10th Affirmiversary with a Dangerous Senator

St. Albert United Church became an affirming ministry in 2014 and celebrated its 10th 'Affirimiversary' today; 10 years of being overtly inclusive to sexual minorities. It's a strange time to reflect because I personally thought we would be farther along now, societally, in terms of accepting people of differing sexualities or gender identities.

And yet, here we are. Disinformation, misinformation, outright lies, discrimination and hatred cloaked under religious freedoms or ersatz protection of children set the agendas of the day and continue to polarize the electorate. Manufactured rage, duping 'low information voters.'

But someone told me today that ten years of holding your ground, maintaining a safe and inclusive place, may not be an outright victory, but it certainly is worth celebrating.

That person was one of the speakers at todays' service, Kristopher Wells, and I got to introduce him. Here's what I said:

Kris Wells is an educator and activist with tremendous ties to 2SLGBTQ+ communities Edmonton and Alberta and beyond, and was also a key participant in one of the very first panels we held when we became an Affirming Ministry ten years ago. He’s been a public school teacher right here in St Albert, a diversity consultant for Edmonton public schools and helped develop the first sexual and gender identity school board policy in Western Canada. 

He’s been the faculty director of the University of Alberta’s Institute for Sexual Minority Studies and Services, MacEwan University's first Canada Research Chair and was the founding director of the MacEwan Centre for Sexual and Gender Diversity, as well as the editor-in-chief of the international Journal of LGBT Youth and co-creator of Pride Tape, 

He is also one of Alberta’s most recently appointed Senators and has been described by some pundits as ”the most dangerous senator in Canadian history”! He has some information to share before taking questions previously submitted by the congregation, so please welcome the Hon. Dr. Kristopher Wells!

Kris gave a wonderful address about our Affirmiversary coinciding with LGBT history month, and then answered some great questions that had been submitted beforehand by members of our congregation.

Throughout his talk, he consistently touched on the importance of allyship, of being there for people, both institutionally and individually. He expressed his gratitude for the warm welcome and sincere well wishes on his appointment, saying that it helps mitigate some of the backlash, like our own premier calling him a "radical leftist agitator," or the 'most dangerous senator' designation hung on him by the right wing blogosphere. (He confessed to me when I was outlining his introduction that he was trying to feel out if it was appropriate to get t-shirts made with that on it, as he does treat it as a badge of honour.)

Kris' remarks made it clear that we are in a rough spot right now, particularly given the agenda of the current government. He made it clear that polices and legislation passed and yet to come are going to cause harm to a vulnerable community, and those passing it will have to live with their consciences after facilitating them. As will any of us complicit in our silence.

But he also made it clear that the best solution is to just keep telling the truth. To combat an refute mis- and disinformation when we encounter it. To be active and informed and to vote.

As he put it, "Education has always been the answer. As a senator, I now have a larger classroom, but I don't see my job as having substantially changed."

I am going to love having this guy in Ottawa - if he is a danger, it is only to a pernicious status quo. And ten years from now, I bet SAUC will still be holding its ground, flying a rainbow flag and continuing to welcome everyone.

Jasper 2024 - Rocky Mountain Heartbreak

We had booked a campsite for our recurring late-season trip to Jasper back in early July, looking forward to what we were calling Campsgiving Weekend.

By the end of the month though, wildfire proximity had prompted the evacuation of the entire townsite and many structures in the town and surrounding area were lost, including some in the Wapiti campsite where we were booked. 

In late August, Parks Canada refunded our fees and cancelled our reservation, but with word that Miette Hot Springs might reopen before the end of the season, I booked a campsite at Jasper Gates, just west of Hinton.

Sure enough, Miette announced they would be open until Thanksgiving weekend, so we loaded up Bride of Frankentrailer and hit the road Friday, but the trailer got a flat on the Henday before we even reached St. Albert. 

We called Tuber Towing because I wasn't about to change a flat on that thing beside Edmonton's fastest roadway, but they also told us the other tire wasn't looking great. So we ended up leaving it at Trail Tire so they could replace both of them - the tech didn't think the other would even get us out of the city... They hoped to get us underway late the next morning, but once we got home I transferred our reservation from the campsite to a motel room on the same property (Jasper Gates was so nice about it too!) so we could get to the mountains on Friday after all.

