Totally delighted to see such vibrant color, unexpectedly, this morning. I think unexpected beauty might be the best kind.
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my life
Okay, so the past few weeks I've been completely obsessed with green smoothies. In case you haven't hopped on the green smoothie bandwagon yet, you SO SHOULD. Here's how I do it (please excuse the janky lighting - this was in my kitchen at, like, 1am).I start with a banana and a bunch of kale (5-6 leaves), which I chop:
Plus about a half cup each of strawberries and blueberries (these look weird because they were frozen):
Doesn't it all look so pretty in the blender? I also add about a cup of apple juice, which I forgot to take a photo of. Then I blend it! After it's been blending for a minute or two, I add a scoop of vanilla-flavored protein powder (if you add it first, it kind of gets chunky and gross, so I toss it in once everything else has blended). Why protein powder? Well, I've been a vegetarian since I was 7 or 8, so I know I need to keep on top of that. Plus I'm secretly hoping that one day after the gym I'll come back looking like the Hulk. A few years ago, I was working out ALL THE TIME and I got super strong and I loved it. Back then I was mixing vanilla protein powder into my black coffee in the mornings (it's much better in smoothies, let me tell you). One day I came home from the gym after lifting, and some friends were hanging out in the kitchen. As soon as I walked in, my friend Jenn looked at me, stopped mid-sentence, and just said, "Holy SHIT! You are seriously SCARY!" and then started laughing. So that's what I'm going for :) Anyway...
The weird thing about green smoothies (well, mine at least) is that, when they're freshly blended, they look sort of purple, but if they sit for a few minutes or so they magically turn bright green. I'm not sue why exactly that happens, but I like to pretend that it's magic. Yum!
It's no secret that I love weirdness, and on the high plains along the road from Buena Vista to Santa Fe, there's plenty of it. We're talking abandoned train stations, a shining castle fashioned entirely out of beer cans and scrap metal, and Earthship homes that are made out of piles of tires and look like dirt-encrusted bubbles. A few weeks ago, Zach and I decided to take a road trip to visit two of these amazingly random roadside attractions: the Colorado Gator Farm and the UFO watchtower. It was the best day ever.
400 alligators live here - it started out as a tilapia farm, and the gators were eventually brought in as rescue animals and to help dispose of the dead fish. This place blew my mind - the owners were very kind and the handmade facility was a nice break from the commercialized sterility of a lot of zoos these days. I seriously could have stuck my hand into an alligator's mouth through the fence if I wanted. I didn't do that, but I did find out that they have GATOR. WRESTLING. CLASSES. I will most definitely be back.
All these handpainted signs were cracking me up:
Oh yes, I forgot to mention that they also have a biodome. I got really excited about this and spent the next week or so trying to figure out how to build a biodome of my own to live in. No, seriously - for several days I was totally convinced that living in a large greenhouse would be the answer to all of my problems. Still trying to talk Zach into that one...
Then, on to the UFO watchtower. I know this is the first question on your mind, so I'll just go ahead and answer it: YES, they do weddings!
There's a rock garden full of objects that visitors leave behind as a "token of their energy". Also... something about vortexes? I forget.
I was especially intrigued by the Denny's nametag. I mean, what happened to Dustin? Did he get fired that day? Was he abducted? Did he have some sort of vortex-related epiphany that inspired him to suddenly quit his job and travel the world? I need to know these things.
I giddily left a stack of business cards there and made the UFO guy PROMISE TO CALL ME if someone books a wedding in the near future. I'm pretty sure that if you were to get married here, you would have to do the ceremony in a metallic gold spandex mini-dress or something. While wearing gas masks.
I have been busy busy lately, but yesterday was so gorgeous and sunny that I just had to ride around on my cruiser bike and play around with my new Holga (for DSLR!) lens that finally came in the mail. I felt like a little kid, riding around on my bike (yes, it has a basket), taking pictures just for the pleasure of hearing the shutter click under my fingers. It's refreshing to be able to look at the world in a different way. All these shots are straight out of camera (SOOC) except for the black & white conversions <3
In town for a few days with family & in love with this place...
