What the fuck kind of bullets do you use against existential dread: Las Vegas, Days one and two

In a move that will surprise absolutely not a soul, I am on day five of my Las Vegas/Santa Fe/Oklahoma City whirlwind. I actually would have had plenty of time to keep up with this blog, but what I HAVEN'T had is the energy. I am going to bed at like, 8pm because I can't quite catch up to the time change. So here I am, 6am but 8am in my body, wide the fuck awake after waking up at 4:45am, 6:45am in my body. Super cool and radically good. 

Edit: I have been home for three days. Welp! I'm the same as I've ever been!

So let's recap. Day one was pretty breezy. We left right on time (hooray! My favorite time to leave!!), and Bri and I just chatted for the ten hour drive to Tucumcari, NM. 

We stayed at a Super 8 in Tucumcari, didn't need to be fancy, just needed to be clean. This was taken the morning of Day two, before the long drive from Tucumcari to Las Vegas. It was another ten-ish hour day in the car, but this time we made a stop. Derek and I are very into rock hounding and cabachon making, rock fashioning, whatever you want to call it, so when Derek was still planning on going with me, we looked for rock and mineral shops to investigate. We figured that the southwest would be a boon for us, rock wise. 

It was not. However, Vegas Trip Day Two Drea and Bri did not know that. So Vegas Trip Day Two Drea and Bri stopped at Mama's Minerals in Albuquerque, NM. Mama's Minerals advertised itself as a LARGE WOMAN OWNED STORE and Bri and I never did find out if Mama is a large woman, or if Mama's is a large store owned by a woman. Could also be a large store owned by a large woman. There was no photographic evidence of Mama to be seen inside. 

I mean. It IS a large store. Large Mama not pictured.

I was a little disappointed at the variety of rough they had available. I have a little place about thirty minutes away from my house that has REALLY great off cuts, and I go there for rough and I always come away with amazing pieces at amazing prices. Mama let me down in that regard. 

We have...had...such a great piece of dinosaur bone, but it had all of these mud cavities and I kept trying to get rid of them and I ended up whittling it down by about 25%. I wanted to get another piece for Derek, because he's depressed about it. The whale vertebrae was particularly cool and interesting, but I didn't end up getting it. 

That chrysocolla was GORGEOUS, but even at my most extravagant, I would not pay 105 per pound for a rock. Even though...like...look at it. It's so pretty. And it was admittedly hard for me to put it back and not buy it. But I recently paid 140 dollars for two pounds of Bloody Basin agate, and I think that's as close to the stars as I'm gonna reach. For now, anyway. 

Bri, inspecting more of the rough that I was ALSO disappointed with. 

Except these peridot bombs! I loved them, Bri loved them, Derek loved the photo I sent to him. I would have bought one, except...I wandered around and then forgot to go grab one. 

I'm not really interested in rock specimens...per se. I did buy Derek a few ammonites to cut open, and a knightia fossil, but otherwise the largeness of Mama's is...well...largely wasted on me. They also have dyed agates and that's a yuck from me. 

It's a shame none of our corals have been this big or this beautiful. 

Same with our agates and geodes. At least this massive slice isn't dyed!

I did not take photos of the other sections of Mama's, but it was such a good sized store. I almost wished I was a gems and mineral girly. 

I wanted to buy these shrimps SO BAD, but they were WAY more expensive than the fish. That tiny slab of two shrimp was 105, and I hadn't even gotten to Vegas yet. I had 9 days of travel ahead of me, and I knew I needed to pace myself, so I left the shrimp behind. 

We got back on the road for the last stretch of the trip....I think about 7 hours? It was long, but amazing. I filled Bri in on all of my life shenanigans because I'm a leo and when I am one on one, I'm as leo as they come. Star? That's me for sure. At least in my own mind. But I got to learn about Bri, too. We've been friends for a few years now, but haven't really gotten to dig in to each other. This road trip gave us that ability, which was wonderful.

It was so much just...road. The drive to Vegas doesn't get interesting until a few hours past Albuquerque, so really, aside from the odd billboard....see exhibits A through C:

....nobody has time for 24 hour pumps. Ten minute pumps at BEST, fifteen if I'm really feeling it. I've got other shit to do. 

Take that, SCIENCE! Capitalism says it's the gender binary or bust, losers. 

