Summer Thunderstorms Bring Tranquility.
Well folks, it has been a whirlwind of a month. I sit here pondering the events that have taken place while enjoying the tranquility that a southern thunderstorm brings on a summer afternoon. This all after spending some time at my best friend’s pool and getting a beautiful sunburn. The dogs aren’t liking the storms so much; but they are adapting to me giving them comfort during stressful times. We had a lightning strike within a tenth of a mile from the house. I managed to bake a small batch of cookies, you can see the progress on my instagram page, in between losing power a few times. That was a fun activity. Over the past month I stayed within the state of Virginia and was able to explore my “backyard.” Business has steadily increased at a manageable pace.
First off, Virginia is the tenth oldest state in the USA. I was able to take some time off from the day to day activities to go explore nature by visiting Shenandoah National Park with my best friend, Brier. I did not know that the park is about an hour’s drive from my home which is great because I can escape city life as often as I want now. What started off as a plan to hike “Old Rag” (an 8 hour round trip hike including rock climbing) quickly changed due to rain. We decided to just load up in the car and go adventure to see where the road took us. As some of you know, this is my favorite way of exploring. I am absolutely fond of going for a drive, coming to an intersection, and asking someone to pick (right/left or north/south, etc.) If you are not adept to your surroundings, please do not try this. Learn your geography and always be prepared while going out into nature. Always plan for the unexpected!
Now back to Shenandoah National Park; we ended up driving through the park from the middle to it’s southern boundary and then looped around to the northern boundary back to the middle. A great circle that included many stops to do some trekking through the wet, windy woods. We found some caverns to go explore on another trip as well as the most quaint little reservoir tucked away in the “mountains”. I will always give the east coast and Virginia a hard time about calling these “mountains” because as a person who grew up in Alaska and then spent ten years in Idaho; mountains here will never quite measure up. The reason the Appalachian mountains look smaller than those of the west is their age. The older mountain range here has been eroded over for many more years than those of the west. But don’t worry, this will not stop me from telling everyone over here that these aren’t real mountains and they need to go west to see what an actual mountain looks like. My highlight from this day trip was not only having a bro day but towards the end of our trip we came around a corner and there was a black bear standing in the road just looking at us. Y’all Brier jumped up so quick after I said, “bear” and got so excited, I think it scared the bear away. Sadly neither of us were able to obtain a picture. But it will go down as one of my favorite memories in life. This day trip definitely made it worth it to not take a trip out of state and to be able to start exploring more of my local area.
We all have our own trials and tribulations that life likes to put us through. Never fear that you are not strong enough to endure whatever comes your way. Build a core friend group that will support you through anything no matter what. Without this group, I would not be where I am today. It doesn’t have to be big at all. I have three that I include in mine. Your family doesn’t always have to be about blood relations. Life is what you make of it.
I am going to keep this blog post a little shorter than normal as my one year anniversary of moving to the east coast and calling Virginia home is approaching at the end of this month. Look forward to an extra long post then detailing the events and reflections over the past year.
As always, I’m glad you chose to accompany me on this journey.
—Kevin
