Farting Around

Posted On December 6, 2020

Y’all. Listen. There’s a lot still to catch up on. So here’s what’s up. This blog post is gonna hafta be mostly pictures. There might be a rant here and there, but we’ve gotten too far behind to detail everyday since the wedding.

Sooo, sorry futures selves for having procrastinated so long!

After the wedding in Houston, we went to South Padre and got to drive on the frigging beach!! Whatttt?!?! It was neato.

The 12th through 27, we saw some dolphins while taking a ferry boat ride, hung around San Anotnio and Austin (where we saw a friend of Nick’s), stopped by Natchez, MS for a minute, waited around at Nick’s other friends’ (Jon and Audrey) house for a few days while awaiting an appointment to fix the van, built a trampoline for the nieces, voted, chilled out at the Alfred Maclay Garden State Park near Tallahassee, kayaked with Hannah on the Wacissa River, hung around Jacksonville, headed north through Charleston, SC and Myrtle Beach, SC, and visited the Virginia Aquarium and Marine Science Center.

Nick and I both tend to be a little wary of aquariums and zoos. At the same time, Nick is usually pretty eager to make me happy and nothing quite makes my day like seeing animals. So we often find ourselves struggling with the line between what is a morally acceptable aquarium or zoo and what isn’t? And how do you know when that line has been crossed?

Does it depend on the size of the animal? On whether or not it’s a mammal? Our perception of the animal’s ability to become bored or miserable? How much time, money, and energy the aquarium or zoo puts into research and conservation? Does that offset the burden of the former?

If it has a dolphin, whale, seal, or some other animal deemed unacceptable but is the leader of conservation efforts and research into veterinary medicine, then does that make one’s support okay? Or are we obligated to demand more from them, such as more creative ways of studying dolphins other than keeping them in a tank?

If they rescue a beluga whale and it would die if released back into the wild, is it ethical to keep it despite knowing it would likely spend the rest of its life in a comparatively miserable living space? Or would it be more ethical to release it anyway and just hope for the best, despite all the scientific research you could’ve done on it in order to better understand these animals and ways to help them in the wild? And is it ethical to spend your money on them, to support their causes?

The Association of Zoos and Aquariums tries to take a stand on these very questions by supporting zoos and aquariums they believe to be ethical. However, their definition of ethical seems to be a little more flexible than ours.

At the same time, they have to make their list a desirable one to be on both for aquariums and zoos and for consumers. By providing a standard and allowing big names like Sea World to be a part of that standard, they are swaying zoos and aquariums to become more ethical in order to also be featured on their list.

Anyway, we went to an aquarium.

Later the same day we tried our hand at finding some wild ponies at Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge. We saw some standing around in the swamps, but you couldn’t really tell they were wild. It makes sense thinking back on it that they’d look like normal horses behind a fence. I’m not exactly sure what we were expecting, really – some thundering of hooves as they ran around and moved about “wildly?”

We hung out with Molly and her man the 28th before heading to DC on a rainy morning to check out the scene.

Originally, Karyssa had wanted to go with the hope of catching a glimpse of Ruth Bader Ginsburg as she exited or entered the Supreme Court. Instead, we just took in the marble building and imagined the grandness of her physical presence.

We didn’t walk long, due to the rain. Rather, we left a trail of water from our clothes into the National Museum of the American Indian. It consists of four floors, but we only got through the 4th floor.

It was filled with background information on treaties (kept and broken) between the US and differing tribes, as well as the consequences. The museum felt more like an art gallery than a museum, and it emphasized the living and often thriving Native communities of each and every state in the country, as opposed to merely seeing them as oppressed victims.

We later found Nick’s old friend, John Hair, and had some awesome Korean at Mandu on NY Ave. John is a student from his earliest days at UWF, and recently left his lobbying gig to travel. Such a warm and welcoming dude, he joined Nick on the Appalachian Trail for an overnight hostel stay some 6 years ago.

Not wanting to boondock in the city, we opted for a cheap hotel. We spent most of the next day wandering around Monument Mall.

On our way there we saw a chain-link fence that was put up in front of the White House in reaction to the George Floyd protests and in preparation for any potential rioting. It struck me as quite remarkable that one of the most well protected men in the world was scared of a monumentally unlikely attack from one of the protesters. The whole surrounding area of the White House felt tacky and dismal, which, looking back on it, is an accurate summation of how we feel about the administration all around. So… it was fitting, even if solemn to see the grandeur of the presidents’ house to be reduced to something so bleak. A needed disillusion, I suppose. Nothing is perfect, not even our White House.

We parked closest to the Washington Monument, so that was our first stop.

When I was a kid my parents took the four of the five of us kids on a month long camping trip up the East Coast. One stop was the Monument Mall, and I remember my dad talking about how Secret Service and spies were likely all over the place. “In fact, they probably have snipers up in the monument, pointed right at anyone who gets too close to the White House. And they have tools to listen in on any conversation.” He was trying to scare us, I suppose. Because why not? My mom wasn’t pleased. She was taking the bait. “They probably do!” He insisted. “They listen for key words. Like ‘bomb’ and ‘kill the president.'”

