sings." Well, where's the opera? I'm not hearing it.

In the Rocky Mountain time zone it's in the afternoon, maybe the key here is if the sun is rising over the dateline in the Pacific Ocean on the 22nd somewhere, then I suppose we are home free. Here's the clue, if the sun is rising in Japan right now or soon, that's the 22nd and the future, we are A-OK if people in the eastern Pacific region see the sunrise on the 22nd of December 2012.

I just have to remember, in North America, we have yet to reach nightfall for the 21st. While we sleep, we are most vulnerable to sloth surprise attack, slogging along at a stunning 2 MPH! Stumbling past the yard gnomes an through the flowerbed. They aim for our throats in the dead of night. Sleepy sleepy, nighty night and don't let the sloths bite.

Images used courtesy of Izsu and Superb wallpapers. Also Cosmos Magazine.

The Slothpocalypse Is Upon Us!

One more day 'till the end of the world! One More day 'till the end of the world! (Sing this to the bass line of "Rock Lobster" by the B-52's) - It's an inside joke me and a coworker came up with, the words seem to fit the bass line.

Nah, it will probably all be good in the hood. I doubt too much is gonna happen. More than likely a few crazy people will do some wild stuff, somebody is maxing out their line of credit as I type this. Some people hunker down in preparation, others are sitting on a beach somewhere drinking themselves into a stupor, while puffing on a Cuban stogie. Some naughty people are playing with too much nose candy and some guy just put money down on a exotic sports car he can't fully pay off but he's driving off in it anyway because what the hey, where are the repo men gonna be after civilization has vanished into the sands of time, right? As for the rest of us life will likely go on as normal but now here's something to have a chuckle at while the world holds it's breath.

Now about the "Slothpocalypse" - yes I just coined that term. I got the idea last night when I sat down to the computer and saw an image from the Memebase generator:

Needless to say, I almost fell out of my chair laughing. I don't know why. Out of all the possibilities, one could conjure up tsunamis, hurricanes, tornadoes, lightening storms, drastic weather change, floods of biblical proportions, firestorms, pestilence, famine, plague, disease, pandemics, pole shift, asteroids, black holes, planetary collisions, alien invasion, red giant exploding stars, super volcanoes, earthquakes, nuclear war, and a partridge & a pear tree, etc...

Yet out of all the possibilities people fathom, SLOTHS? SLOTHS! Now that's pretty freaking darn funny. So this brought idea of a comical and parody nature. What the heck, the end of the world is something we have been hearing of for sometime now. We might as well celebrate with some fun and have a laugh before this Mayan prediction passes.

I can just see myself now, standing waist deep in a pile of brass with the last remaining survivors in the area, fighting for the future of humanity. We are on a roof top guns a blazing, hot lead flyin', burning automobiles are laying on their side, tipped over in the sloth melee. Wreckage and debris is strewn about the city streets, plumes of smoke rise from nearby buildings. The place is a war zone, like some scene out of a zombie apocalypse flick. Except instead of zombies, the burg is swarming with sloths, hundreds of thousands of sloths! Humans are grossly outnumbered approximately 10,000 to 1. The sloths came in space ships (Proving they really were an alien species all along) took the world's nations by surprise disguised as slow moving furry rocks for camouflage. They felled entire militaries before they could mobilize their troops. The most destructive weapons were deployed but to no avail. In the end, the sloth onslaught managed to survive repeated artillery barrages, tank charges, air strikes. The world's nations expended their entire nuclear arsenals, this brought down many sloths but there were many more to fill their ranks. Soon all that was left was the sloth, cockroaches and the remaining bastions of humanity. By now it's every survivor for himself, it's up to the common person to turn the tide of battle around. The survivors have one thing to their advantage, the sloths make easy targets moving slow but one problem, there's more sloths than bullets. For every sloth that keels over, 100 more to take it's place. By now the survivors are surrounded by mountains of piled up sloth, a scene reminiscent of the movie "300." Copious amounts of sloth clumsily lumber over their fallen comrades and continue an ever tightening encirclement of the last standing survivors.