...there really wasn't much to gawk at. Bri took a lot of photos as the landscape got more southwest-y, but I am gonna not post them all up here. I think they are all lovely, so I wouldn't be able to pick and dwindle down to a reasonable number. 

And then, after ten lovely hours, we were there. The strip was in the distance, and I was suddenly aware of being near Vegas. Like I knew this was my destination the entire time, but arriving in Vegas and knowing you're going to arrive in Vegas are two very different things. 

Bri and I made it to The Lexi, and...I don't know how to describe this place other than "ugh". 

That's actually very untrue. I know precisely how to describe this place. I have been telling everyone that this hotel was very obviously loved, once upon a time. I looked it up...the building was built in 1978 as The Las Vegas Inn and Casino. I'm unsure how or why, but it slipped from being the Las Vegas Inn and Casino into being a Travelodge, and in 2001 it was bought out and it became The Artisan. The Artisan did pretty well for itself, had a 4 million dollar face lift, and was, from what I can tell, loved dearly by both its creator and its patrons. See? You can feel that this place was a treasure at some point in its life, you really can. It was voted Best Of in Vegas for a few different things (Best Bar and Lounge was one in won more than once), but it filed for bankruptcy in an attempt to make a sweeter deal out of a potential merger, and it never really recovered. It became the Lexi in 2022, and I think it is about to fold under the weight of itself again, if the rumor I heard is any kind of truthful. 

I inititally thought The Lexi looked old, but charming. The outside has this like...definitely older Vegas feel to it, but without looking dated. Vegas has a magic with that sort of thing, though....even dated things have a place in Vegas. 

But this is really as good as it gets. Once you step inside of those doors, there is no going back. You can't unsee The Lexi.

That fountain didn't even fucking have water in it. Not running water, not stagnant water. It was bone dry. 

What place in Vegas would be complete without ESCORT MAGAZINE on the check in desk? Or Vibes magazine, I'm sorry. This definitely made me laugh, it was the most Vegas thing I had seen all day, and I had just been staring at the strip. 

They checked me in, told me the pool was European (which here means "top optional" or "toptional" which I was disappointed to see hadn't swept the hotel as it would if I were the manager) to which I replied, "well I'm a big fan of boobs, so that's fine." The guy at the desk didn't even crack a smile. I suppose he's not a fan of boobs. Or maybe not a fan of girls who are fans of boobs. 

Bri and I unpacked the car and headed up to our room, which...

I thought it looked cheap on the website, but I wasn't terribly pressed about it, because I booked The Lexi for convenience. However, the effect in person was much worse than I could have imagined. Bri and I mentioned to each other that it looked....uh....poorly decorated. But we had been in the car for hours, we were too tired to complain harder (which is saying something, as I come from a long line of complainers and it's pretty much what I'm best at), but our beds were ALSO uncomfortable and the a/c didn't work, so it was also ALSO way too warm. Obviously Vegas was off to a great start. 

I was upset to find out there wasn't a microwave in the room, that I had to travel all the way downstairs for my dinner, and I was almost too tired to do it. But I did it. Bri had her adult lunchable dinner, I had my meal prep from two nights prior, and then we pretty much hung out until bedtime. I think Bri went and got some super special Vegas only THC drinks, but I wanted to be out of the fucking car. So I stayed put. We had initially planned on going to the toptional pool, but I got too tired. So we are officially in Vegas now. The trip is on in earnest.

Hey guys! Get ready with me while I put this cough drop up my butt

Alright. I leave for Vegas in two weeks. I just got finished with just a whopper of a cold. Since the start of the pandemic, I have been masking everywhere I go. I think I am now a forever masker. I still mask outside if I'm going to be around lots of people, like walking in a large downtown area, I for fucking SURE mask inside. I have only for sure had COVID once, a direct exposure from Derek, who was lax on his mask for one day on post and I had to pay the price for it. I have only been sick once with a cold once in the last five years, from a direct exposure from my oldest because they don't mask despite my insistence. Until two weeks ago. I wanted some WellBefore N95s, Derek got me an off brand, and my first time wearing them, I caught a really fucking nasty cold from my physical therapist. I ordered my WellBefores today. I think I want to head over to Menards and see if they have any 3M Auras to use in the meantime, because my favorite thing about being covid conscious is how I can count on one hand how many times I've been sick since 2020. Before 2020, I had a cold two or three times a year. 

I for sure need these masks for Vegas. 