After cooking French toast in out kitchenette and visiting the hot springs (perhaps our favourite spot in the Rockies), we bought a park pass there and drove into the townsite. We wanted to see for ourselves just what was left of a place all three of us knew from our childhoods.

It is about a half-hour from Miette Road to Jasper, following the Athabasca river for the most part. Along the Yellowhead, the visible destruction was limited to the burnt trees you could see on the mountain slopes across the water. As you got closer to town, however, there were burnt trees on both sides of the river, some of them very close to the highway. (All the photos are Glory's.)

The eastern entry way to the town was closed so we drove on to the western one on Hazel Avenue that comes off of 93A. Last year we had seen an immense grizzly bear lounging in the shade of the trees by the intersection - almost all those trees were now gone, a few scorched trunks all that remained. 

Heading up to Connaught Drive, the main drag that parallels the train tracks, I audibly gasped - almost everything west of Hazel Avenue was gone, starting with the gas stations that had been on the corner, and all the homes that had been beyond it. My eyes dampened and I questioned my presence there.

On Connaught itself, the damage is less visible save for a gaping hole where a building housing some businesses or another used to exist. Presumably, firefighters knocked it down to save the neighbouring structures.

Looking across the tracks, the proximity of the fire from the other side is visible as well, and a ridgeline of burnt timber is particularly haunting.

We turned up Pyramid Lake Road, noting Bears Paw Bakery, a staple of prior visits, is closed. Patricia Street is currently one-way, so we went up to Geike Street and hung a left, noting that everything east of us looked largely intact.

But a few blocks down we came upon the burned out remains of Jasper Anglican Church, and a sign on the fence surrounding it warning of asbestos in the ruins. It was consecrated almost a century ago, in 1929.

Turning left on Hazel so we could proceed down Patricia Street, we saw a fire-damaged garage that was still standing and probably reparable, but with no obvious burning of the adjacent house - miraculous. Past that street though, there were almost no structures standing.

Just before Patricia Street, north of the Esso station, I think this was a steakhouse or Greek restaurant with a retro blue and white sign - almost nothing remains.

On Patricia Street we saw a section of stores and restaurants where the bottom floor was largely intact, but the roof and upper floors were gutted, with exposed roof beams silhouetted aginst the bright blue sky. But of course, even if this building doesn't require demolition, all the contents are undoubtedly wrecked by smoke or water damage.

All in all, a pretty disheartening visit. So much damage, so quickly, and impacting thousands if not tens of thousands of people. How does a small town come back from the edge of destruction like this? I had hoped we could shop or grab a light meal there, and even though I knew such an act would be fine, it still felt ghoulish somehow, so we headed back to our motel near Hinton.

But before we left, Glory wanted a picture of her with the cartoon bear namesake of the town, and I was happy to oblige. 

Somehow the fact that this statue had survived gave me a glimmer of hope, as did seeing the mountain sheep and elk so prevalent on the way out of town.

From the highway, the signs of the fire are much less visible, and in time, I hope the townsite will look more familiar as well.

Gourd Help Us All - Smoky Lake Pumpkin Fair

It turns out there are a number of good reasons to attend the Smoky Lake Great White North Pumpkin Weigh-in and Fair, less than 90 min northwest of Edmonton.  

The show and shine they host is one of the biggest I have ever been to - well over a hundred exhibitors. Now, I am not a big car guy, but I definitely appreciate a distinctive, vintage or even nostalgic ride, and all that well-represented there. Cars, trucks and vans from the '20s to today, cruisers, hot rods, even a few boogie vans, but there was a tremendous showing for muscle cars throughout the ages, including a lot of vehilces from my childhood. I was too busy being preoccupied to take enough pictures but got this one for a friend:

Food trucks are always a mixed bag for me - tremendous variety but long lineups and longer wait times. My brisket poutine was pretty solid though, I have to say.

We got back into the weigh in at the Agricultural Hall just in time for the last two pumpkins, large enough they had to be brought in by forklift. The runner up was a solid half-ton of gourd, but the entry from Don Crews of Llloydminster tipped the scales at 2137 lbs! Afterwards you can stay and bid on the entries, with half the proceeds going to the local Christmas hamper charity.

Following the weigh-in and a trip to the artisan's market for Audrey to pick up some earrings, we caught the shuttle bus over the the corn maze. A poor season for corn meant you could see over most of the maze, but it still made for a nice walk. There is also a midway where I spent enough money on darts to win a narwhal stuffy for Glory.

