Welcome Back to the Wide World

Y'all, who let me skip two years of blog posts?

Look, I am lucky enough that it's not due to a lack of travel.

After Antarctica I got to travel to Indonesia (and Seoul Airport in South Korea). I went to California, New York, Montana, North Carolina. I got to see two of my closest friends get married (not to each other, mind you, just two separate weddings.)

I know what I was thinking at the time of course. I had made a conscious decision to forego my blog. I can never tell what sort of time I'll have - these longer trips, or ones where I'm by myself - it seems easier to find the time.

What I didn't know about the Indonesia trip though, was that we'd all get Covid and would be holed up for 2 of those weeks.

If only I was psychic. I would have known. The other thing about these last few years - Looking back on some photos and old blog posts, I can see that I really retreated within myself. I rarely touched my camera, and even when I did, I seemed unable to sit down, sort, edit…really do anything with my photos. Often they didn’t even make it off the memory card – it was kinda bad. But, slowly but surely, I return. I’m grateful I had the travel I did, even if I don’t have an account of what I did or what I was thinking (yes, of course I have my memories but the state of mind I was in has been dulled. I look back and can say I had a great time! But I always like having the little window into my psyche, you know?) I think my last last trip, before this one, has been a really big help. Jay and Jana (one of the weddings I saw last year!) and I...Well we all road tripped through the American Southwest, driving from California to New Mexico. We saw national parks and the Annular Eclipse the day after my birthday! And getting into that prep mode for that trip made me look at the stuff I’d done over the last two years, and be really grateful that I can travel at all. Not to brag too much, but like… I’m so lucky that I can travel internationally. I think you might know that like, only (35)% of Americans have a passport? (Y’all should get one if you don’t!) (Also I need to double check that stat.) * *I checked that stat, it's actually 56% of adults! Much better than I thought, but that's only a little over half!* But even domestically, getting a chance to see so many different places is amazing. It occurred to me on that trip that…you know, I know about the Southwest conceptually. I’ve been to Colorado and Utah and Wyoming, and I had been to California before. And while I knew about Arizona and New Mexico as states that were hot, and arid, and kinda vast, like….that does not do them justice. The rock formations just off the highway, the way that landscape would shift and we’d go from lush mountains to huge deserts? And YES DRY HEAT IS DIFFERENT THAN HUMID HEAT Yes, it sucked, but I felt much better than trying to walk around on a muggy day. Although, our hikes were pretty short Very short We *were* still in deserts. Saw some really good and cool lizards and birds But I digress, it was a great time, and the thing that occurred to me on this trip was that there’s so much of human history where this sort of travel would have been….either not possible, or so much more of an ordeal. We’re so lucky, *I’m* so lucky that for even just a week I can fly across the country, see my friends who live thousands of miles away, and then *we* could then travel ourselves for hundreds of miles. We got to see caves, trees so old they fossilized, a super rare biome (the White Sands desert is the largest gypsum deposit) AND a place where a meteor fell to earth *only* hundreds of thousands of years ago. That’s nuts. And that was just that one trip. Montana was also a world apart for me, and you always hear how it’s beautiful, but it hits different seeing it in person. We got hailed on in June, I had to wear my fuzzy jacket, and then the next day we were sweating through a forest next to a waterfall. I don’t ever really want to take travel for granted. And I hope that my absence from this blog isn’t a reflection of taking things for granted. I *hope* it was the opposite, that I was so engaged with what was happening that of course, of course! I didn’t have time to write, but I think the truth is…I did take it for granted a bit. At least enough that a version of myself thought, “You know, I don’t need to reflect on this trip.” And that’s a shame, because there should always be time to reflect, to look back on the day of experiences and see how it’s affecting you *now* and not several months to a year later. Anyways, this got a bit away from me. The short of it is, I’m back! I want to willingly engage with the world around me, take the time to share my thoughts, even if it’s just for me, maybe share a picture or two. And if you’d like to join me, I’d love to have you.

P.S. Enjoy one of our pictures from Roswell, New Mexico!

A shot from diving Indonesia!