blue

[it bears repeating]

I’ve just discovered Noah and the Whale and I think they are a great indicator of how great things are.

The future holds great things for those that search for their goals.

[another day]

I’ve been very happy lately. Recently I’ve made some good changes in my life, and I’m very pleased with the outcome. This last Thursday Sam and I went down to St. Simon’s Island for the day. Being liberated, even if so briefly, of my constant schedule and feelings of unease imparted upon me a true relaxation, one that I am entirely sure I needed. It was a day of nothing. We left the previous night from Athens, intent on arriving on the island before sunrise. Despite a very odd pull-over by Glynn County police regarding the reason that we were behind someone going over the speed limit, then searching our car, finding nothing, and letting us off with a very kind warning, we made it there. We walked on the beach immediately upon arrival, reveling the sand between our bare toes and the smell of the sea coating our nostrils, and it was amazing. I played music in a gazebo while Sam danced. Seeing her dance is like watching ideas flow; she moved as though she were a liquid. The sky fogged before daylight broke, and there was no visible sunrise, so we returned to the car and somehow slept 6 hours, waking up because the car was getting hot on the inside. Then we walked through town, lay on the beach and waded in the ocean, ending with a comfortable coffee at Palm Coast Coffee, reading a book to the sunset. An indubitably perfect day.

However, in the saddest of events, my external hard drive crashed, and I’ve now lost all of my photos from before this miniature vacation. I’ve nothing left from the summer, from the years before. I hope that I can recover the data somehow, but it’s incredibly depressing to me that I have lost all of my work. My hard drive on this computer is simply too small, and it was inevitable with the amount of strain ol’ Darwin has been put through. (For clarification, Darwin was/is my external drive.)

So, onward, upward.

[a day]

This post is for Becky, who reminded me that there is a reason to write.

It seems that I haven’t written here in a long while. I think that the reason for that is that I haven’t felt as though my life is interesting since I left the road. I’ve been back in the same college town I was in before, and I lust for the road with unquenchable thirst. That part of me is locked up for now, not seeing things. That part of me will have to wait for now.

I feel that there are some things that I may have forgotten to mention in previous updates; fragments of experience that were relevant and have changed the currency of my world.

For one, the car I drove back from Wyoming was apparently in enough disrepair from the elk that I probably forgot to mention hitting that my insurance company claimed it as “totaled” and paid me only enough money for me to lose about 2k on it. However, after much moving of money and conversation with my parents, they agreed to help me pay for a much more reliable 2006 Honda CRV, which is my current mode of long-distance transportation.

More recent events include my decision of my future degree, which will be that of Anthropology and Drawing. As much as I adore the Photography program here, it is simply too expensive for any use to me, and drawing is cheaper and one of my other artistic passions. Also, I am enjoying my time in Athens far more than I was last year, and I am glad. And I’m learning Russian.

One thing has been bothering me very much of late, and that is the infrequency at which I click the shutter button on my camera. I purchased much camera equipment, but have not given myself up to using it enough.

I promise to update more often.

Day 88: (A means to an end)

I’m a day away from being home. I’ve travelled over fifteen thousand miles on this trip, and I’m almost home. No more mountains. No more cool northern breezes. No more Lake Lodge. No more bison.

It’s so odd. I really feel like I’ve left a part of myself behind up there. I don’t know if it’s for the better or not, not just yet, but I do feel a part of myself that’s changed. Being in that environment up there, the melting pot of the world; its effect is astounding. I’ve left behind many friendships, many memories that live on only in writing and in photographs. The problem is, it’s difficult to relive what we all experienced there in memories. One doesn’t feel as though they are back, only that one is prefacing a return at some point. I do know that I’ll go back, I just don’t know when.

On my drive out, I drove through the Beartooth Pass. It was positively the most beautiful thing that I have ever seen. It was more impressive than all the mountains, canyons, skies and fields that I had seen before that point. I remember about ten miles after I had gone through the Northeastern entrance of the park, I stopped to look back at the Pass, and I was awestruck. The mountains stood in all directions like the teeth of some demon slowly closing it’s disastrous maw upon the world. Glorious. I wish that I could have taken pictures or written things that properly described what I saw, but it was not something that can be explained. One must simply go and understand the majesty of those mountains. I’m sure there are many more for me to explore and be awestruck by, but these were the most impressive this far. I was dumbfounded by their regal monument. It was as though some giant had carved his mark upon the earth in a time of utter fury.

I have much more to say of my return, but all in good time. I am glad that it is almost over, but I feel that it is the first of many, many to come.