A journey of mountains

Posted on September 29, 2025September 1, 2026 by KMClantoren

For my five year anniversary at my company, I was granted a 5-week sabbatical which I chose to take starting towards the end of September and ending before the last week in October. I chose the timing partially based on when I thought people would be least impacted, but also because I really needed the rest. The last few years have been brutal in so many ways, and with the amount of work and the stress that comes with it, even CONvergence couldn’t really take me away from it.

The plan for this sabbatical was for Sarah and I to take a road-trip just the two of us up front to really shake us both out of the world and find an adventure — especially while the weather is still in the warm part of autumn — and then another trip with friends partway through October. For the rest of it, I intend to write and reflect, do some cleaning and organizing that’s been put off too long, and sleep as much as I want.

We really didn’t even figure out where we were going on the roadtrip until about 2 days before we left. I had never seen Colorado; I’d never been farther west than Minnesota without flying over everything in the middle to get to California. And Sarah has been talking about the Rockies for the 20+ years I’ve known her. So we decided to head that way. I let her make all the planning decisions about where we would go and how we would get there — some of that was my not knowing where to start, and some was because mountain decisions need to take weather into account and Sarah is the expert of the two of us. We almost extended the trip further to go all the way to the Grand Canyon which I have seen and she has not, but it’s currently on fire in several areas and also that was a much longer trip than we felt comfortable asking anyone to take care of our cats. So we set off south to Iowa and then west across Nebraska on an adventure.

I’m going to say it and not apologize for it — Nebraska is boring. It is FLAT flat and there’s not much alongside I-80 to look at and literally everybody drives it as fast as they can to get out of it. Other than a couple of truly weird roadside attractions, I have nothing notable about that part of the journey. We stayed overnight in North Platte, Nebraska before leaving 80 behind and turning southwest.

The land changed before we hit Colorado and honestly, I wasn’t expecting it at all. I’ve lived my whole life in places rich with forests and fields, where the dominant color is green. But this bit of the western plains was rocky, scrubby, though I wouldn’t call it barren. I’m used to dense woods of oak and pine and maple and these trees when they grew at all were small and scraggly. But it was oddly beautiful too. Even just the cattle pastures were beautiful. The grasses were colors of brown and gold and even red I’d never seen before, and I kept thinking about how strong they must be to survive here as the elevation increased and the winds bore down. The soft grasses I knew couldn’t thrive in this rocky, reddish soil, but these found life.

After a full day of a road-trip with music and conversation with Sarah and nothing else in the world but my own thoughts to trouble me, I was fully primed to be philosophical.

I was not prepared for the mountains. Stars above, I was not prepared.

At first, I didn’t know what I was looking at. Sarah knew what to look for (and of course I was driving so my focus was elsewhere) but eventually I understood that the slightly darker, blue line on the horizion was the Rockies. As we got closer though, as the plains rose and flattened and I started to see that rugged range of peaks against the sky…well. I cried. Tears ran and Sarah had to hand me a handkerchief and I’m sure I blubbered at her for a while.

(And yes, I can really cry and also drive safely. I’ve had a lot of time perfecting the talent.)

What was I feeling? Oh so many things.

I’ve seen the Catskills, driven through the Adirondacks, passed back and forth over the Appalachians several times. When you’re down in the valleys, then you really feel the mountains above and around you. But all of them kind of hide on approach. I’d never seen a place where the ground was flat and then those peaks just shot upwards in all their magnificence. They made me feel small in the way that stars make me feel small — small in the scope of the universe and grateful to be part of its fabric.

But more than that, the Rockies made me feel something I have no ability to describe. Gratitude? Relief? Safety? I have no word in my vocabulary. I looked at those stone gods sitting upon the Earth and I knew that everything would be all right. Not that my specific life would necessarily be all right. Not that our society or this country would be all right. But that these mountains were eternal, and they would preside over the land and sky no matter what happens. That life goes on, the universe goes on, and in as much as I am a part of that, nothing can really ever harm me. It was so spiritual, so profound, I could only cry for the better part of an hour.

(I had to stop writing for a while because it hit me all over again. I think I will probably cry for as long as I live thinking about the sight of them.)

I calmed down enough to focus on traffic eventually, which is good because Sarah guided us around the outer belt of Denver and south to Colorado Springs. There were several items on our agenda for this trip, but as I said before, Sarah was in charge of the schedule because part of it would be determined by weather. Her original plan had been for us to swing north to Rocky Mountain National Park and then hit Colorado Springs after, but there was snow in the park and we wouldn’t have been able to take the route she wanted. So we pivoted. Did I peek at the mountains every second it was safe to do so? You better believe I did.

In true Kelly-and-Sarah-on-a-trip fashion, we arrived in Colorado Springs and did not do the sensible thing. The sensible thing would have been to go find a hotel, get a room, get our stuff inside, and then make a plan for the rest of the day. Did we do that? No.

Because the weather was beautiful and so we drove straight up Pike’s Peak.

If you’ve never been, let me tell you. That road is not for the unwary. You have to be a damn good driver with your vehicle, up and down. You have to know how to curve slowly enough not to go over the edge or into the other lane, but fast enough to not piss off everybody else on the road. You have to know how to engine break. You MUST. You have to be totally cool with driving on a road where your car is 12 inches from a thousand foot dropoff, and where the road you are on appears to literally disappear into the sky.

Ye gods it was terrifying, exhilerating, the best kind of scary. Also I’m a badass driver and not a bit fatigued even though we’d been driving all day.

At the base of the mountain, we were in t-shirts but by the top we had to switch to sweatshirts, coats, hats, and gloves. Along the way we saw countless birds of prey, a marmot, mule deer, and a bigfoot (that one was wooden, unfortunately). We also saw the aspens starting to turn yellow and dotting the slopes with spots of bright color. We stopped going both up and down several times to take pictures and just experience the mountain, its air, its sounds.

At the top, we walked the whole area, reading all the signs and visiting the education center to learn and see everything. We’re nerds about this stuff and we always read everything in museums too. And did I cry again from the top of this mountain, looking down on the world? Well, if I did, the tears froze before any pictures were taken to prove it.