I have so many shoots to do. Derek is no longer attending with me, so on the drive out, my girlfriend Bri is coming with me, but she's going to be leaving the morning of the 2nd, so I'll be doing all of my many shoots by myself. And then I'll be hanging out in Santa Fe by myself, but I'll be so busy in Santa Fe that I'm not even pressed. I'll be so busy in Vegas that I won't even really have time to be pressed about being there alone, too. 

I'm starting to get everything packed now. I'm going to have to detail the car...or clean it out ENOUGH that I can thoroughly trash it on my way to and from Vegas. I'm gonna be getting myself snacks, I'll be prepping a few days of dinners and breakfasts for myself, Bri and I are going to have Korean BBQ in Vegas (at a place that has an amazing sounding Vegan BBQ menu for me!), and I'll be going to Jinya as expected. I'm going to bring my Soda Sense so I don't have to buy sparkling waters for myself...I just do my best to  not have to go out to eat or buy snacks on the road. It's so much less expensive for me to get everything here and just fix my own stuff, and honestly, I learned my lesson when we went to Bryce Canyon and couldn't eat a morsel there. I'm trying to figure out how many days I actually NEED to prep dinners for. I will be gone for ten days, and the day I get back I won't need dinner, I'll be getting home WAY in time for that. So...the night Bri and I leave, the night we arrive in Vegas, the first full day in Vegas Bri and I will be eating at Master Kim's Korean BBQ, The next two nights I will likely eat dinner that I'm bringing for myself, then I'll have Jinya...and I very well may just eat Jinya until I leave for Santa Fe. In Santa Fe, me and Derek's favorite place to eat in Santa Fe is The Pantry. Gotta hit up The Pantry, but I'm  unsure what I'll do for a couple of nights for dinner in Santa Fe. I'll figure it the fuck out. I'm going to hit up so many places I'm excited to see, for the first time and again. I'm going to bring noatmeal and almond milk for myself, snackies, breakfast sweet loaves (I'm thinking chocolate zucchini bread and also cranberry orange). Gotta bring myself some sweet treats, because I do have such a sweet tooth (maybe I'll make myself chocolate pretzels again?), and I'm going to need to have plenty of snacks to keep me going, because I'll be go go go go go from the second Bri leaves until the moment I head out to OKC. I won't be doing any model or client shoots while I'm in Santa Fe, but I WILL be bouncing from place to place to take other kinds of photos. 

I will be doing my blog as per usual for my trip, the silver lining to missing my best friend and travel companion going with me is that, once Bri leaves, I will have all the down time to update my blog and perhaps I will be able to post every day. We'll see. I have always tried to do a day by day posting when I'm on a trip, and I have never fucking ONCE been able to manage. 

I am not at all excited to be in Vegas proper. I was just telling my sibling and their wife that I am so anti everything Vegas stands for. Being in city proper is going to make me miserable, but I am SO excited to be out in the canyons and the mountains. I have always loved hiking in Vegas. I'm nervous about how all of these shoots are going to go. Ugh. This is going to be a wild time. I miss just popping up to Chicago for shoots!

How to wear a hat as an odious woman

It is January 29th. 

I submitted my PhD application to Syracuse 19 days ago. 

I have been checking The Grad Cafe, Reddit, and my email a billion times a day to see if any decisions have been released for UC Denver or Syracuse. Obsessive is hardly the word for my behavior. 

It turns out I DO want the approval of academics. Desperately. 

I was trying to figure out the other day if I actually want the approval, or if what I want is something that I am pretty sure I cannot have. That the obsession I'm currently living through is less to do with drive and more to do with the selfishness of demanding I be given a thing that was never meant to be mine because my covetousness refuses to allow me the grace of saying, "well...it isn't for me, and that is ok". Which thing is real? One? Both? A secret third thing? 

When I finished scouring Denver's EaHD program's professor list and finally found someone with research that aligns with my research interests, she and I emailed back and forth, very pleasantly, until I asked about future funding. My focus is...broadly...queerness. The climate has never been warm to queerness in academia...in any form, really...but very obviously this moment is practically at a temperature closing in on absolute zero. When I expressed concern about what future projects may look like (because as any prospective PhD candidate knows, programs are centered on research, research is centered on funding, and thus your acceptance is pretty largely hinged on who is doing funded research that aligns with your focus), and did she have any outlook on how bleak a future we may have as a possible mentor-mentee pair, I never heard back from her. I gave it a few weeks, not wanting to be a bother. It was, after all, the beginning of the semester, and I could only imagine the stress she was under. As the weeks gave way to months, I began to wonder if NOW was the time to email, or if I would look demanding. Was now the time to email, or would I seem entitled? Had I upset her? Did I ask a bad question? 

