Utah to Oregon Road Trip – Day 2

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Kanab, Utah early in the morning

Red rock, sandstone, and short scrub in an arid environment mean we are still in the desert, but that doesn’t mean we love the landscape any less. We live out west and have gazed upon scenes like this countless times, and still, we appreciate it as though it was the first time.

Roadside in Kanab, Utah in the early morning

I don’t believe we’ve ever been through here in summer; matter of fact, I think it has almost always been winter as opposed to fall or spring. Why come through this way during the winter months? Quiet and serenity, just like this pond next to the road.

Caroline Wise and the roadside donkey in Glendale, Utah

We’ve lost count of how many times we have stopped here in Glendale, Utah, to say hi to this now-old donkey named Maisy. My guess is that we first met her about 20 years ago. By now, we’ve also met her owners, Cloyd and Sherri Brinkerhoff, and when the day comes that this super sweet donkey is no longer in this field, we’ll be truly sad that our visits with her are over. She’s never failed to come over to the fence and bray, which on occasion has made other wanna-be visitors get back in their car and promptly leave.

Snow on the horizon somewhere north of Glendale, Utah

While I pointed out that we typically visit in winter, I didn’t let you know that it can be cold out here; really cold.

Frozen waterfall next to the road on Highway 89 in Utah

Yep, that cold!

Caroline Wise standing in the Great Salt Lake off Interstate 80 in Utah

Cold, though doesn’t stop Caroline from her first steps into the southern end of the Great Salt Lake. I point out the southern end because there’s a chance she stepped into these salty waters on a previous trip when we visited Antelope Island further north. The weather has obviously been beautiful while we’ve been out on this leg of our road trip, but then again, no matter the weather we always find a silver lining to whatever nature delivers.

Interstate 80 in Utah

Struck by immense beauty, we are forced to pull over and gawk at the reflections and snowcapped peaks.

Tree of Utah off Interstate 80 in western Utah

This is Metaphor: Tree of Utah out in the middle of nowhere “growing” in the Bonneville Salt Flats between Aragonite, Utah, and West Wendover, Nevada, off Interstate 80. This sculpture was created by Swedish artist Karl Momen in the 1980s.

Bonneville Salt Flats in western Utah

The Bonneville Salt Flats stretch for miles across a flat, desolate landscape that is spectacular in its asceticism.

Pooling water on the Bonneville Salt Flats in western Utah

Not a blade of grass, bush, tree, or sign of wildlife was met out here. The salty brine of the pooling water on the salt flat appears to sterilize the environment, although it also seems to welcome the reflection of a kind of beauty not found near other bodies of water.

Caroline Wise taking in the last moments of sunlight on the Bonneville Salt Flats in western Utah

While our drives can be lengthy, this one was 503 miles and took all day into the evening; we never forget to stop and gaze at the sights that feel so uncommon to our wandering eyes. Orange and lavender light lifts off the glistening salt, all the while looking like fresh snow as the sun sets once more on this former lake. Fifteen thousand years ago, during the last ice age, the lake that stood here covered nearly a third of Utah and was about the size of Lake Michigan. Now, with the lake evaporated, a salt bed that is nearly five feet thick in places is all that remains.

Travelers Motel in Elko, Nevada

You are looking at a large part of the criteria on how we choose motels when we are traveling. Pay attention; I did not say hotel. For those who don’t know the difference, in a hotel, you enter from an interior door, while a motel room, is entered from an exterior door. Consequently, motels are cheaper as they are probably deemed not as safe from those who veer a bit far into paranoia. But it is not the door that helps us choose a place to spend an overnight visit; it is the sign. Caroline has a soft spot for nostalgic neon signs reminiscent of the golden age of travel in the 1960s, so the cheaper the room and more colorful the sign, the greater the chance that we’ll be checking in for the night. Tonight’s stay here at the Travelers Motel is in Elko, Nevada.