There was a beer garden we didn't partake in and a threshing demo we didn't make it to, and a Metis Kitchen Party at nearby Metis Crossing, but the pinnacle of excitement comes at 5:30 Saturday afternoon, at the pumpkin drop.

This is where an enormous crowd gathers around to watch the local firefighters affix a gigantic pumpkin (like, at least 500 lbs, but possibly close to half a ton) to an enormous Mammoet crane, which then hoists said pumpkin some 200 feet in the air before dropping it onto an automobile directly below. 

Spectators are kept at a safe distance by a perimeter rope, and a lucky raffle winner is apparently given the opportunity to push the button that actually drops the pumpkin, and the excitement builds to a fever pitch as the final ten-second countdown begins.

As you might well imagine, that much weight, from that height, makes a sizable impact.

In addition to shattering the pumpkin and scattering its innards over several yards, the rear roof of the car was totally crushed, it was shifted back a few inches on its axles, and we could feel the hit from where we were seated on the ground some thirty yards away.

A second pumpkin was set up and winched into position high in the air, and the eagerly shouted countdown yielded results that were at once predictable yet spectacular.

After the firefighters made sure there were no sharp shards of metal strewn amongst the shell and guts of the fallen pumpkins, a final countdown unleashed the crowd from the safety perimeter and onto the impact site, where they grabbed shards of the shell and other souvenirs - and, presumably, some seeds to perhaps grow their own mammoth squash?

I am almost embarassed to admit just how entertaining I found this entire enterprise; perhaps it was the ridiculous scale of a ton-fractional gourd being dropped by a nine-axle industrial crane from a height greater than most grain elevators.

In the end though, I think it is the simple atavism of kinetic discovery, to see and hear and feel such an impact. It feels a suitable way to commemorate the changing of the seasons, the significance of the harvest, and a chance to be outdoors before the weather turns too bitter.

I think we may go back next year as well.

Sundog spied on our journey home

The Family That Stickers Together...?

On most weekday noon hours, I can typically be found walking Canéla around our neighbourhood. The layout of our streets gives me a few alternate routes I can use to keep things from getting stale. And even more if the backalleys come into play. 

Like most suburbs, there are not a lot of interesting sights at first blush, but if you know where to look you can find a toy figure of Sesame Street's The Count wedged onto a small tree branch, an empty house that appears to have had a kitchen fire, and a startling number of people whose RVs and trailers prevent them from accessing their garages with their vehicles.

Even without trailers and such, there is a lot of street parking. Heck, our next door neighbours don't even have a garage, and they seem much happier with their increased yard space anyways. But walking past the various parked cars and trucks, I always like to check out the ones with stickers.

Surprisingly, none of my routes have brought me into proximity with Alberta's ubiquitous "F*** Trudeau" decals, but I have seen at least one for country radio station CFCW, an "I Brake for Reptiles", a variety of non-home sports team affiliations and one that grimly states "Nature Bats Last". One of the most intriguing sets I have seen, however, combines the once-common stick figure family with local hockey fandom in a kind of unsettling way.

So, for those of you reading this in the distant future, first of all, thank you! Next, you need to be aware that in the early 21st century we saw the peak of people putting simple icons representing their families on the rear windows of their passenger vehicles. Even as a person who loves stickers, I never saw the appeal myself - why would you want strangers to know how many kids you have, or whether or not you are a single parent? Is it so bystanders can let you know if you have left a family member behind?

Before it began to drop in the mid-late twentyteens, we saw this trend evolve in two significant ways around the time of peaking: the first was backlash stickers, saying things like "My T-Rex ate your stick figure family and they were delicious" with an outline of the aforementioned Cretaceous dinosaur, usually with spindly arms and legs hanging from his slavering jaws. The other was a nearly unlimited variation of the families themselves, often representing some sort of fandom of another, e.g. zombies, Star Trek, Star Wars, etc.

This window appears to have originally depicted a zombie family of four, plus an undead cat and dog, presumably pets.

All the humanoids, save one, have been obscured by large, Oilers Nation stickers, a popular sports blog (based on the number of stickers I've seen overall).

I am going to level with you - my first thought was that this was perhaps an act of bitterness, possibly p[receded by a messy breakup or relationship breakdown of some kind. But while obscuring an ex-partner is easily explained, what about the children?

