livelaughburn

[livelaughburn]

DAY SIX

Drove for 8 hours today. Made it home.

(Here's a bonus goblin!)

Gonna go wash the car now... if it *looks* nice maybe the rental ppl will be less perturbed that I just put 2,200 miles on it. (Thank you, beautiful car.)

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DAY FIVE

Driving south, I was enticed by a lake. I'm covered in many layers of dust and sweat and sunscreen. I'm exhausted and overheated. A lake day would be so relaxing! You know, restful. I can be chill.

...

Went cliff-jumping with some locals!! They've got those falling-for-so-long-you're-surprised-you're-still-in-the-air jumps. Those bruise-your-feet-when-you-hit-the-water jumps. Horrifying. 10/10.

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DAY FOUR

Today started with some bad vibes. Got hassled by cops last night. Didn't sleep much. Car troubles. I let my hydration-guard down and started feeling achey and ill.

The heat is unrelenting and panic-inducing. Just being outdoors is An Ordeal. Which I love. I love the desert. But safety is important, and I went to a truckstop to sit and re-hydrate for a few hours before driving further into the valleys of central Utah, where The Ordeal will surely get worse.

I drove through more canyons, then open desert, beautiful colors... until I found The Valley Of The Goblins. The bad vibes of the day were promptly cleansed by Very Cursed Vibes.

I hiked among the goblins, through a canyon, along a wash, then climbed a big rock formation into a cave. It was bizarre and unsettling and gorgeous.

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DAY THREE

More driving. Flat desert, hills desert, CANYONS DESERT!!! I was FREAKING OUT.

I got into Canyonlands (THE LANDS WHERE THE CANYONS LIVE) for free. I came here on a roadtrip with Delia several years ago, and I have been adamant about returning.

It was pretty empty. I took a long hike, hours of walking through empty desert with no sign of human life. Walking walking, desert desert, rocks brush dirt, until...

I hiked back to the car and drove to an overlook where I sat and watched the blood-red sunset over the canyons. Little by little, the colors faded and stars appeared. There are so many of them. And colors and galaxies. It made me feel very afraid. I put my sleeping mat on the ground and lay down and stared up and had a whole crisis. And got bit by a lot of ants.

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DAY TWO

Turns out, Utah is pretty far away. The point of impulse travel is to plan as little as possible, but it really is occurring to me today that I'm going pretty far away. On my own in this shitty rental car.

Let's go.

Driving driving. Flat desert, mountains desert, salt desert.

Did some light trespassing and got to catch the sunset over the salt flats.

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DAY ONE

Life is bullshit and everything is bullshit and I hate everything.

That's how you know it's time to go to the desert.

...

I got a late start driving, and it was dark by the time I passed through Tahoe. I found an empty beach and swam under the stars (a little romance before getting gritty). Now I'm in Fernley camped out at a casino-truckstop-dennys. I may pose as a California girl but at heart I will always be a Nevada whore.

...

I often find that the first 24 hours of solo travel tend to be kinda rough emotionally. But wow I AM SO FUCKING HAPPY RIGHT NOW. I'm overdue for an adventure. And life has sucked so hard lately. Gotta get my blood flowing. Gotta do something strange.

This car is too small to actually lie down in, and I'm definitely going to wake up in a panic at 8am on the edge of heatstroke. But I am so happy at this casino-truckstop-dennys. Let's go.

[livelaughburn]

me after being diagnosed w sleepy bitch disease

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A cape rain frog (Breviceps gibbosus) in the Western Cape, South Africa, Africa

by Courtney Hundermark

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The Intentions Were Good.

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Click it!

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The Daily Times, New Philadelphia, Ohio, July 9, 1924

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Portuguese Faeince Violin from Lisbon dated to the 19th Century on display at the National Museum of Ancient Art in Lisbon

Initially a design introduced by the Moors during the late Medieval period it became a valuable trading commodity with Italy. During the 19th Century, Faeince saw a revival as it put on display in the Great Exhibition of 1851 in Crystal Palace.

Photographs taken by myself

[livelaughburn]

Boulanger - Les Sirènes (1911)

For choir and piano, this song is based off of a poem by Charles Grandmougin, and is a gorgeous depiction of mermaids singing in the ocean. The piano notes glitter along, meandering through keys in soft waves, as the mermaids sing over each other in echoing canons, and shifting from tonal chords to unconventional harmonies, giving off a sense of mystery. It’s beautiful, and mesmerizing, but almost otherworldly and distant. In only four minutes, Boulanger creates a soundworld that’s full of light, but also hints at the danger of the beautiful mermaids luring sailors to their deaths by drowning in the murky waves. While it follows conventional writing she’d mastered from the Conservatoire, it holds her unique personality, and it does a great job depicting the elusive and eerie nature of the mythological creatures, alongside similar pieces like Debussy’s Sirenes from the orchestral nocturnes, and Sibelius’ Oceanides. 

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