By the time I turned in my application, I was truly worried that I had fucked up that portion of the journey. One of the things they ask you to highlight in your personal statement is a professor you've created a relationship with who is willing to be your mentor. I omitted that from my statement. I did not know if she was willing anymore. When I got an email a couple of weeks later that my submitted application needed another transcript that hadn't been turned in, I bemoaned that those two things in conjunction made me look too stupid and careless and unfocused that I surely had blown my chances period. I was assured by almost everyone in my orbit that I was still a really good candidate, everything was fine. 

But secretly something else was gnawing at the back of my mind. Something I had really only said in an unanswered email to my would be mentor. 

Was there even space (read: money) for me in academia right now?

As I looked for professors at Syracuse who shared my focus, I found none. I reached out to three professors who had foci that were adjacent ENOUGH to my focus, got an answer back from one, and that answer felt curt, honestly, and wondered again if academia was hitting a for real brick wall moment for anybody in the DEI pathway. Not like the usual white supremacy brick wall that has always been scuttling between progress and people, but a black hole of it. When I talked with the director of Syracuse, I expressed concern at this. My focus is queerness, I said, and I'm deeply worried about funding. He assured me that Syracuse is funded separately and not beholden to the whims of the federal government. Well ok. Denver did not give me any such reassurances. In fact, Denver really does not offer much in the way of funding. Which is upsetting. 

I've spent the last few weeks thinking that the ultimate foil to my acceptance into a PhD program is the lack of acceptance of queerness. And isn't it ironic that my fucking research proposal is EXACTLY that. I proposed a longitudinal study on social attitudes toward queerness if queerness is normalized in academic settings. Syracuse asks you to propose research, that was what I proposed. Denver asks what you think is missing in the field, and I said the normalization of queerness. 

Do I stand firm by those things? I sure fucking do. But I think that Denver's hands may be tied here, and I think that Syracuse just doesn't have the professorship. 

I suppose we'll see. For all of my obsessing over decisions being released, I feel confident that I won't hear from anybody until at LEAST February. Mid to late. But I have already resigned myself to a double rejection, and while I feel pretty sure that I as a candidate am maybe not ideal just by virtue of myself, I also think that any rejections I get will be in no small part because I focus on queerness in academia. 

Waiting is misery. Just give me my rejections so I can cry about it and move on. 

I'm attracted to tall, skinny white men who look like they're recovering from the consumption

A few years ago, I graduated with my MA in Human Development. Like the completionist I am, I set myself to looking into PhD programs. I really and truly did my due diligence in looking for PhD programs that suited my focus. I know I've written about this all over the last few years...I contemplated applying to Cornell and ultimately decided not to...I didn't apply for the last year and half because I am so disgusted at how universities have responded to calls for transparency in relations with Israel/divestment from Israeli interests and the further genocide of Palestinians, the encampments in protest of genocide...places of higher education have a lot of explaining to do, and a lot of wrongs to right (and obviously not just in the last few years, but all across the board), and I had every intention of continuing to not apply in protest until several people I am in community with were like...uh bitch, nobody is calling for that boycott yet, just apply. 

So I'm applying. 

I found two programs that were an absolute dream to me:

Feminist Studies PhD (Seattle)

A dream program for me, honestly. It is ideal, and everything that I'm looking for, however I am very little of what THEY are looking for. I am an exceptionally poor, not at all competitive candidate. Derek told me to apply anyway, as he always does when I say that I am not the right fit for something. I told him the same thing I always tell him: I do not want to waste someone's time when I know full well I am not a good fit, and I also do not want someone in a position that I respect in a program I admire thinking I cannot read or understand the kind of candidate they desire. 

and

Educational Equity, Justice, Equity, and Diverse Identities EdD (Denver)

Another dream program for me, but their recruitment doesn't start until July 2026, and I am not even sure if that means their cohort meets in 2027. It could mean 2028. I think this program is a far better fit for me, but the latency of it gave me pause, and I think that I could achieve similar goals in another program. But still, an all around incredible program (in a state I fucking LOVE).