On closer inspection, however, the sole unobscured figure is smaller in size than the two on the far left of the tableau, suggesting an offspring (supported by the placement on the far right, suggesting the younger sibling)... perhaps the child is now of driving age and has begun using this vehicle on the regular? And if so, perhaps they don't want strangers assuming they a) are partnered up and b) have a pair of children - certainly an awkward thing to explain in the high school parking lot.

Regardless, if I walk this route enough times, perhaps one day I will encounter the driver as they are coming or going and I can ask them.

If, like those zombie stick figures - I just have the guts...

Still the Ghost With the Most? - Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Reviewed

We recently watched the 1988 Beetlejuice with Glory, as she had very little recollection of watching it on video as a youngster. It holds up pretty well, actually, and it is fun to remember what a breath of fresh air Tim Burton was at that time, going from Pee Wee's Big Adventure in '85 to Beetlejuice, Batman and Edward Scissorhands in thre successive years. I started running hot and cold with him as a director around Mars Attacks, well before this College Humor video articulated precisely why much better than I ever could.

Anyhow, we all enjoyed it, and I appreciated reading the trivia on IMDb about how little the studio understood Beetlejuice, trying to convince Burton to rename it Ghost House, to which he countered with Scared Sheetless...and was horrified when they almost went with that instead.

Knowing that, as well as the fact that Michael Keaton doesn't do a lot of sequels but has wanted to do one to Beetlejuice for ages now, and learning that Winona Ryder had a shooting exemption for the very possibility of this movie placed into her Stranger Things contract almost a decade ago, Audrey and I decided to check out the sequel Beetlejuice Beetlejuice last Tuesday.

So, first the bad news - it is not as good as the original. How could it be? The first one was not just an unprecedented blend of comedy and mild horror, it had its own remarkably unique take on the afterlife, with its rules and bureaucracy and suicided staffers. Every time you turned around Burton and his writers were throwing something new and unusual at you, whether it was procedural or another fascinating character.

It really feels like the first half of this movie is devoting too much time for the setup, but when it finally hits its stride, it becomes almost as entertaining as the first one which is still pretty entertaining. 

Set 30+ years after the first movie, Lydia Deetz (Ryder) now hosts a cheesy supernatural reality show called Ghost House (ha!) and is estranged from her teenaged daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega). Stepmother Delia Deetz (the sublime Catherine O'Hara) draws the family back together to the old homestead in Winter River when she learns her husband Charles (the now-incarcerated convicted and largely shunned Jeffrey Jones in the original) has survived a jet crash in the Pacific, only to have been eaten by a shark. 

Part of the reason the first half of the film feels underwhelming is there is just not enough Beetlejuice (72 year-old Michael Keaton!) in it, and when he is, he is not given nearly enough to do. It had me concerned that maybe the role is too much for even the most committed septuagenarian, but I needn't have worried. Once he gets more opportunities to interact with the rest of the main cast, there are not too many wasted moments - after all, Keaton says this is his all-time favourite character. And the Frederico Fellini-inspired backstory sequence is absolutely marvellous.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice also lacks a lot of the living/unliving tension of the first film, where half the angst came from watching the adorably ghostly Maitlands come to grips with their new (after)lives, while Lydia struggled with her own existence in the real world - containing Beetlejuice was almost a secondary consideration. 

This largely familiar cast is rounded out by Delia's producer and partner Rory (Justin Theroux), who is just as new-age cringey as Otho in the original; Monica Bellucci as the mysterious Delores, now hunting for Beetlejuice, and Willem Dafoe as Wolf Jackson, an afterlife cop (originally an actor) trying to contain an uncontainable situation.

Now the tension is all on the living side of the equation, with the exception of Delores' pursuit of the title character, which never feels that threatening, honestly. But resolving the relationships between Lydia and her boyfriend and her daughter feels high stakes enough to keep you going. Astrid's potential romance with a bookish outsider (with a mop of dark hair and unconventional musical tastes who can't wait to leave his small town? in a TIM BURTON movie? I am shocked!) is a fun diversion, as is Delia coming to grips with being a widow by experiencing it as artistically and in as many media as possible. 

And I think we can keep this review spoiler-free but still mention offhandedly that those looking for a bizarre retro musical number will not be disappointed...or maybe they will, depending on how they feel about Richard Harris as a vocalist. Nothing could equal "Day O."  Nuff said! 