Finally we came down and picked out a hotel for the night, and I wish now I’d taken a picture of that hotel room because it was humungous. Seriously, I think it used to be 2 rooms. You could have easily fit 2 more queen beds in their and still had the couch and table and armchair and the huge desk and the kitchenette. We didn’t even ask for it!

The next day we went to Garden of the Gods. The history of it is fascinating but you can go read Wikipedia if you’re curious. It’s a place Sarah had been with her family and considered deeply spiritual, so of course I was excited. We planned for a whole day and kitted up in all our hiking stuff. We had backpacks already but for this trip Sarah got poles and we upped our emergency gear just in case — space blankets, first aid kits, compass, whistle — in addition to the usual over-preparedness of water, Gatorade, food, and layers.

I don’t think I can describe that day in detail. It was sunny and quite warm (but yay me with my super extra uber photosensitivy so I still needed long sleeves in addition to sunblock), which made for beautiful pictures. I let Sarah decide which formations we would see and what path to take, and as always, she led me on a fantastic trip. Some places were clearly marked as off limits, but others you could touch or even climb to some extent. I’ve touched trees and rocks all my life and from the very beginning I could feel what is so special to Sarah about the place. Some grand rock formations feel old, living but solemn and still somehow. These formations felt as if they buzzed with energy, as if they were as awake and alive in the sunlight as the flowers growing on them or the many, many crows upon them.

We did note the many signs about snakes and bears and such, and while we didn’t see either (thank goodness) we actually took a couple smaller, less populated trails and saw 2 or 3 separate and very recent deposits of bear poop. How do I know it was bear poop? Because the visitor’s center has a whole exhibit on the kinds of poop so you can identify it. Definitely bear poop. No I did not take a picture.

Afterwards, the heat of the day had really taken it out of us, but we kind of wanted to go elsewhere. Our plans were thwarted, however, because apparently we picked up a nail in one of the Garden parking lots and my tire was DEAD DEAD DEAD. Which led to us rapidly finding a well-reviewed tire place that was within striking distance, topping it off, and hoping we’d make it. The folks at that particular station were absolutely amazing and the fixed it in less than 30 minutes while we waited in their shop in the shade. Still, my car had had a couple of tough days so we decided to take it easy for the evening and get an early start afterwards.

Day three, we packed up and left Colorado Springs for adventures in the mountains proper. Sarah designed us a route that went west into the Rockies, then north to pass through Leadville, ultimately taking us to the western entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park so we could curve back east into Estes Park by nightfall. Over the course of several hours, we got to experience elevation changing rapidly, the temperature changing with it, and so many beautiful sights of mountains and trees and lakes and rivers.

But one place I have to talk about I don’t have a picture of and I still wish I did — Badger Basin. It’s hard to describe it even though it is absolutely locked in my memory. We emerged from a forested road that had been on the twisty side into this flat open area. It was like if you had built a sandcastle and then gently pressed your hand down right in amidst the peak of it, creating this flat spot still well above the world. Wider and flatter than a valley or canyon, it was something I had never so much as dreamed of or seen on TV before. Across, miles and miles away we could see the Collegiate Peaks, but all around us was this flat, snowy plain. We saw more mule deer or or maybe pronghorn, it was hard to tell, and bison. I looked around that landscape like a crater carved in the heart of the Rockies and I am pretty sure I could have stayed there for good. It felt like a hidden world, like I’d fallen through the wardrobe into a frigid, thin-aired paradise. Oh it was marvellous. I think if we’d stayed and I’d seen stars above it, I would never have left.

But we continued on and eventually made our way to Rocky Mountain National Park. And again, we stopped at nearly every turnoff and rest area to take pictures and lose our breath at the beauty. At the lower areas with their trees and lakes, the higher sub-alpine areas with flowers and scrubby grasses, and then again up into the clouds with snow covering the ground (and so many idiot tourists who had not prepared for the elevation). At that point, honestly, I think I was in overload. The beauty, the dramatic landscape, the majesty of it all just about killed me.

We are so blessed on this planet, y’all.

By the time we came down the mountain, it was starting to get towards sunset in Estes Park. Once again, we had not made a plan. We started thinking about finding a hotel and, when we could get signal, looked at the prices of hotels. They do NOT run cheap in Estes Park, apparently. The budget for the trip was fluid, but I still didn’t want to pay $300 to stay in a 2-star motel, so we were feeling like we might have to make other plans.

And then the lightning of inspiration struck.

Estes Park is the home of The Stanley Hotel.

Famously haunted? (More on that later.) The inspiration for Stephen King’s The Shining? A historical place with more famous visitors than you can fit in their period dining room?

At first we just rolled up to look at it from the outside, because we were here and no matter what came next we had to see it. But then I asked — what if they have a room? It would be more expensive than every other place in Estes Park, but could it be WORTH IT?

Hell yeah it could be. This was a bucket-list moment and I wasn’t about to miss it.

So we went in and asked about a room for just one night and 20 minutes later we were staying at the Stanley for the night. The desk clerk was hilarious, by the way. As he was reading off the usual hotel stuff about charges for anything damaged or stolen, etc etc etc, he added a bit about “guests may not exorcise or become possessed by any spirits for the purpose of removal. He also had a little ghosty guy sitting behind him on the cabinet where they hang the original keys for all the rooms, beautiful old brass keys neatly labeled. The ghosty was sitting in the spot with the key for 217, the room Stephen King used when writing. The clerk winked at us and moved it to our room “so the ghosts know who to visit.”

WELL. With that, we first went down into the town to find some food because goddamn lunch in Leadville had been about 20 emotional revelations ago, and then hauled all our stuff up to our room on the 3rd floor of The Stanley Hotel.

It will not shock you, if you know me at all from all this (or in real life) to know that I could not sit still while in such a place. After I’d eaten drunk a ton of water with some ibuprofen had kicked in (I was not enjoying our rapid trip through various elevations), I was ready for an adventure of my own. Sarah stayed behind, but 10pm found me wandering the halls of the Stanley. I looked at the museum in the basement, into the bar and lounge, poked around the car in the lobby, and even listened for a moment at the door where they hold a nightly seance inside, apparently.

