pictures of places...

This is where I'm going next week, the southern Appalachian Mountains. This is where I'm from, where I was born, where my dad's family has always lived, where I went to college. I love these mountains. I mean, after living out here I have a harder time thinking of those big hills as mountains, but the maps call them mountains, so they must be. Even though there aren't any snowy peaks among them. And there's no such thing as "above the treeline" -- the treeline ends at the top of the so-called mountain.

Anyway, so the mountains are smaller there, who cares, they're still mountains. They're MY mountains. And if they were the point of my trip I'd actually be excited to go. Unfortunately, the point of my trip is to hang out with my family and so... I am less than excited. I'm more or less just resigned to it. At least the mountains (in the colors of early fall) will be a really lovely backdrop for what will otherwise be poignantly miserable.


But that's just the first week. After that I'll be spending a week in Palm Bay, Florida with my mom, in a house that looks almost exactly like this. I found this picture with a Google Image search, but it could very well be a picture of my mom's actual house. Which is weird. Palm Bay itself is boring, ugly and full of old people and republicans, but at least my mom is there and my brother might come down too. And of course there's the ocean. Hopefully it will still be hot enough for swimming.


Finally, this is where I was yesterday. Sitting in my boat in the Columbia River by Brown's Landing just south of Scappoose. I didn't take this picture myself (I'm still without a USB cable for my camera) but this is pretty much what it looked like. Paddling a kayak is the best way to immerse yourself in nature, as far as I'm concerned. And that's all I'm gonna say about it. I'd rather be going on a two week kayaking tour of the San Juan Islands, but oh well.

So the point of this non-linear, unimportant, photo-heavy blogpost is to let you all know that I'm leaving town this Thursday and I won't be back until October the 18th. However, once I get to mom's I'll have ample internet access, so I'll probably be blogging from the trenches that whole last week. That'll be something to look forward to...