Anyhow, in the end, we all came out less surprised and delighted as we did the first time around in the '80s, but still thoroughly entertained. Best of all, it doesn't smack of desperation or selling out like some other decades-later sequels seem to. If you liked the first Beetlejuice, I think you will enjoy Beetlejuice Beetlejuice as well.

I only wish they could wait 30 more years before rounding out the trilogy as I suspect they might.

Cream of the Crop - Autumnal Geekquinox 2024

The date for Pete and Ellen's bi-annual dinner party was set months ago (a little earlier than the actual equinox, as sometimes happens), but he only sent around the theme a couple of weeks ago: "The Cream of the Crop." Well, who doesn't love a creamy dish or dessert prepared by an experienced cook? But it did make coming up with appropriately thematic wear a bit trickier, given my refusal to wear a crop top. Luckily a co-worker's costume from last fall gave Audrey an idea:

Things got off to a creamy start with Boozy Creamsicles to drink: a creamy, frothy drink as orange as its namesake and amped up with vodka and mango liqueur but barely any perceptible alcohol. It would be far, far too easy to drink too many of these at one go!

These were followed up by the first food course, which you might mistake for garden-variety potato skins. These were in fact individually hollowed out and deep fried tiny potatoes which not only cooked them to a perfectly fluffy consistency but added a delicious crispiness to the edges. The cheese, bacon, scallion and sour cream fillings completed them delightfully and the dash of salt on the skins was the perfect accent. And you could theoretically fill these with anything...

This was followed by a dish inspired by a classic/infamous Seinfeld bit, the Soup Nazi's Crab Bisque soup. This was really the star of the show in my opinion, and represented a tremendous exertion of effort on part of the cook, who had been prepping it since Thursday. Diced vegetables, then sautéed, then added to a scratch-made stock and then finally adding braised crabmeat - it was absolutely astonishing. Truth be told, it was too tasty for me to savour it appropriately and try to discern the multiple tastes and textures upon my palette, such was my zeal for reaching the bottom of my bowl. Pete's crab bisque has become the dish to which all future soups shall be measured against - bravo sir!

The Duck Hunt cocktail that followed the soup had a similar bill of exertion applied to it. The base of the drink is duck-fat washed bourbon, which involves heating liquefied duck fat with bourbon, freezing it, then skimming away the fat, repeatedly. Similarly to milk-washing spirits (which sounds kind of like creatures from a Japanse horror movie), this imparts a savory quality to the spirit, but less up front and more perceptible in the aftertaste.

Pete was disappointed he didn't have time for subsequent freezings and skimmings which would have clarified the liquor, but it hardly made for an unappealing presentation, especially accompanied by an immense, crystal clear ice cube.

Taste-wise it was really something - the tanginess of the bourbon complemented by citrus and bitters, then followed by a savoury richness - umami, maybe? - from the fat-washing. Anyone who has cooked potatoes in duck fat probably has a sense of what I am talking about, but this was an unconventional and delicious cocktail.

The green beans and cream dish was skipped for time (and to make room), so the next dish was the butter chicken, which I neglected to get a picture of, but you've all seen this ubiquitous dish, and Pete's scratch made variety looks pretty similar.

But. There is a decidedly discernible difference in both taste and texture!

Now, I love getting a jar of sauce, frying some chicken in the wok, simmering it all together and serving it over some rice, a Venn diagram of convenience and tastiness that overlaps nearly completely. Pete will be the first to admit that his additional efforts - which includes but is not limited to toasting his own spices before grinding them and preparing the sauce, plus marinating and broiling the chicken to get some crispiness - do not increase the taste of the end product by a sufficient enough degree to make it a worthwhile tradeoff in all cases. But is it significantly better? Oh, believe it. 

Aromatic, faintly piquant, criminally rich and completely delicious. Even if I had Pete's culinary skills, I would be unlikely to expend this degree of exertion on a dish I can obtain by such easier means and which is completely palatable, but I am so, so grateful to be friends with someone who not only can, but does!

The next beverage, limonada Suiça or Swiss lemonade, is actually a Brazilian recipe using limes - the first batch ended up being unstrained, leaving a fair bit of pulped zest in the mix. It was still a tasty tipple, using condensed milk to add both sweetness and creaminess but requiring delicate straining through one's dentition. 