Yeah, that's actually sort of a dramatic interpretation in my mind of the Slothpocalypse Just had to get creative here, it got the wheels turning in my brain for some crazy satire of disaster and zombie movies. I don't harbor any hard feelings for sloths, I'm an animal lover person and think sloths are actually intriguing and they sort of remind me of certain dogs my relatives have. Yet they seem to make a good candidate for such a plot. Think of the old cheesy horror movies, one that comes to mind is 1972's "Night of the Lepus" - a movie about gargantuan, destructive, carnivorous, killer bunny rabbits run amok in Arizona. Then there's the more successful "Planet of The Apes" movies, I suppose "Planet of The Sloths" will be the sequel to the before mentioned plot once they've forced humans into hiding in secret caves and sloths rise as the rulers of the world.

THE "SLOTHPOCALYPSE" DECEMBER, 21st 2012! Are you ready?
The Mayans most feared prediction, coming to a city near you.
(I did get slightly carried away with photoshop on this one)

If I'm not back with a new post tomorrow, I'm likely caught in the middle of the "Slothpocalypse" fighting for humanity. If we lose, I reckon it's curtains for humanity, if we win.. well it looks like we will be enjoying roast sloth on a skewer for the remainder of the holiday season, usher in the new year with a dish of sloth brisket and campaign, have plenty stored in the freezers for summer outdoor sloth barbecues and still have an abundance of smoked sloth jerky for years to come.

Permian Phosphria Caves Part 2

So here I was on the roadside in the middle of Wyoming clambering up and sliding around rock ledges doing one of those things I love doing, intent on seeing where these openings in the cliff side lead. Many looked like they had potential but dead ended after a short few yards. Many entrances were out of reach and too high up but sooner or later I will breach them. Either by dangling on a rope, using a big ladder, building myself a James Bond style jet pack, grappling hook gun, cherry picker, pole vaulting, giant stilts, catapult myself into it, or if I have to get a circus cannon and shoot myself at the openings. One day.. one day, where there's a will, there's a way. Until then I could still keep poking around at the more accessible passages into the rocks. As I explored, I probably dedicated a good hour to looking around the rocks and in doing so became covered head to toe in of fine dirt and dust. At one point I found a tiny entrance that went back somewhere, somewhere I doubt many people can get to. I'm very skinny and even for me it was a tight squeeze. To this day I still want to know where that goes. I backed out after sliding my stomach a little ways through the dust because there is literally no way to turn around, I had to slide back out feet first, it was that tight. I'm hopeful however that with more time and precaution that I can follow this foot high by two feet wide tunnel somewhere back into a cavern. Before I do that again, I better have a marker to place near the opening so people can find me, or have a partner with a long rope tied to my feet or become good at back tracking in a household ventilation duct sized void, on my belly.



Wind River in background, the likely recipient of thousands of years, perhaps millions of years worth of water drainage through these rocks which seems a likely force in shaping their voids in conjunction with the Wyoming wind.



As Bugs Bunny might say, "Watch out doc, the next step is a doozy!"

