Vagabond exploring life with my little trailer in tow
The week started with two nights at Dreher Island State Park, somewhere in the middle of South Carolina. I got lucky and my site was close enough to the water I could just slide down a little bit of land to launch my kayak and have a nice afternoon paddle. My campsite was just to the right of where the kayak is pointing. I was only 20 miles or so from Columbia, the state capital, so I went in on Thursday to have a look around. The Museum of Art is adding space, so it’s a hot mess of noise…
We all look at the world through filters, and what I see or feel isn’t the same as anyone else. I get that. It’s human to have differences, to have divergent opinions. Take the photo above, for example. It’s a lovely photo, but maybe I don’t really like green all that much. So I change it. I filter it. Some might think my filter is too hard or too coarse for the image. So I offer a softer take, one where you can almost feel the spanish moss swaying in the warm wind. And other people might like a mix…
Ah, back in the land of data. No, not that guy from Star Trek:TNG. Real data, the kind that means pictures upload in seconds instead of minutes, and pages load in the blink of an eye instead of while I’m doing the dishes waiting for Facebook or the New York Times to display on my tablet. The last week was lovely, and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it, but the data connectivity there was poor to none unless I drove to the overlook or into town (which is how I did yesterday’s post, btw). As Joni Mitchell once wrote…
A dead-end road, a small sign, and a short walk uphill to a shady spot overlooking the river. That’s all it took to give a sense of place here in Carter County, Tennessee. Most of the gravestones are old, moss-covered, with the words engraved barely readable. There are a few newer ones, the granite sporting the shiny finish more common now that in the old days. That doesn’t matter, the families know who is buried where and they leave plastic flowers to remember those gone before. The graveyard is next to a tiny white clapboard church, one of the many…
Eastern Tennessee just has to be one of the most beautiful places I’ve been in the last few years. Small towns, not a lot of cell signal on the back roads, but the people are friendly and the places are quiet and peaceful this time of year. Autumn is starting to show, temperatures dropping, leaves too. The colors haven’t shown up much yet, but I’m still hopeful they will. Last Friday, I did my first ever hike along the Appalachian Trail. I should have grabbed my hiking poles. Lots of ups and downs and rocks, and the trail was pretty…