Tag: memories

A Monumental Day For Our Nation

Our National Monuments are under review and there is only a couple more days left for our voices to be heard. These places are more than just landscapes. They are our future.

Looking back at my life, one of my fondest memories was around the age of nine. My mother and step-dad loaded my sister, grandmother and I up in a bright blue rental van and took us for a road trip. I remember the van being cramped and my sister and I fighting most of the time we were awake on the drive. The trip took us west from Denver, into Utah. North into Idaho. East into Wyoming and South Dakota and finally back home. It was a long two weeks in the van, but reflecting on the trip, the experience opened my eyes to see a different world and helped shape me to be the person I am today.

In those two weeks we were on the road, I was able to experience some of America’s greatest National Monuments and National Parks. We drove through the Garden of the Gods, Canyon of the Ancients, and though beautiful arches. We floated in the Great Salt Lake in Utah and stared up in dismay at Devil’s Tower in Wyoming as my mother told me the story about the sisters who escaped the great bear and were lifted into the heavens. We took a helicopter ride over the Badlands in South Dakota and learned about Crazy Horse and the Presidents that were carved on the huge mountain. We explored Yellowstone and watched Old Faithful erupt with such force that taught us the magnitude of the Earth’s power. In short, we discovered that America was full of amazing features, lessons, and beauty.

That trip has entered my mind more and more now that I am grown with children of my own. I have never taken them to Disneyland. I don’t take them to places where everything is commercialized. I take them to places that open their eyes, widen their imagination and let them experience the natural beauty of the world; not just the commercialized points of interests aimed at getting richer.

In just the past two months, we have been places that I will hold onto forever. We have explored the Lehman Caves in the Great Basin of Nevada, leaned over the cliffs of Cedar Breaks in Utah. Ridden our bikes through Bryce National Park and hiked Zion. We sat on a cliff in the Grand Canyon, Arizona and took in the beauty that only water, rock and a lot of time can create. We camped in Joshua Tree, both in the Colorado and Mojave Deserts and discovered a hidden waterfall in the Toiyabe National Forest. Along the way, we learned about the land, animals and one another. We laughed over campfires and hot coco. We had snowball fights and jumped in rivers. The memories we made were our own without costing us massive entrance fees and long lines.

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Today is the anniversary of the American Antiquities Act. This act gives the President of the United States the power to designate national monuments. It protects the public land that hold so many memories, wildlife and hidden treasures. Without this protection, our children and their children may lose the right to see these great places.

While I have many political views, I am not one to post them publicly. This blog is not about my views on politics, but my views on protecting this great country of ours so we can enjoy it for years to come. All national monuments are currently being reviewed to determine whether or not they should indeed continue with the protection they currently have. It is up to the American people to do their part in this. The administration needs to know why the monuments are so important to us. They need to remember how it feels as a child, standing at the base of an enormous mountain, under a beautifully sculpted rock, or in the middle of a fossil bed. These monuments not only need to be protected to keep history alive, but they also need to be there to encourage  children to be active and promote fields of study such as geology, ecology, biology, wildlife conservation, paleontology, seismology, anthropology and many others.

Please take the time to tell your representatives what these places mean to you. Take the time to let your voice be heard. Go see these monuments and witness the truly spectacular beauty and history they hold. Get out and be a part of something greater than yourself. We have until June 10 to be heard. Don’t wait and hope that someone else will do it. We may not get another chance.

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Life Lessons: Learning to Ride a Bike

There are no lessons quite like the ones that you learn when you first ride a bike.

There are many lessons we learn throughout our life. Some of these lessons we learn the hard way: why it is not advisable to touch a hot stove. Others, we learn through watching our friends, family members or complete strangers. Then there are some that we have to live through. Experience so we can truly grasp their meaning and the lesson that is associated with it. We have all had our hearts broken but in that process, we learned to love, trust, understand, listen, and learn. However, with all the lessons we learn throughout our life, none are as important as that day when we learned how to ride a bike.

As I ran countless laps up and down the street today, pacing next to my daughter as her lime and fusha bike wobbled over the pavement, the memories of my first bike roared back. Nearly thirty years ago, my sister was the one next to me, holding onto my pink banana-seat bike telling me what to do, encouraging me along the way and also letting me experience what it felt like to meet the old dirt road we lived on. There were so many things to do and for someone so little, it was overwhelmingly scary, but empowering. The trust I gave her to keep me safe and to teach me how to ride this machine was more than I ever would give her again but you have to take that risk sometimes. In a few short hours, I went from completely relying on her to having freedom like never before. This machine could take me anywhere I wanted to go and all I had to do was peddle. That day, I was unstoppable. It is a day I hope to hold onto for the rest of my years.

Looking through a mother’s eyes, the same experience is quite different. My son had mastered the skill within a short day but my daughter has been a bit more reluctant. Her fears of me letting go overpower her actual skills that she is able to go for stretches without needing my assistance. Her eyes light up as we go together, but anxiety hits when she thinks that she is alone in this journey. As a mom, I don’t want to ever let her go. I want to relish in the fact that she needs me, even though the cold hard truth is that she doesn’t. She has the skills to ride the bike on her own, she just wants me there for that safety net; the one to grab her off the bike before she meets the road. Teaching her how to ride a bike is also teaching me how to let go. My baby is no longer a baby. She is growing into a strong, independent girl and one day I will have to let her go live her life as she deems to live it. I know I will always be there with the bandaids when she loses control, or maybe even a bottle of wine later on when she feels like her whole life crashed, but today I have learned that sometimes it is best to let them go.

As a kid, there are many lessons you learn as you master the skill of riding a bike: trust, independence, hazard avoidance, risk assessment, perseverance, and self-aid. As an adult it changes: acceptance, patience, when to hold on and when to let go, and first-aid. The moment my kids rode away from me for the first time is probably more heartwarming than the moment I rode away from my sister so many years ago. Because in that moment, I knew that no matter how many times they may fall, they now know how to get back up and ride again. All you have to do is keep peddling and you will be ok.