Link in bio for tickets!
SAVE THE DATE -- December 23rd, live at Taos Center for the Arts, join me and @rlqsounds and a whole bunch of your favorite Taos talent for a merry and bright Christmas Eve Eve variety show!
We've got an incredible live band. We've got fabulous singers. We've got a gorgeous design from the brilliant mind of @hartprintshop . We've got hippopotamus burlesque (and that's just the top of the show).
I've been dreaming of putting on a show like this for a couple years, and thanks to the gals at Curling Iron Productions and the team at TCA we're really doing it!
So many excellent meals, three fantastic shows, galleries and museums and even a bit of nature -- yet, over 5 days, we didn't stay out past 11pm once. I finished my book and Sarah almost finished a puzzle. Vacation can be restful, even in Fabulous Las Vegas! All thanks to @clabouff for being the most generous & thoughtful host.
Guess the name of the Star Wars themed burlesque and win a prize!
(Footnote: did we see Wizard of Oz at the Sphere? No. Did I make Sarah take 1,000 photos of me when we stumbled upon the promo setup? You decide.)
In June of 1864, as Grant was readying what would become a 10-month siege of Petersburg, Virginia, President Lincoln signed into law the Yosemite Grant Act. It was by all accounts a relatively unremarkable act of governance, coming as it did nearly four years into a war that had already claimed more than 600,000 lives -- a war that still had a long way to go, and a deeply uncertain outcome.
But a fellow named Israel Ward Raymond had been to Yosemite valley -- had no doubt stood awestruck before El Capitan; had seen the way the light plays over the sequoias and the black oak and the ponderosa; had perhaps felt the mist from Bridalveil Falls roaring over the granite cliffs beneath Cathedral Rock in spring -- and was moved to write to California Senator John Conness to encourage federal protections. A speech from Conness, a bill from the General Land Office creating the Yosemite Grant, and a Presidential signature later, and America had the wee seed of what would become our National Park Service.
I was lucky to spend a few days camping in that extraordinary valley this week, and I can't stop thinking about how incredible it is that, in the middle of the national catastrophe and existential crisis that was the American Civil War, Lincoln and Congress paused for even a moment to protect a beautiful place more than 2,000 miles away -- a place most of them would surely never even see.
Driving into Yosemite valley, just when you think the views can't get any more spectacular, you're confronted with Half Dome at sunset. You find yourself standing with people from every corner of the world, sharing in the simple human act of wonder.
I have no idea if Conness and Lincoln and all the rest could have possibly imagined a time when the park would play host to 20,000 people a day, but I felt some genuine pride hearing hikers suffering along with me in a dozen languages as we climbed the Mist Trail to the top of Vernal Falls (and hoped our knees were up to the job).
We've certainly made an awful lot of mistakes as a nation, but our public lands really are an astonishing feat, and one worth fighting for.
#notforsale
Saturday at 7pm sharp (doors at 6:30), live from the TCA stage and streaming worldwide at truetaosradio.com. @brainwax and I are hosting a full evening of those @truetaosradio vibes you love so much. Join us, a live band, many of your favorite KNCE faces from the last decade, and the community to celebrate 10 years of True Taos Radio!
Incredible 10th anniversary art by @hartprintshop of course 😍
Thanks to @ecoflight and @troutunlimited for this morning's gorgeous cruise over the Cruces Basin. Peak fall color is putting it lightly. Fun to be backseat buddies with my old pal @shannonromeling !
Final picture: Folks from @wildlandsnetwork rounded out our lil sardine party. Learned all sorts of fun things about otters and pine martens and pronghorn and more!
Feeling grateful to my boss @senatormartinheinrich for all his work to protect these incredible places we're so lucky to live within (and for letting me spend Friday morning in a teeny tiny plane instead of at my desk!).