So, here’s the thing. I am a believer in ghosts, am pretty sure I’ve experienced at least 2 in my lifetime, and am keenly sensitive about places that feel “off.” Sarah and I, when first searching for houses in 2010, nearly instantly rejected one because we walked in and both immediately knew something was very wrong and we were not wanted. I get easily scared at horror movies, have been known to suffer both sleep paralysis and night terrors, either of which can wake me in an irrational state of overwhelming fear while still seeing things, and after the (stimulating, exhausting, fulfilling, amazing) day I’d had, my mental and emotional defenses were down.

I should have been primed for a world-class ghost scare. Psychologically, I was vulnerable, highly suggestible, and fully ready to believe in an apparition or something frightening coming at me.

But that’s not what happened and that’s not what I felt.

The more I moved around the building taking pictures that night, the safer I felt. Oh, there was undoubtedly an energy about the place. It was electric like the anticipation in an arena before a concert or a sporting event. It felt like anything was possible, like anything could happen, like the universe was skipping along my heartbeat. I’ve never felt anything quite like it. But there was so much of it, it was like my cup was being filled. If there was ever a spa for the soul, it’s The Stanley.

Before I went back to the room, I actually stopped to chat with the night manager at the desk. I always talk to hotel people — they’re great and they usually have really good ideas if you have questions. I asked him if I’d missed anything in my wander that I should go see, and then mentioned how the energy felt to me and how different it was from what I had expected. After all, The Stanley Hotel is famous for inspiring one of the greatest works of horror of all time by one of the greatest authors of all time, and it has featured in no shortage of ghost hunting shows and other similar “most haunted” lists.

The night manager smiled at me and said that what I was describing is what he and most of the staff feel about it, but that most tourists come expecting scary and often they prove themselves right. I can see how that would happen. It IS a weird building, it DOES have a very strong energy to it, and if you’re thinking that tickle on your senses is dangerous, I can see how it might get to you. But I came in open, willing to be scared but feeling for what was there under the hype, and I found something really wonderful.

And when I did wake up at 3am (as I often do) and for a moment was frightened, even then I didn’t see or hear anything scary. And with a couple of breaths and a glance out the window, I was able to again feel that energy — not good or bad, not scary or safe — but just present and neutral. Giving me back whatever I put into it.

(That sign is actually what overlooks the back of The Stanley where there’s a big outdoor sitting area and it’s lit up at night and just adds to the coolness of it all.)

The next day would be our last before turning home. I could have stayed a week, but even I was prepared for the aggressive amount of healing and introspection I had been doing and I was both fully rested and fully exhausted. Also, we missed the cats and were starting to want to be someplace we could flop again. So we set out from Estes Park for Fort Collins, CO where Sarah had found a place for us to hike. We are not great hikers — we are slightly ambitious walkers. We both knew if we were going to attempt any kind of wildnerness walking, we needed to be at a lower elevation and with a less challenging terrain.

There’s a city park (maybe) that overlooks the reservoir and the city of Fort Collins that perfectly fit the bill. It had a ton of trails, some of which were kind of off-road climbs at points, but all doable and with plenty to see. The cool thing about this park was that the ground was heavily saturated with pyrite, fool’s gold, so all the rocks just sparkled. It was like hiking on a trail recently dusted with glitter.

Nothing particularly exciting happened on the trail, which is how you want it to go. But the sky was so clear and blue as it had been for our whole trip, and although it lacked the drama and absolute splendor of Garden of the Gods or Rocky Mountain National Park, it was still breathtaking in a more humble way. The red soil, the blue sky and reservoir, the golden grasses and green trees, all magical in their own way. We had also spent the whole trip with Sarah’s app that analyzes birdsong open, recording every one we heard. She has the list somewhere. It was another moment of wonder to realize how many birds we share in Minnesota with these great landscapes, even though they are different enough that they could be on opposite sides of the world.

Anyway, after the hike, we took off north from Fort Collins to catch up to I-80 and once again head home. It was actually easier to swing through Wyoming and join 80 at Cheyenne, so we got to see yet another unexpected landscape. Although, sadly, I was not moved by Wyoming. It was mostly just dirt and pronghorns (I did like them). Flatter than flat flat flat and more barren than Nebraska, I’m sure there are lovely things somewhere but I didn’t get to see them. We stopped at the same hotel in North Platte, NE on the way home, and then made it back the following day safely.

I’m so glad I took so many pictures (I have literal hundreds more) because they help me recapture the feeling of those moments and days. The overwhelming emotion of seeing the mountains for the first time, the beauty of the ecosystem and the thrill of those winding roads, the spiritual warmth of rock formations, the otherworldly energy of The Stanley. They’re still with me, and still changing me, I think.

Along the way on this journey, we learned about how the Rockies were formed, well, as much as science has figured out anyway. We don’t quite know why they formed when they did — something to do with techtonics and a western plate slipping under the North American plate — but we know that the current Rocky Mountains are actually the second to rise in that same place. When you look at the gray rocks on top of Pike’s Peak or in this picture below, those are the bones of the first set of mountains, called the Ancestral Rocky Mountains. They were formed first out of Precambrian rock and rose over the Western Interior Seaway when most of North America was split by an inland sea. Then they crumbled away by the end of the Mesozoic period, only to rise a second time as new mountains pushing up through the rocks of their ancient ancestors.

When I first saw the Rockies on the way to Colorado, I was overwhelmed by feelings, by the spiritual certainty that comes with a sense of forever that extends past any one human life. To learn partway through that the Rockies that so moved me are not eternal, and in fact aren’t even the original, didn’t daunt me at all. If anything, it proved my feelings correct. The world turns, continents clash, mountains rise and fall and rise again. The rocks remain and they remember. They carry the story of all those ages and changes with them as the rise and fall. Maybe this one mountain isn’t forever, but mountains are forever. Life is forever. Change is forever.

And it also fed deeply into my sense of hope. Because if a literal mountain can rise out of the ashes of its former life like a phoenix, then anything is possible. No matter the challenge ahead, no matter the scale of the weight upon me, I can rise too. I can rise and touch the sky and be for that one moment eternal.

Sometimes you touch places and sometimes they touch you. Sometimes you change places and sometimes they change you. And sometimes they take you away and sometimes they bring you home. This trip did all of that for me.