Utah to Oregon Road Trip – Day 1

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Caroline and John Wise departing for vacation on 11 November 2015

Per my wife Caroline Wise’s request, besides taking her on vacation, she has asked me to blog. So here I am, fulfilling that special wish of hers. During the previous 20 years, we often went on road trips between a minimum of 5 times up to 24 times a year (that was back in 2004 – our record year!). In the dark ages before that, we were novices and only took road trips between 1 and 5 times per year, though that included journeys around Germany, Holland, France, Belgium, and places like that; remember that we lived in Frankfurt.

This afternoon, we left Phoenix for Kanab, Utah, where we won’t be going to Moqui Cave; 1. it won’t be open when we get there or leave; 2. we’ve been there and highly recommend you go too.

Not much preparation was done for this excursion until the last minute as we weren’t certain I’d find the time, but obviously, I did make the time. Originally, we were going to head to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, but the weather looked foreboding. Instead, we will turn left in Crane, Oregon, and head out to the coast. We tried to avoid the Oregon coast. Seriously, we did because we know we’ve been there way too many times, but we love it, and so that’s that.

Doing of a Thing – TimefireVR

JWise TimefireVR

poster4_transmutationOfAwarenessRESIZE

Where do the impulses that guide our decisions to do something extraordinary come from? How do motivation and drive find and guide us for the “doing of a thing?”

I’d venture to say that there are two common ways of leading one’s life: resignation or bitterness. And then there’s the rarer third way: meeting it with exuberance and delight.

In a sense, I’m describing the conscious and subconscious minds that lead us to the Pollyanna principle. This principle states that at the subconscious level, we tend to focus on the optimistic, while on the conscious level, we have a tendency to focus on the negative.

Most people I’ve met are certainly caught up in their conscious minds, while a small group, a very small group, has figured out a way of bringing their subconscious minds forward, allowing themselves to revel in the amazing. Nobody who is mired in frustration chooses to be unhappy, though. Unless they truly enjoy a traumatic struggle to find happiness.

In America, we tend to focus more on the external qualities of life than the internal. Hence, our lives, to a large extent, are a manifestation of the lifestyle we are able to put on display. We are a composite of our belongings, clothes, brands, pop culture, and devices.

What we are not is the sum of our intellectual longings or imaginative observations. We are effectively forced to kill that playful part of us while still in our teens as society asks us to be serious and accept the pain of existence.

Yet, we are the ones who make existence difficult. We allow the perpetuation of turning play into toil; we do it by telling the young person they must turn away from fun and games and start to reconcile that they will now focus on work. Homework, classwork, yard work, chores – these are a kind of punishment, a penance for existing. It is behavioral conditioning that follows us through our lives. Think about it: how we describe “Rolling up our sleeves and facing the hard work ahead” as though we may not return or at least we may suffer for our efforts.

Learning, playing, creating, and experiencing that offer delight should be our daily reward for breathing. The archaic conditioning of outmoded industrial structural dominance that has governed us needs to be cast off. We must start to bring the subconscious mind forward and return to play.

The constant complaining, maligning, verbal, and visceral recognition of what is wrong with the world does nothing but enforce the bitterness within ourselves and those around us. The silent resignation and acceptance of a bad situation is not a solution either. By either accepting the status quo or constantly complaining about everything, we are the ones who are filling our sandbox with cat turds of our own making.

We have to re-employ our intellect and see that we intuitively know the social, environmental, societal, and geopolitical problems that exist and then do something about them. We are a species of thinkers. We use words and other symbols to alter our world and build new visions. The writing is on the wall right in front of us; we must be willing to do the thing, to do something, something positive.

And so it is that one person shares a vision of doing something while having more than a dozen people contribute by lending their creative talents to the endeavor. I also offer my gratitude to those who have offered their money to help realize the dream of someone who is trying to help us take one more small positive step forward.

Conflagration Nation

JWise Photo of the Day

Making a Conflagration Nation at the Gladly Restaurant in Phoenix, Arizona

Conflagration Nation is being prepared by the nun behind the bar here at the Gladly. On Halloween, which should clue you in on things. The drink starts with rye whisky, bourbon, amaro bitter liqueur, ruby port wine, calvados, and mint simple syrup, and then finishes with a glass that’s been smoked with burning pipe smoke. Caroline’s newest favorite, but sadly, it won’t be served much longer at the Gladly as the person who invented it has left their employ. [This cocktail was featured in Smithsonian Magazine because it is just that good. I am still wishing I could have another taste in 2023 – Caroline]

The Stage – TimefireVR

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Theater DuNull in TimefireVR

William Shakespeare once said, “All the world’s a stage. And all the men and women merely players.”