Obviously I did not apply to either of those programs. I instead went with:

Family Science and Human Development PhD (Denver)

I submitted my application for this program today, earlier this afternoon. Just under the wire, with exactly two weeks to spare before the application deadline. It is an excellent program, and while it isn't JEDI or a PhD in Feminist Studies, it is a wonderful, wonderful program. I have met with a few of the faculty, and they're all wonderful. I found a professor with a focus similar to mine that was happy to talk with me about upcoming research opportunities, which is nice, as in order to apply you have to talk with faculty and find a willing mentor. The program is very, very good. 

and

Sociology PhD (Syracuse)

I won't lie, I initially grabbed this one just to have a place in upstate/central NY because I want to go home so bad. I was not terribly hyped about this program, it just seemed pretty basic bitch to me. But then I met with the director after weeks of emailing back and forth, and I got kind of really excited about it. I think this could be a really fantastic program. They focus on eight core areas:

Inequalities

Globalization, Immigration, Transnational Studies

Population and Place

Education and Family

Health, Aging, and the Life Course, Disability

Power, Capital, and Politics

Methods

Theory

Now the latter two I could live without, but the other six? I challenge you to find a way that queerness and the further marginalized inside of the queer community are not issues for each and every one of them. Plus I really like the director. 

The deadline for Syracuse is January 10th. All I have left to do is write my personal statement....sadly my personal statement for UC Denver is not usable. I have one more letter of rec that needs to be sent to Syracuse, but she already let me know she'd need the break between deadlines to get them both done. Now, Syracuse doesn't require you to find a willing mentor, but the director did tell me it would behoove me to do so. I reached out to three faculty members, and only heard back from one. I'll be reaching back out to the director today to bemoan my lack of responses, but I'm not sure it'll matter much. 

But I have officially sent in my first PhD application. Which feels strange? I have spent the last few months really thinking about where I started my higher education journey. Once upon a time, I knew I'd be going to college. I knew I'd be getting a doctorate. I made my own college swag and adorned both my body and my room with it. I told people I was going to go to Cornell, and once I was "scouted" by Duke I told people I was going to Duke. Little me was always so sure of my academic promise, mostly because I had been hailed as a genius my entire life, in all of the gifted programs, targeted and sought after by Magnet schools (as if any of this means anything truly translatable when it comes to brains, potential, or talent, but what did I know?), but also because what else do smart little girls dream of? I never wanted to be a mother or a wife, that was all exceptionally boring. My playtime and daydreams focused on adventures and travel and bigger things than sedentary domesticity. I didn't know to dream of anything else. I stalled out when the sirens of domesticity forcibly drowned me, and I decided to make the most of the life I had by doing just enough to scrape by, and secretly knowing I could have been A Real Somebody once upon a time. I met Dan and he made me want to be a somebody again, but not for the right reasons yet...I wanted to be a somebody to HIM, and I I know I either always should have been or never should have been a partner, but wanting to be the kind of person he saw as worthy put me in college, and even though I wasn't in the right field yet, I knew college was the right starting point. I was almost to my BS in Business Administration when I was like, bruh I hate this, I hate Dan, and I hate myself for thinking this is who I needed to be...who am I actually? Changed majors to Psychology, got my BA in psychology (with honors, no less), and said to myself...is this it? Or can I be more? 

And I pushed further and got my MA in Human Development. I struggled, because higher education...education of any kind, really...is not built for autistic people. I had breakdowns, I lost faith in myself, I was angry at the lack of intersectionality, and I stuck with it and graduated with a 3.8 GPA. Not top of my class as defined by some places, but still top 20% of my class. Nothing to sneer at.  

When I started looking for PhD programs and asking for letters of rec from professors, my advisor told me she didn't think I could hack it. The words she really used were "concern about the ability to successfully cope with the rigors of a doctoral program" and I was so embarrassed. I was embarrassed to be autistic in a place that did not want me there and certainly didn't want me succeeding there. And I spent a whole year thinking about what she said and why she said it. I wrote her back in September telling her I DO want to apply to PhD programs, and the things she saw as weaknesses that gave her pause about my abilities to succeed were actually strengths, and despite all of the things she cited as reasons I would struggle, I still graduated with a 3.8 GPA, and I still stayed the course and didn't take a single semester off DESPITE the mental breakdown I had. I stayed a full time academic while having a full time job AND operating my own photography studio, while also being a full time mom and a spouse. People have done less academically with fewer life obligations and gotten glowing letters of rec, I deserved one, too.