This song never used to make me cry but it sure as shit does now with all I’ve seen and felt:

He was born in the summer of his 27th year
Comin’ home to a place he’d never been before
He left yesterday behind him, you might say he was born again
You might say he found a key for every door

When he first came to the mountains, his life was far away
On the road and hangin’ by a song
But the string’s already broken and he doesn’t really care
It keeps changin’ fast and it don’t last for long

But the Colorado Rocky Mountain high
I’ve seen it rainin’ fire in the sky
The shadow from the starlight is softer than a lullaby
Rocky Mountain high

1 Week, 2 Adventures

Posted on July 15, 2025August 4, 2026 by KMClantoren

CONvergence has come and gone and we had a fantastic time. My parents actually came to see what all this nerdy con stuff is about and apparently had a blast. They went to panels, some music shows, and even got in on the cosplay game!

Sarah and I got to perform with both our friends Kayla and Marina at HarmCon, putting together some truly amazing harmonies, parodies, medleys, and a good deal of live snark. Honestly it’s one of the best shows we’ve ever done and I would love to perform with them some more. Also, Sarah made her way to the Late Night Music Circle while I was on shift late on Saturday, and I happened to walk by just as she was starting to sing one of our songs. So I ducked in and sang it with her in a drive-by duet.

For general CVG stuff, I’ve gotten better at keeping my list of the funny moments I want to remember. I don’t want to record them here for lots of reasons, but it makes me happy to know I can look back and remember how I did the best “Not It!” of my life to Ben or giggle about the discovery of the weird snoring noise outside ConSuite (it was a distant party’s music but it did not sound like it). For all the stress leading up to the convention, and for the icky moments that come part and parcel with the rest of it, I truly love the work of volunteering. It makes me a better person and it gives me a chance to do something positive in a world where it sometimes doesn’t feel like any one person can make a difference.

Con is a lot, though, and not just in the packing (look at how Tadashi helps!):

After all that, I needed more than just a week of rest at home. Something about this year’s con kind of wore me out without feeling like a release. I found myself oddly restless afterwards, unsettled and kind of stuffed up in my own head. I always take time off after the convention to recover, but somehow I wasn’t getting back to a point of rest and clarity.

And then Marina and I discovered a local, extremely low-key mud run the Saturday after the convention wrapped up.

For context, we’d done one of these years and years ago, back in 2012. That one was a Warrior Dash race and it genuinely kicked our asses. The race was laid out on a ski resort, so the first tenth of a mile was a run straight up the hill. We didn’t really attempt to run as such, but it still wiped us out and we had to sit in the shade for a while to recover. After that, though, we had a pretty good time climbing over obstacles and helping each other along. We didn’t really try to “race” and we didn’t track how long it took us to complete. We just ran it for fun.

And we’ve always wanted to try another one, albeit one a little less intense.

So early Saturday morning, we found ourselves at the Minnewashta Mud Run outside Chanhassen. It was nothing like the Warrior Dash of 10+ years prior, but it was exactly what I needed.

The course was a mile and a half long, and the obstacles were mostly geared towards kids and families. The tallest of the obstacles was the haystack I nearly fell out of, and most of the over or under type things were just…steppable. But it was glorious.

Marina and I did a light jog for the first lap, following the course at our own pace. It was like a nice walk in the woods with a stop every now and then to wade out into the lake to ring a bell or to crawl through a muddy tunnel. After the first lap, most people stopped, but we decided to keep going. We had plenty of energy and we decided to get some pictures.

We were so clean at the start.

The only problem I had crawling under the netting waws my cute little space buns kept getting caught!

No, I did NOT fall off the haystack. This was a perfectly controlled landing and I definitely didn’t let out a little shriek on the way down!

I’ll be honest, I did not love the tunnel. It was hot and some gravel and rocks had been tracked in there that cut up my forearms a bit. We could have just gone around, especially on the second lap, but I will not be defeated by a tube!

NOW we look properly dirty as we took a moment on the second haystack that I also definitely didn’t fall out of.

By the time we finished the second lap, most people, including the race organizers were gone. They knew we were the last ones (the vast majority of the people who ran only ran once), so it’s not like they abandoned us. They still had snacks and such. But what had been a bustling crowd was now mostly a cleanup crew and normal parkgoers who were very curious about the two muddy women wandering around. Even though Marina and I skipped the obstacle where you could literally swim through a small pool of mud (we learned from Warrior Dash that it is less fun than you’d think to have mud in allllll the places), we were still dirty as hell. We teamed up at the back of one of the cars to strip and put on alternate, non-wet clothing for the drive home. The shirt I wore was beyond saving:

It was exactly what I needed. A walk outside in the sunlight, an adventure, a challenge that made me laugh without pushing me too hard, and a moment to step out of myself and my life completely. For the duration of that muddy walk, I was not just my volunteer self from the convention. I was not just the person at my job, or even at home. For that short moment, I was only and entirely myself giggling my way over a haystack.

Life is too short not to wear the fun cosplay, not to crawl through a tube, not to laugh while changing in a parking lot. Life is too hard not to take a walk on a Saturday morning with mud squishing in your shoes and a branch in your hair. Life is too beautiful not to laugh.

The convention was everything I wanted, and the mud race was what I didn’t know I needed.

A bucket list adventure

Posted on May 31, 2025October 23, 2025 by KMClantoren

So, May was nuts in the best way possible.

In the middle, I had to do a trip to Chicago for work. Sarah came with me and stayed in the hotel while I went to meetings all day. Actually, it was great to see people in person and get to connect with folks again. Since I miss most of the in-person events due to not flying, it was the rare chance I had to be with everyone. Very productive, but ultimately work-y. Not very exciting.

However.

What we got to do afterwards was mind-blowing.

So, my company had an award for folks who were there 4 or more years. They would put up $1,000 towards a “bucket list” item. It had to be something special, and there were a bunch of stipulations about what did or did not qualify. And when I hit my 4 year anniversary, I really struggled to figure out what exactly to do with it. I wanted to use it for something truly memorable, but my options were limited.

And then Sarah and I remembered about the Columbus Zoo.