In his day, the majority of humanity experienced their stage from the perspective of the plot of land they farmed. A couple of hundred years later, the players found themselves in the cities where the stage was a factory floor. More recently, many of us found ourselves in some form of service industry performing for an audience of hungry and thirsty patrons who’d just come from a shopping spree at the mall.

The march of time, though, waits for no man or woman. Our stage is changing; it is transmogrifying.

With this change, our roles as players are going to once again be something quite different. This difference will be as significant to us as though Mr. Shakespeare had gone from witnessing his age to being teleported onto a jet flying from his merry-medieval England to 21st-century America from one day to the next.

Virtual Reality will be that disruptive. It is our new stage. And you are the player, the actor on that platform, an inhabitant of a new world. This alternative reality emerging from our imaginations is nothing less than a universe that will require our exploration. The difference with this age of discovery is that one need not be wealthy, an adventurer, or one of the lucky ones chosen to be an astronaut. All we must do is don a pair of VR glasses, have a powerful enough computer and download the app.

Some will say this will be an expensive proposition. Does anyone think it was cheap to go to the moon? Do you know that it typically costs more than $45,000 per person to go up Everest without a guarantee of reaching the top? Have you priced a penguin-watching trip in the Antarctic waters lately?

What is the value to us humans to see new things and have unimaginable experiences?

We are entering an age where almost anyone will be able to virtually participate in nearly any activity humans can dream of. The cost of entry is not free or cheap. But it’s never been free to enter the theater, eat a great meal, or travel the world. The difference is going to be that we are removing the barriers that have only allowed those of privilege to embark on humanity’s greatest adventures.

Architectural Theory – TimefireVR

JWise TimefireVR

Architecture in TimefireVR

We recently had a question posed to us by @ExplorAVR in the Twitterverse regarding how we are tackling architecture theory for community building in Hypatia. Seems like a fair question that deserves more than a Tweet back, so here it is.

Before theory comes experience.

The founder of Timefire grew up in Los Angeles and Phoenix, Arizona, but went on to spend a decade in Europe before embarking on traveling the breadth of the United States. He pulls his inspiration from firsthand knowledge of the environments that define these lands. Forty years of observation and study formed the seed of what would be planted as the architectural cornerstone of Hypatia.

With life, we explore curiosity. From curiosity, knowledge can grow. Knowledge evolves until the wisps of wisdom alight our way.

From the historical decisions and serendipity that have built our most beloved cities to what is being written and talked about right now, these, too, are our architectural drivers. Hypatia is a reflection of what makes a city interesting and, hopefully, fun. We are taking heavy influence from the quaint corners that seem to universally delight travelers from around the world, such as Amsterdam, Barcelona, Venice, Zurich, and Osaka, to name but a few.

Next up are the ten design principles for Livable Communities as identified by the American Institute of Architects: 1. Design on a Human Scale, 2. Provide Choices, 3. Encourage Mixed-Use Development, 4. Preserve Urban Centers, 5. Vary Transportation Options, 6. Build Vibrant Public Spaces, 7. Create a Neighborhood Identity, 8. Protect Environmental Resources, 9. Conserve Landscapes, 10. Design Matters.

But we alone are not the ultimate voice and curator of what drives humanity’s architectural curiosity, and so while we will have a heavy hand in the development of the first phase of Hypatia, this city will evolve, as cities do, with the help of others who contribute to the design and building of a community. Over time, even the sacred halls that were the foundation of our city will be torn down and replaced by the crush of progress.

Until that moment comes, though, we will encourage others to take inspiration from their influences and dreams to join us on the virtual canvas to paint a new reality. So grab your sketchbook, brush up on your Frank Gehry, I.M. Pei, Moshe Safdie, Zaha Hadid, and Tom Wright, then join us to create our virtual city from the shared vision of artists from around the globe.