I got them all. All of the letters of rec. All of the meetings with directors. Everything I needed, I demanded not from a place of entitlement, but because I earned every last fucking crumb of my asks. I did not submit a PhD application for Dan, I didn't do it for Derek, I didn't do it for my kids, I don't care about any of them here. I did it for me. For little me that knew I would get here. Who never doubted ONCE that I would get there. That me was thrilled to hit the submit button on her first PhD application, because she believed in my abilities without hesitation. 

Now. 

The caveat here is I didn't submit the best applications I could. And I am reticent to admit this, because if for some reason an admissions board sees this and thinks I don't actually want to be accepted, I won't be. Which isn't really true, ESPECIALLY for Denver. But there is a catch. 

Derek's marketplace opened and he put Washington State at the top of his list (Colorado is second, New York is third). I told him if he got Washington state, I would happily give up my PhD programs to go hiking for four years in the PNW. To my knowledge, I only get one crack at being alive, and I want to live it as tits out as I can, experiencing as much as humanly possible. Can I do that tethered to research for the next four years? No. No I cannot. So I took a sort of...spirited nonchalance approach to my applications. When I first set out to apply to programs, I told myself I was going to beef out my thesis (an embarrassing to me 15 pages, as Mizzou only required 13-15 pages) so I could make it longer and flesh out my ideas a whole lot more...I was going to agonize over my personal statement  until it was absolutely perfect. I was going to do this, that, and the other to ensure my acceptance into my schools, and give myself the pick of a lifetime so I could make the most of such an opportunity. 

What I did instead of care JUST ENOUGH. Did I put in an effort on my personal statement? Fuck  yeah I did. Did I put in as much effort as I COULD have? Not even close. I think I spent about ten hours TOTAL on my personal statement for Denver, and I only had one friend read it over for me. Did I beef up my thesis? Fuck no. I left it as is. 

My logic goes as follows:

If I do not get accepted by either program, I will feel sad because my ego is bruised that I'm not good enough for two state school PhD programs, but I will ultimately be free of the "what if" that not applying would forever haunt me with, and I can go on and live the rest of my life unbothered by the rigors of academia and its rotten systems. Derek and I can figure out what place we want to move to, and we can go on living our lives. I still have a master's degree, I am still a respected photographer, I still have options, I could just close the door on Academia. For good. 

If I get in to one school, and Washington State is on the table to move to, well then I'll know I'm a competitive candidate, and I'll know I could have done it. And I will (likely) decline and go live my life, content in the knowledge that knowing I could be A Real Somebody was never a fairy tale. And I will hike The Cascades as a brilliant, highly educated woman who chose a different path on purpose because life afforded her the ability to have options. 

If I get in to one or both schools and Washington is NOT on the table, well...I think I will probably take the program that accepts me/the program I think I could do more with. There IS a path forward here where I still say yes to a PhD if they say yes to me. Which is why I put in effort. And not even minimal effort, I put in more than minimal effort. But I didn't want to exert so much effort that I broke my back trying and trying and trying for institutions that will likely do their best to neg me for another four years. 

I feel like this is all a pretty solid plan. I feel excited about prospects for the first time in a long time. And I'm pretty rejuvenated that I ACTUALLY applied to a PhD program. Even if I don't get it, being able to do that seemed so far away 15 years ago. 20 years ago. 23 years ago. I haven't believed in my PhD capabilities since I was 16, and that's just fucking wild to me. 

I guess let's see how this all shakes out. 

Sharmwar's Pakistani Yeti Grill: Wisconsin Trip, Day Five: The Journey Home (the long way 'round)

Upsettingly, we were VERY on time this morning as far as getting out of the condo and on the road. We left pretty much RIGHT when we needed to...until we realized we had to stop for gas and cheese curds. So we should have left an hour and a half EARLIER. That would have set our day perfectly, but alas. We are poor planners. 

Well.

We made our way to Woodman's, and hunted out our glorious cheeses. And glorious cheese is exactly what we got. 

CHEESE.

A true embarrassment of cheesy riches, what are we supposed to do with all of these choices???? BUY ALL OF THE CHEESE??? Oh. Yeah. Yes. That's the obvious answer. My mistake. 