If you don’t know, the Columbus Zoo is an absolutely amazing place. They actually have a second location called the Wilds in rural Ohio where they have thousands of acres and animals just roam in herds. But the zoo itself is at the forefront of conservation, animal veterinary practices, and study. And they have a special program where you can pay a flat fee up front and basically get an all-day behind-the-scenes tour. It’s pricey, not going to lie. But with it, you get admission and food for your whole group, a personal tour guide with a golf cart, and access to backstage areas and personal visits with animals.

And since Sarah’s parents still live in Columbus, it was something we could share with them.

So last week we drove to Columbus, and on Thursday, we had our adventure.

We first met up with our guide in the parking lot; he drove the golf cart right to our car so we didn’t even have to walk to the gate. Then he zoomed us past the gate and in through the delivery driveway. We took a back route to see the giraffes, but our real destination was the zoo’s outreach center. Once there, he brought us animals that they take to schools and other programs and WE GOT TO PET THEM.

Meet Wahoo the penguin, a binturong whose name I’ve definitely forgotten, Lucky the turtle, can’t for the life of me remember the name of the amazing Eurasian eagle owl, and one of the labradors the zoo uses to help raise baby cheetahs and foxes and everything else that needs socialization.

After that, our guide took us INTO the koala enclosure so we could literally stand underneath them while their keeper told us facts and answered all our questions. They did NOT poop on us, but it was close. We also got to see how the leaves are stored and hang out in the giant fridge while their keeper told us about the different varieties.

From there, we went to lunch, then we had a meet and greet with the cheetahs. They asked us not to take pictures, but I can tell you that we actually gave a cheetah BUTT SCRITCHES and Sarah got to do a little bit of training with one of them. Also? They’re huge in person, but they make the exact same faces Tadashi does when he wants food. I wish I had gotten pictures anyway, just for myself. But it was an experience I will cherish for the rest of my life.

After that, we went around the zoo for a bit to see the orangutans, including the newborn baby. We weren’t allowed in the back with them, though. My pictures are blurry because we were at a distance and behind glass, so I’m not going to bother to share them. Sorry.

The next thing on the agenda was a private behind-the-scenes tour of the seal and sea lion area. We saw their food schedules and the huge freezers on site (the bigger ones with months’ worth of food are where all the food is stored in the backstage areas) and got to walk around the enclosures out of the public eye. The trainers even brought one of the seals out to do some enrichment right in front of us. I was less than 2 years from the nose of the big guy booping a ball. It was UNREAL. Then they took us into the pavilion where they put on shows for zoo guests and did a private show just for us! Sea lions are hard to get pictures of when they’re in motion, but I got this one!

Last on the tour was a trip back to the giraffes where we got to feed them. That was a whole separate adventure — the giraffes eat FAST and if you don’t provide leaves at their preferred pace, they will come after the bunch in your hands. There are actually volunteers whose whole job is to stand there all day and feed the giraffes alongside the guests so that the giraffe doesn’t get impatient. And their tongues are slimy and their heads are so cool up close!

Between Sarah and I, we have a couple hundred pictures and videos from the whole day, including lots of family shots with Sarah’s parents. And it was worth every dollar we paid, including what was outside the $1,000 from my company. I will never forget how a penguin’s feathers feel, or what five purring cheetahs sound like all together. I will never forget the smell of eucalyptus with a sleepy koala overhead. I will never forget the sound of the seals and sea lions barking at each other and playing and splashing us. And everyone at the zoo was so eager to tell us everything we could ever want to know about every aspect of the animals’ care and training, of the conservation programs, even the individual animals’ personalities and funny stories.

It was a bucket list item I didn’t even know I needed on my list. And honestly? If we ever have the money to spare, I might very well do it again. Maybe we’ll bring some nieces and nephews next time. Because it’s one thing to see these animals on TV, or even from behind glass in a zoo. It’s another to be able to touch them, or be 6 inches away from them. It makes them so much more real.

I genuinely can’t thank the Columbus Zoo enough for the gift. I paid them for the experience, but I definitely got the better end of the deal.

Branching out into Anime Detour

Posted on March 30, 2025October 22, 2025 by KMClantoren

I’ve been part of CONvergence for so long, volunteering and now running Operations, it’s settled into kind of a part of my identity. I’m an author, dork, cat mom, and con-runner. But the thing is that, at the moment, CVG is my only con. Or it was until 3 days ago.

A bunch of my friends and the folks I volunteer with for CVG work other cons in Minnesota throughout the year. The largest of them is Anime Detour which is held in the same hotel as CVG. Folks I’ve been working with for years run the AD version of Operations and have asked me in the past if I would be interested in joining them. And most years I’ve said no for a variety of reasons. Too much else going on, being nervous adjusting to a slightly different system and different rules, not wanting to overstep in a situation where I am no longer the expert in charge, that kind of thing.

But…well, this spring has been ROUGH folks. You know, you’re living it with me.

Add ALL OF THIS BULLSHIT to my existing work drama (which continues and is almost worse if you can believe it) and I am not a happy Kelly these days.

So my con friends encouraged me to come and play for a couple of nights. Just to get me out of my head and out of the world around me for a while. And after consultation with Sarah, I agreed to work a 6pm-1am shift Friday and Saturday nights. I didn’t want to stay over (Sarah didn’t either) and I knew I’d have no shot of parking, so I made friends with some Uber drivers and settled into a 2-day adventure.

On the back end of it, I can tell you that being there was a really good decision.

‘m not going to go through all the differences in policy and procedure between AD and CVG because, really, that’s not what matters. Like what I said in December, what matters is the similarities.

AD is a bigger con, drawing a few more thousand folks than CVG. It also skews younger, which means there is somewhat less of a heavy party circuit in some ways, but the partying is more inexperienced. It also has THE BEST cosplay game in town. Seriously, everywhere I looked I saw something that made me want to squee to the heavens.

But the thing about it, to me, was the odd sense of freedom I had. It reminded me a lot of my early days at CVG in the years before I became embedded in the DNA of the convention. I was just a volunteer. I had no authority and no responsibilities except to do my job and take care of the con-goers. I didn’t have to handle any big or difficult situations, didn’t have to argue with the Board or negotiate between departments. I only had to show up, walk around, and help.

It was glorious.