This endeavor was fortunately without disappointment. I did find a large cave, not large as in compared to big caves like Carlsbad Caverns but rather large compared to all the other holes in the limestone rocks at this location. I entered through a narrow crevice in the rocks, went into a small room sized cavern, slipped past a boulder into another small cavern. Then when I thought surely it could not get better, I followed a tunnel down into a dip, thinking "This must come to an end." I followed it back up onto the other side, I came up and found myself looking down what I could only describe as a massive long subterranean hallway. The ceiling was anywhere from 12 to 20 feet high in some places, it was not very wide but it still felt like a hallway in a large building, one you could probably drive a small compact car through with only a few inches to spare. It was a jack pot moment for my caving finds. Jaw dropped I pressed on in the dark with my light gleaming down what seemed like an endless tunnel. It went on and on and on, the air was cold, I could see my breath in front of my face despite the outside temperature being that of a sizzling hot summer day around noon. The dirt on the floor was so fine, to a level which is seldom seen inland. The dirt reminded me of ocean sand on the beach, the walls and the floor were cool to the touch, like the inside of a refrigerator. I could hear my foot steps echoing around me, I slowed down and treaded lightly past chunks of rock on the floor. As I slowed my roll down the cavern hallway, everything was so silent, the sounds of summer gone. I was inside a void, a void much frozen in time and space. For all I know, prehistoric sea creatures could have swam past where I stood when Wyoming was a flooded swamp. More than likely during it's existence I'm sure some Cheyenne or Bannock tribe people may have paced this exact same hallway, stepping in the same fine dirt. In the cave's more recent history I'd not be surprised if outlaws hiding out or frontiersmen and pioneers sought refuge from the elements in a place like this cave. After counting about 400 feet worth of pacing I finally reached the unofficial end of that cave tunnel, I say unofficial because the fine dirt rose up towards the back meeting the ceiling coming down. There was a small hole between the rock and the dirt, I really think if had more time there and better equipment such as a longer lasting light, I'd dig it out just enough with my hands to crawl through and continue onward.The biggest disappointment at this time was my camera running out of battery pack power, it died just after entering the large hall. If it lasted long enough I'd have certainly captured some shots of the crazy looking bubble shaped stalactites descending from the ceiling.

Entering the big cave hallway. From here it's roughly 400 feet back, to a narrowing, presumably the end of the cave but there's strong evidence to suggest it continues further through a small hole at the back of this passage.

I certainly plan to return to follow up and cover this site more thoroughly. I know there's more passages here, some difficult to reach but worth checking out. When I do, I'm going to certainly be arming myself with better gear. Stronger longer lasting lights, rope, a good camera with multiple charged batteries. I'm glad I stopped as this was a heck of a find. There's virtually nothing I can find on info regarding the existence of this on the web or anywhere else despite this location having a state geological marker. So here you have it, a rare glimpse inside some little known Wyoming caves.

The good old Permian Era days, that was a long, long, long, long, very long friggin' time ago.

My First Time At The Canadian Border

I promised before the week was out that I had to bring us a glimpse of the scenery along US Highway 89 heading north of the town of St. Mary. Highway 89 passes through Babb Montana and Sunburst Montana (I love that name - as a guitarist, Sunburst finishes on guitars rock, perfect name for a town in Montana, after all they make Gibson acoustic guitars in Bozeman MT). It's about a 12 mile stretch give or take (I was eyeing the odometer but distracted by the scenery, I forgot the exact mileage) from St. Mary north to the Port of Piegan (US side)/ Port of Carway (Canadian side) on the border.

Along the way I passed an extension of lower Saint Mary Lake that extended beyond the boundaries of Glacier National Park, the lake protruded east and north paralleling the highway. Along the shores of the lake is the Malmstrom Air Force Base recreation area, this caught me by surprise as I'm going "What's it doing way up here?" Like this is quite a ways from the air base itself, Malmstrom is in Great Falls Montana, way to the south east of here. Very interesting, I guess they need a little lakeside retreat property far off for the base for the fly boys and fly girls to relax at. Okay so if I get this straight, in the United States Air Force, you get to hang out on the shores of lower Saint Mary Lake and enjoy the scenery?.. heck where do I sign up?!?!

There's really not too much along the way from St. Mary to the border, just a few roadside bars here and there, a ranch house or two, and cattle watering tanks. The scenery is great, not as good as inside Glacier National Park but it's favorable.

The Blackfeet Nation! Behind me on a far prairie hill stood a tipi village. I wanted to get a shot of it too but it was way off in the distance and the camera was unable to filter out the sun glare at that distance. It was a sight to see. This location is just slightly south of the border station. When I first saw the Canadian flag waving in the distance as I approached, I thought "I'm here, it's Canada! Oh Canada.. wait, where are the Mounties? For that matter this is strange, the border is left unguarded, where's the border station? Well I must be in Canada." Then I notice the border station in the distance to the north, nope, almost there.