“You’re going to get us shot!” She yelled at him. We were all laughing so hard because she just was not having it.

Anyway, this time around it was much less dramatic. Though, it was still a sight to behold. An audio clip on the history of George Washington was playing on speakers near the bathrooms.

We hung out there for a moment to listen and take pictures before making our way to the Veteran’s Memorial and then to the Lincoln Memorial.

Lincoln’s Memorial was a lot.

It was the monument I was most looking forward to, as I’m sure it is for most. But I wasn’t prepared for my reaction to it. And I don’t think Nick was either. We took a selfie next to the man himself and then turned to the walls on either side of him.

On one wall was The Gettysburg Address: “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.”

In an instant my brain was filled with frustration and anger. I felt as though the injustices of today were so blatant and obvious and the cause of the injustices were the same that it seemed like the epitome of everything wrong with this country could be summarized by the views of the past.

In the above quote, Lincoln expresses concern about whether or not the country can endure the idea that all men are created equal.
On the other wall Lincoln continues with his worries in his Second Inaugural Address.

“Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than make it perish, and the war came.” He is, of course, talking about the Democrats vs the Republicans respectively. “One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally all over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, to perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war…”

People forget that the Republican Party and the Democrat Party switched (put very simply) their belief systems by the time Theodore Roosevelt ran for (and lost) the presidency in 1912.

Regardless of the history (and ignoring Lincoln’s divisive language), current Republicans use Lincoln’s Republican Party as somehow proof of how they aren’t “the racist ones,” and in fact it’s the Democrats who are racist. They praise Lincoln’s name, yet would be enraged by his open attitude towards immigrants (legal and illegal), his views on the Confederacy (or Democrats, to put it very simply), his willingness to tax the wealthy, etc.

And really, you don’t even have to know much about history as long as you know that Lincoln was a Republican and Lincoln was against the Confederacy to know that a claim to Lincoln’s party is not favorable to those who are in love with the Confederacy.

This isn’t a frustration I hold just with the Republican party. I get just as angry at the Democrats, Libertarians, Green Party, etc. for making the same exact mistakes.

It is this contradiction between one’s beliefs and reality that frustrates me to no end. It is the blatant ignorance and disregard for thinking that frustrates me. It is when we, the people, do not take the time to consider the words coming out of our mouths and whether or not they reflect the world accurately. If there was only one thing I could wish for in order to better this country, it would be that people would question themselves and their beliefs and would refrain from voicing any opinions they might have if they had not first checked to make sure that they knew what they were talking about. (Pretend that all counts as one wish.)

I’m being judgey, and I hate that because I really don’t know shit. I don’t know anyone else’s life – their childhood, their educational background, their social background, etc. I don’t know why they think the way they do or believe the things they believe. I don’t know in any given situation that this or that is right or wrong. And, in all likelihood, if I had been born in their same exact circumstances, I would’ve turned out pretty similar if not exactly like them, with their same beliefs.

So, I have no moral superiority to be telling people what they should or should not be doing. Despite all of that, I do hold the belief that people, including me, are way too quick to form opinions and beliefs based on knowing absolutely nothing and without having wondered, “Could I be wrong?” And I believe that resolving this problem would make this country a better place.
/rant

Anyway, the Lincoln Memorial brought up a lot of frustrations for me. Nick too mentioned that reading both speeches made him feel a type of way as he teared up at the intention and hopes that Lincoln had for America.

The rest of the monuments were monumental, to say the least.

Originally, we were going to write about the history of the people the monuments were dedicated to, along with their effects on the country. But just read a book and consider yourselves informed. XD

No, but really, we waited too long to learn/write about it and gotta move on.

The 31st we saw a middle school or high school Cross Country race in some state park we visited (which made me feel nostalgic af). We also saw some fall colors in which I took a ton of pictures. And then we made it to an art museum.

November 1 we stayed at my cousin Ronnie’s house. We got to hang out with him, his girlfriend, his kids, and my other cousin, Jackie. Fun was had by all, and I’d really missed them. We talked kids, work, and politics.

Playing a game that seemed to consistently lead to getting hit in the foot with a toy truck! 😀

The three of the adults work as pipefitters, and it’s a beyond amazing system, which we got to see the next day. It deserves a post of its own because it was really extravagant, all the details and people they have to work with – just really neat.

But, we gotta keep this ball rolling.

The rest of the 2nd was filled by visiting with my brother and his girlfriend and then heading over to Frankie and Michelle’s place in NH.

The 3rd through the 12th had us at Andres Institute for Art – Art Sculpture Park, then in the White Mountains for three or four days, back to Michelle and Frankie’s to see if the election results had come in yet (eventually they did that day – Biden won, nushkra allah), then to some Appalachian Trail trailheads, bought a puzzle, met a fellow vanlifer who was some great company, lost some puzzle pieces, kept working on it anyway because rain, listened to a whole bunch of podcasts (2 Dope Queens, History on Fire, and More Perfect being our favorites), got angry, got over it (took a whole day though), and drove straight through from Virginia to St Augustine, FL.

In Florida, we slowed down a bit. So, we’ll continue that on the next post. It might still be a little rushed, but it won’t be as rushed as this one.

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