I mean, yeah, I spent a disproportionate amount of one night sitting with a suuuuper drunk con-goer and their friends trying to get them a bus and finally giving up and calling Uber to take them home, and my feet are so sore I am hobbling around like I’ve just had knee surgery…

But I’m happy.

I spent two nights surrounded by nerds in cosplay. I spent two nights looking at art, making conversation with people on escalators, checking in on folks looking like they could use some water. I spent a full hour in a hallway providing directions to a panel about anime boobs (at the top of my lungs, no less).

I think with the stress of the world, and my job, and the general work of CVG I had kind of forgotten what cons are all about. What makes up the soul of the convention. Because it isn’t team meetings and making an inventory system work right and arguing about policy enforcement. Conventions are people living their best life for a moment, set aside in a world of their own.

And I needed that. More than I ever realized.

If you’re feeling down about the state of the world, or yourself, or anything — try a convention. The joy is infectious, you will walk away with at least one legendary story, and for a moment, you’ll forget your troubles. It is the height of escapism.

With cosply. Always with cosplay.

A (Work) Adventure

Posted on April 2, 2024August 31, 2024 by KMClantoren

My company decided to do a big in-person gathering in Chicago, and since that meant I didn’t need to risk a plane trip masked, Sarah and I decided to road trip there for it. I still spent my time masked and I avoided all the big multi-hundred people ballroom events. But I was there for the team gathering, and I got to see a ton of folks I work with every day. (And I got to complain about work while getting hugs from people also complaining!)

But along the way, Sarah and I decided to make a real trip of it. So we went to the Field Museum.

You have to understand, I love museums. Well, I can take or leave a lot of art museums; I am not the target audience for most art. I don’t “get” abstract art very often, classical art evokes mostly “meh” from me, and a lot of modern art is too raw for me to enjoy. Give me gorgeous glass art like Dale Chihuly, or something meaningful like Keith Haring. Or anything where art and culture and history collide. But just art? Paintings of popes or yellow squares? Eh.

But I will lose hours in a science museum and days in a history museum.

Sarah, thankfully, is like me in that we read all the things. Here’s an exhibit about making a Lakota canoe? Yep, we will sit there and read the entire display. Something interactive with buttons revealing historical facts one by one? We’ll poke those buttons together and make sure we’re both done reading before we hit the next one. A video display? Settle in and just wait for us to watch it all the way through at least once.

There are a *few* topics that bore me, but not many. I can only look at gems for so long, or plants. I mean, yay for multiple different samples of wheat, but I’m not going to gaze at them and commit them to memory the way I am the dinosaur bones or the artifacts of various cultures or the displays about space.

But there is one awkward thing about me and museums and that is that fossils make me feel a little weird. Looking into the fossilized skull of an ancient predator both ignites my prey responses and gives me goosebumps thinking about all those millions of years. I get a similar set of goosebumps around meteorites honestly. I know the fossils aren’t haunted, that Sue the dinosaur isn’t going to come to life and chase me, I know that. But I *feel* it anyway.

So I end up having a slightly hilarious response to all the fossils when I want to stare at them but only from the safety of hiding behind Sarah.

She is very patient.

Here are just a few of the pictures I took:

Sarah on the second floor looking over the main hall with various dinosaur-y things in the background.

Máximo the Titanosaur says hi to you on the second floor!

Sarah in front of the mammoth skeleton with a mastodon in the background. I genuinely wish these things were still around!

Sue, the museum’s very famous T-Rex. She gets a whole light-up display where they highlight the injuries evident in her bones and talk about how cool she is.

Me underneath the Quetzalcoatlus model which…honestly, scared the hell out of me. If THIS thing was still around? Forget it.

Sarah in front of the stegosaurus, which is her favorite.

Triceratops! My favorite of all! I spent so long just staring at her.

There are lots of things I didn’t take pictures of, especially the indigenous art areas. The Field Museum has a full Maori meeting house where you can go inside and see the cosmology carved on the very beams and columns. I had actually been in one before when I was in New Zealand in high school, and this one felt just as sacred and special. We spent a lot of time in there reading everything they would give us and just feeling the energy of such a wonderful thing. But no pictures. That felt profoundly disrespectful, so it just lives in my head.

Anyway, we saw almost everything the Field Museum has to offer in one day and had a blast. If you’re in Chicago, I strongly recommend a visit.

Gifts from an amazing friend

Posted on March 27, 2024March 27, 2024 by KMClantoren

So, one of the wonderful things in life is getting to see people you love become awesome at something they truly enjoy. My friend Marina has become truly excellent at crochet in the last few years. She’s added works to the county and state fair, been commissioned to give them as gifts, and she has gifted me my absolute favorite blanket ever. But sometimes Marina gets inspired by crochet books or people she knows from Facebook and she likes to surprise people with her works of art.

I have not written enough about The Last Unicorn on this blog, but believe me when I say it was probably my first or second fandom ever and has never given up that place in my heart. So when she showed up one random Thursday with this…

Reader, I cried.

No, I did. And wouldn’t set her down for hours.

You understand now why I had to share it???

Look at her! She’s glorious!

As if that isn’t mind-blowing enough, a few weeks later, Marina came over again with a large box. Something else I haven’t talked about much on this blog is my love for the Pern series by Anne McCaffrey. The Harper Hall trilogy was kind of my gateway out of regular books and into fantasy as a genre. It was similarly beloved by Sarah who read every book she could get in every library in Ohio.

And Marina made her a personal fire lizard…

Sarah did *not* cry because that’s not Sarah’s way, but her feelings were just the same. We have them both set up next to our TV now, which basically means we can see them from anywhere in the living room or kitchen. And we both find ourselves staring at them sometimes.

In terms of citations:

Both can be found as individual patterns for sale on Etsy or Ravelry. The unicorn is also available as a pattern in this book.

Marina herself doesn’t have a link to promote; this is just something she does for love. And I am permanently grateful to receive that love and all the beautiful things that come with it!

Powerful Gay Music

Posted on April 22, 2020 by KMClantoren

Sorry about missing the last couple of Mondays. In spite of sheltering at home, there’s still a lot going on, including a new and positive, albeit heavier load at the job, and generally keeping myself and Sarah on top of our health and emotions and needs.