US side of the border at the Port of Piegan. I made it! My first chance to see another country with my own eyes! Those bluffs in the far distance and trees on the right side of the frame are Alberta Canada! This road with will eventually led to Cardston, Lethbridge, Fort MacLeod, and onto Calgary! Sadly I did not have a passport and I did not feel like getting my car torn apart by customs so I just came here to say I saw it, pulled out from where this photo was shot, drove up for a little closer look and made a nice U-turn within a couple hundred feet of the crossing station, peeled out and went back into the USA.

 

The road back south. This is the view the Canadians have as they enter the US via this route. From this distance I'm not sure which is which but the notable mountains in the distance are certainly part of Glacier National Park. Chief Mountain, Ninaki, and Gable Mountain are the most prominent in this photo, near the right side of the frame.

Canadian Thistles? Some purple flowers with a bee on one. I'm glad I stopped at this patch of flowers beside the road. I don't think this bee had any idea he was to be part of a photo shoot that day but he did a great job posing. My timing was impeccable in capturing this, like I was meant to stop and snap this photo at just the right time. I'm still in awe, this is cool.

Part of lower Saint Mary Lake. Looking south in this shot, the road leading back to the town of St. Mary.

Glacier National Park from the outside eastern edge looking in towards the west. Someday I want to come back and hike those mountains in the distance to the east side of the park. Actually I wanna float or swim to those islands, that would be awesome.

A spectacular drive.

After reaching the border and turning back around I drove back to St Mary's and then drove over the mountains and hills to the east to Browning, turned south to Choteau and onto Great Falls Montana.

So ever since this trip in August 2012 I've been joking with friends and family about how at the border, they have placed giant statues of Justin Bieber greeting visitors entering Canada. Well as you might be able to tell from the previous Port of Piegan photos, they don't.. not yet anyway. Not unless the Canadians, read this and get any serious ideas. Ssshhhhh, we must not give them any ideas, they could get easily carried away with such a project.

Alright, what would this post would not be complete without a glimpse of a sunburst guitar since I already mentioned it. For those that are unfamiliar with a sunburst guitar finish, here it is in all it's glory.

Gibson's SJ-200 "King of The Flat Tops" acoustic guitar w/ sunburst finish. A work of art just to gaze at and drool for musicians whom appreciate a good Gibson. To me, proof that a God does exist and he spends time making beautiful acoustic guitars in Bozeman Montana.

Day of Sorrow

So I wanted to write about something else today, but I feel overwhelmed with sadness right now. For my stateside readers, you all know what I'm talking about. For my readers around the globe, if you have not heard the news, your just waking up to it or it is slow trickling in, there was an awful cold blooded massacre at an elementary school in the state of Connecticut today. It's hard to fathom, it's sickening to even ponder.

It's still much too soon to know a whole lot about this but many good people have perished today, a majority of them children whom had their whole lives ahead of them. It's a crying shame, the kind of potential talent and good they had to offer to this world.. now lifeless. This is immensely difficult to stomach here upon the holiday season.

When I started this blog, I intended it to be escapism to both me the writer and you the reader. The aim has been something freeing of the mind and soul by bringing fun things onto the blog. It won't be often that I touch on world events here but out of respect for the events of the day, today's post is dedicated to those effected by this senseless tragedy.

I'm asking all who are reading this, if your the praying type, in whatever way you pray, please pray for the families and the victims. There's a whole lot of sadness in this dark hour and some good vibes, thoughts and prayers would be appreciated. Hold candle light vigils, lower flags to half staff, go on a nature walk, and meditate. Tell the people closest and most important to you how much you they mean to you, if you have kids be thankful and tell them you love them as cheesy as that sounds. Do whatever you got to do to honor the lives of those we've lost today.

That's all. God bless.