Oh, America. 

When your husband wants a snacking cheese, you get a block of muenster. We snack in ways that defy god and nature, taunting the laws of common decency and decorum. Those rules are not for us, we cry as we tear off chunks of cheese with our teeth, the crumbs of lesser bits tumbling off onto our shirts. We eat cheese as gods of old, without reservation, fear, or fork. 

I wanted this to be MY snacking cheese, but I cannot recall if I got it or not. It sounds fucking delightful.

HEY. 

In our defense...

So we normally do a big charcuterie board for NYE. Tradition every year. I never ask for presents for myself, I ask for gift cards so I can go balls out on cheeses every year. Last year we spent an impressive 600 dollars on our NYE charcuterie board, and it was EPIC. 

Being in Wisconsin...the cheese state of the midwest...we had easy access to all of the yummiest cheeses at ridiculous prices. We ended up buying several pounds of cheese and amish butter for 100 bucks, and all of this would normally cost us at least 300. Straight from the source for the win!

On to our bigger aim: 

Milwaukee. Which is Algonquin for "the good land". 

Our first stop was at Klode Park. It wasn't as cold out as I thought it was going to be, but it was fairly nippy. And I was a little upset, because I had to pee, and there wasn't a restroom in sight. Well. Not a "civilized" bathroom. I ended up popping a squat in a rock formation. You'll see!

The first little place I went looking for rocks, and I didn't turn up much, but the waves really reinforced how much I had to fucking pee. 

I met up with Derek at this little rock bunch. While he was wandering the shoreline, I was climbing around the rocks. Until he told me I wasn't supposed to do that. Oops! But I also am guilty of needing to pee REALLY fucking bad. Like, I deeply had to pee. Urgent. Emergency. 

So here is a shot of my husband, inside of the rock hole I pissed in not two minutes after this photo. Turns out we're both disrespectful heathens. 

Derek, seen here ignoring my calls to move on to the next beach spot. 

It took an additional twenty minutes for him to stop hunching over and to get in the car so we could move on to our next location.

All of my rocks so far!!

We drove over to Doctor's Park, and it ended up being our last rock hounding spot for this trip. 

It was really pretty! And still pretty cold, but at Klode I made the bold choice to take off my flippies and walk around in the water, which wasn't as cold as I assumed it was going to be, but also wasn't even close to fuckin' decent. It was pretty fucking cold. And I wanted to wade out for better rocks, so I had to put on my wellies. 

Derek and I wandered up the first path for about a quarter mile until I realized we weren't really making our way to the beach, we were just...moseying AROUND. We walked back the way we came, and discovered that we needed to take the path that went down and away from the parking lot. So we toddled downwards like the old fuddy duddies we are. 

This shit sucked going back up to the car. It LOOKS flat, but it's actually a pretty steep  uphill climb. I was breathing embarrassingly harder than I would have assumed, given how much cardio I do every day, but there I was, huffing and puffing. But that's not this part of the beach adventure. That's a later Drea problem. 

Well. It certainly isn't as pretty as Klode at the waterfront, but the water was also cloudier and choppier, so it also has those things counting against it. 

We had a really great time looking for rocks, though!! Derek was all about the yooperlites on Lake Superior, and here he was all about crinoids and fossils. I was just after rocks that I thought looked pretty. And I found a glut. 

I found TWO death plates and a big ass crinoid clump, and so many other pretty little rocks. A very successful rock adventure, if I do say so myself! And I do.

I had to pee again, and because it's winter, the facilities here for pottying were closed for the season. As if bladders give a shit. Anyway the moral of the story is, I walked all the way to the bathrooms, found them to be locked until spring, and then pissed all over the walls like a feral cat. I showed them!

Derek and I decided we actually wanted to go to Kimchi Pop 2 for lunch in Chicago, so we looked up the hours....closed until 5:30. We found another place with a reportedly delicious kimchi pancake, put it in the GPS, and were dismayed to see it was an almost three hour drive to Chicago. So we switched course, found a grocery store, bought snacks, and drove immediately home. 

In some very dense fog. Again.

But we made it in one piece! And we had so much fun rockhounding, and we were so sad to not get to spend more time on Lake Superior that we have been planning a trip back out there before we leave Missouri. We ALMOST booked a trip for the end of December, but thought better against it because the weather would probably be ass. 

So there we go! Our ten year anniversary trip was an all around success.