Also, Friday was our 17th anniversary, as I ranted at length on Twitter.

17 years is a long time, and yet it flew by. I look at Sarah and still get all twitterpated, not butterflies in my stomach nervous, but more “holy CRAP I get to hang out with this perfect person who I adore and I never have to leave her side!” It’s a heady feeling. I never get tired of walking into a room and knowing she is there. It never feels like I get tired of her, or would like a break. Even when things are tough, I could more easily quit having limbs.

But I already did this ranting on Twitter, so that’s enough for now.

Instead, have this beautiful short from YouTube. It popped up at exactly the right time, and Sarah and I both enjoyed it immensely. Sometimes the simplest stories are the ones you need, and this was precisely the fairy tale we wanted on our anniversary.

(Also, I HIGHLY suggest watching it with captions on. Thus the infinitely appropriate to Sarah and I title of this entry.)

Art! (And Friends)

Posted on June 17, 2019 by KMClantoren

So, I think I’ve written previously about my total and complete lack of art skill. It’s not just that I can’t draw, or paint, or otherwise produce visual art. I’m also not great at envisioning it. I can imagine a scenario in a story, or characters, or abstract symbols. But creating something visually interesting and artistically coherent is just not my strength. At all.

But I love art. I love to have color around me, and images of things that make me feel. I have collected figures and pieces from every place I’ve ever traveled or lived, and I love being able to look at them or pick them up and remember what the air tasted like, or how the birds sounded, or what I learned while there. And I love art that is unconventional, art that means something to me but others would find stupid. It’s like an in-joke with myself.

The house used to be filled with art, a picture or a hanging or a carved statue every 3 feet. We kept all of it, because it all had meaning, but moving to a smaller place meant rethinking how we deal with it. Also, while you absolutely can just line the wall with paintings, it’s much more effective visually when you cluster them together in a collection.

So, on Saturday, after 6ish hours of meetings for CONvergence, a couple of friends came over to help us do just that.

Here is the result:

Can I just say? MY FRIENDS ARE AMAZING. For so many reasons. But in this case…I mean, just look at it! It’s beautiful!

I keep walking into the room and just STARING.

I love everything about it. I love the shape, I love the balance, the colors, the way not all the frames have to be black to look like they belong. I love having all the disparate pieces that add up to who I am (and who Sarah is — it’s hers too!) put together like this. And this is just one collage of the three we did!

Moving left to right, we start off with a picture of Princess Mononoke. Beautiful art we bought at CONvergence two years ago from the artist, along with the picture of Nausicaa at the other end. Next in is the newly framed picture of our art print from Beth Kinderman’s album, which arrived just in time to take its rightful place amidst the beauty. Below that is my signed picture (that I bought, did not get in person, SIGH) by the voice cast from the 2012 TMNT. I like everybody, but, let’s be honest, IT IS ALL ABOUT ROB PAULSEN VOICING DONATELLO.

Ahem.

Starting above Beth’s art are a matched pair bought at the same 2017 CONvergence from a different artist; they happen to be characters in a series she puts out, but they also pretty much stand in for Sarah and I (I’m the tiger and she is the hawk). Next to them is the framed Morpho butterfly which was a gift from a friend after I saw them in person when we were in Ecuador in 2009 and proceeded to have a series of life-changing realizations about myself.

Then we have the two big ones, the centerpiece of everything. These we also bought in Ecuador from the artist. They represent the sun god and the moon goddess and they are. Just. Perfect.

(Even if the matting in the frames is giving way — we intend to get that fixed eventually.)

Those two used to hang over our fireplace in the house, so I’ve pretty much been staring at them nonstop for a decade, and I have yet to get tired of them, of the colors, of the symbols. They’re made with banana leaves and recycled paper, if I remember correctly, and the texture is really neat up close, too. Even after all this time, they still speak to me.

Anyway.

Below the moon goddess is a set of three which goes back to 2008 in one of the apartments. All three were found online somewhere (probably a long-dead Deviantart site) and meant to represent the three of us then living together — Sarah, me, and another friend. It was our promise that we would be a home and a refuge for one another, no matter what life threw our way. The friend lived with us for a long time, even in the house for a while, and now lives just across the river from our condo. But for 11 years, we have still be home base for him and for others.

The condo really couldn’t be home if it wasn’t home for more than just Sarah and I.

Left of those is my signed picture of Leonard Nimoy as Spock. It was in one of the last batches he ever signed before he passed away, and I was lucky enough to buy it from his website just in time. That was when he was also offering to be a surrogate father or grandfather for people as well, and I got in on that, too. He also sent a free gift when he sent the picture, which I have perma-loaned to my biggest Trekkie friend so she has something of him in her house as well. I miss him in the world and his wisdom and wonderful humor, but I’m so glad to have this piece of a person who helped define me as a nerd when I was sneakily watching TV long after my parents had gone to bed.

Above is my big TMNT print, also bought at CONvergence in 2017 but not by me. That was a gift from a friend who saw it and thought I would love it. I pretty much broke down and cried when he gave it to me. I didn’t even SEE IT when I was looking for art, and it just…I…IT TURTLES OKAY!!!

Above the turtles are a pair of wolves Sarah bought for herself, also from the artist at CONvergence, but back in 2013. She says they don’t have specific meaning to her other than the fact that she also strongly identifies with wolves, but I look at them and I see her reflected too.

(Which is not to say that the rest of the art is “mine.” It’s VERY MUCH MUTUALLY SHARED. But some things, like the butterfly or Leonard Nimoy, speak more to me. These wolves speak more to her. Mostly, though, it’s both of us.)

And lastly is Nausicaa, so we have Miyazaki on either side.

It makes me SO HAPPY to have this. To see these things brought together intentionally and beautifully, a space made for all of it. And doubly, triply so because I could never have fashioned this layout on my own. I needed my friends for that.

But I never could have fashioned myself alone, either, so it all works out.

There’s more art to hang, but this will be the centerpiece of it all, and very rightly so. After all, this is who lives here, feelings and experience and knowledge of self all wrapped in one.

And also nerdity and fandom.

Because, well. What else would you expect, really?

HarmCon! And not quite a year late!