The final dish of the night was the fluffiest cheesecake I have ever had, raising far higher than you might expect and topped with sweet, tangy raspberries in a thick compote.

The cheesecake was far more rich than it was sweet, and you could feel the richness around the base of your tongue, by the sides. Whether this was due to the orange blossom water or the goat cheese, I cannot say. Absolutely magnificent, and the perfect capper to almost ten hours of eating, drinking, and fellowship!

The Trip Not Taken

Back in my third and fourth year of university at Augustana in Camrose, a lot of us were Twin Peaks fans.

David Lynch and Mark Frost's quirky, surreal and stylish murder mystery with supernatural overtones was decidedly not for everyone, so oftentimes a group of people would gather to watch episodes in my dorm room. The wait from May to September to resolve the cliffhanger after a major character was shot was one of the longest I had ever experienced, transcending even the season carry-over during the Borg War in Next Generation.

It was an offbeat show that attracted a lot of offbeat people, like me, my friends, and even a few people in the freshman dorms who similarly found themselves exiled from the communal tv in the lounge. (Kids, this was way before mobile phones, let alone a time when you could watch shows on them. Good video even on a computer screen was still eyars away!) They would pile into my room in Solheim, glued to the 14" tv that was once the mopnitor for my TRS-80 Colour Computer.

(Funny sidebar: when I visited the Edmonton Journal offices to get a copy of the Garneau Block signed by author (and then columnist Todd Babiak) as a gift for a friend, he immediately recognized me as 'Twin Peaks guy', which I found delightfully validating.)

Anyhow, sometime early in 1991, a number of us toyed with the idea of taking a road trip during spring break down to Snoqualmie, Washington, where they filmed Twin Peaks. The diner, the hotel, the waterfall, they were all there to be seen and it wasn't even that far of a drive...but it never happened.

I can't even tell you why this expedition didn't come together, whether it was concerns over possible cost, vehicle reliability, dealing with treacherous mountain roads in February as well as a border crossing or something else. Did any of us even have a credit card at that point? And to be clear, all of those are pretty good reasons not to undertake such an odyssey!

But when I recall that road trip, I never think of it in terms of a bullet dodged, but always as an opportunity lost. 

And not just because the show that inspired the journey has become a legit cult classic, and not just because I still keep in touch with one of the other people and would love to recollect that trip with him, and not just because one of the people who were interested has passed away and another is a person I haven't had contact with since they showed up at my father's funeral. Or maybe it is all those things. 

The main source of regret is that I have no idea what I did do during that spring break, and even if it had involved returning to school later than expected with a repair or tow truck bill in hand, I know those memories would have been, well, memorable, to say the least.

This is why I am so glad Glory took advantage of her own recent opportunity, albeit in a much different context.

She and Fenya had just returned from Churchill and were attending the Hozier concert together before Fenya returned to Toronto. A number of people had dropped in to say hi, including Audrey's sister Vera, who had recently left a terrible job situation, but was looking at another potential opportunity sooner than she'd expected. 

Since her Spanish had been getting rusty due to lack of use (she had lived in Guatemala with Peace Brigades International for a time and is also a translator for hire), she started looking at a trip to Guadalajara, Mexico and found a reasonable airfare. Overhearing her musings, Glory had jokingly asked, "hey, can I come with you?"

Vera said, "well, I leave Saturday and come back the following Saturday, doesn't that muck up your schooling?"

A quick check confirmed that Glory would indeed be back in time for her first class, and having enough money in tips alone (!) to cover airfare etc. and the unexpected willingness of her aunt to let her accompany her, she quickly agreed, and a week after returning home from up north, she departed again for a week down south!

Spontaneity has never been my gift, and I know, I know, that I have missed many an opportunity due to my reluctance to take a leap of faith. I am often grateful for my cautious nature - it has also saved me a number of times! But there are other times where I recognize the detriment that goes with it.

Glory, in the meantime, enjoyed a week with a beloved relative, experienced traveller, skilled translator and appreciator of Mexican and Latinx culture, far from the all-inclusive resorts and tourist zones that many of her classmates have frequented in the past. The photos and stories she has shared paint a picture of a culturally enriching trip that was also a ton of fun. I am a little jealous, but mostly I am proud of her being able to seize that opportunity.

And who knows? If Audrey and I ever end up making our long-talked-about trip to Seattle, Snoqualmie isn't even that far away...