Posted on June 25, 2018 by KMClantoren

So, thanks to a friend with strong Google-fu, and some free software, I was actually able to get our video from HarmCon in 2017 into shape for YouTube! Truly, better late than never. Right?

Right?

We were joined on many of the songs by our friend and fellow nerd Dave Stagner, who always finds a way to make our music a hundred times better. The set list for this particular show turned out to be a mix of 3 covers, 2 of our original songs, and 8 parodies. We got a lot of laughs and commentary on the parodies, though you have to listen closely to get it all. I’m listing the songs for you here, in case you want to know:

Warrior (by the Wyrd Sisters, joined by Marina Krinsky)
Secure Yourself (by the Indigo Girls)
Phoenix Rise
Fearless (by Kat Perkins)
Sunfire/Breathless
Parody of Babylon 5 based on “Angles from Montgomery” = Aliens from Babylon
Parody of Stargate: SG1 based on: “Brown-Eyed Girl” = Brown-Eyed Goa’uld
Parody of ET based on “All By Myself” = All By My Kite
Parody of The Fifth Element based on “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” = Hit it With My Four Stones
Parody of Transformers based on “Hand in My Pocket” = Hand In Its Socket
Parody of Signs based on “The Water Is Wide” = Water, Water Everywhere and OMG It Burns
Parody of Star Trek based on “Take Me Home, Country Roads” = Insert Noun Here
Parody of Toy Story based on “Man of Constant Sorrow” = Toy of Constant Sorrow

We’re finalizing this year’s set now, to be performed a week from Friday. And now that I have new and exciting technology, I’m hoping it’s easier to get the video up sooner.

I was chatting back and forth with some of the CVG folks on Slack and a point came up about how hard it is to be creative with all the awful that’s going on in the world. What I said was this —

The shit part just leaks into everything though, doesn’t it? I’m working on my set for HarmCon and I keep looking at our songs and thinking “can we really laugh about gaming and Star Wars when insert-horrific-reality-here is going on?” And I have to keep telling myself that yes, we can and we must laugh. We can’t keep fighting for humanity, for dignity, for equality, for justice, for compassion, if we lose track of ourselves. You can’t beat back the dark without a light, and sometimes that light isn’t righteous anger, but the relief of taking one day off.

It was true last year in the summer of 2017 and it’s certainly true now. CONvergence in general has been something for me to look forward to, something for me to give time and energy and positivity when even the brightest day seemed dark. And it is silly to sing about gaming stories (we have some outrageous ones in the set and nerd jokes), but it’s also necessary. Just as it’s necessary to stop and breathe and rest between the waves of a struggle.

Not by accident, I think, this year’s set is more heavily weighted towards “our” stuff, and fewer parodies. At least for now. In a week, it might have grown a few more parodies. They’re sneaky like that.

Anyway.

Sarah and I named Candles Enough for the idea that between us, we have enough light to get us through dark times. Sometimes, that light is giggling. Sometimes it’s steady courage. Sometimes it’s just pure silliness. Sometimes it’s tried and tested in fire. But that’s who we are. That’s what we do. And this year, as much as we all need to laugh, we also need to be that boost of hope and truth. So “Jagged” is back this year, and so is “Trial by Fire” — along with new stuff written more recently.

If we can be that one candle in the dark for someone who needs it, then it’s all been worth it.

I think there’s only 4 or 5 people who ever consistently read this blog, and half of you will be at CVG this year. We can’t wait to show you what happens when you put out an open call for people’s ridiculous, silly stories. But for those of you who aren’t (yet) part of the CVG family, here’s a sample of what you’re missing.

It’s a MILLIONTH of what is good about CVG, of course. This is just our tiny, musical corner of it.

(P.S. You will NOT hear from me for at least 2 weeks. Next week and the week after will be my time to dive completely and totally, heart and soul and body and lack-of-sleep, into CONvergence. I’ll try to emerge with stories. Join us vicariously on Twitter, though. #CVG2018 is a good way to experience the fun from afar!)

Sense8

Posted on June 4, 2018June 18, 2018 by KMClantoren

CVG season is heating up, and most of the time I’m not running around getting a million things done and sometimes wanting to throw a cupboard-worth of plates at walls is being spent aggressively taking time for myself to balance the chaos. This has led me to binge-watching a few new shows to keep my mind and heart occupied and chill when the world around me is descending into near madness.

When it’s all over, maybe I’ll do a post about what the actual FUCK has been going on this year.

Anyway, in the meantime, Sarah and I have chewed through the TV series Sense8.

WHICH IS AMAZING.

NO, SERIOUSLY.

Sense8 was created by Lana and Lilly Wachowski and J. Michael Straczynski. So, first of all, GODSDAMN THAT IS A PEDIGREE. Storytelling and representation, HERE WE GO. It’s about a group of 8 total strangers from all over the world who find out they are linked in a “cluster” — a sharing of minds beyond telepathy and going right down to being able to step into one another when needed. So, if one is being beat up by some bullies, the combat master can take his place in his body and defend herself. It also leads to amazing and hilarious interludes of others in the cluster popping up and having opinions where, really, they might not have been needed.

The cinematography is fucking magical, and the storytelling is superb.

Oh, and representation? YES.

Eight very different people, four men and four women which include people of color, LGBT people, people from 7 different nations, different economic backgrounds, educational experiences, etc. And there is intersectionality represented as well. The fluidity of the representation of identity politics really drives the central idea that we, as a people, are more alike than we are different. That humanity is humanity.

During some truly hectic days, when sometimes my life felt too big and too hard, it was a wonderful escape to settle in and see how it would be to be living my life and seven other lives at the same time.

I had to hide a lot because I can’t watch needles even on TV without fainting and there’s a good amount of needle-sticking that goes on. And because of a particular interest in sex across the cluster, there wasn’t really a good representation of aexuality or gray-A characteristics, which I would have liked to see.

But overall? Absolutely, positively worth your time. This series made SARAH cry. REPEATEDLY. And NOTHING does that.

Also? I loved J. Michael Straczynski from Babylon 5. That love was very much returned with Sense8. The man is just outstanding.

K.M. Clantoren

Author & Full-Time Snarker

Tag: SQUEEE