America, the Beautiful

I've been out in the wilderness, my friends, and it is good. It made me want to sing.

Oh Beautiful, for spacious skies
For amber waves of grain

For purple mountains majesty
Above the Fruited Plain

America, America, God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

An awesome whale, for good measure, since I didn't get any photos of eagles...

Mia and I hit the road for a week of Road Trip Adventure. Just Mia and me, no boys, no dogs, and very little cell phone reception. She was standing up in a wedding in ranch-ville Montana, and I needed a wilderness vacation in the worst way. So I flew to Seattle and we drove together from WA to Montana. And then back to WA to camp on the San Juan Islands and do some whale watching.

As you can see from the photo above, our whale watching endeavors were successful! It was overwhelming to see so many orcas just hanging out, jumping and spinning and playing. A lifelong dream fulfilled. Seriously. I had an inflatable orca pool toy hanging from the ceiling above my bed when I was a kid so I could pretend I was swimming with the whales. Posters, videos, books, t-shirts. My mom even got me an orca necklace for Christmas one year. So my heart is still fluttering from all the whale-love.

But the trip was remarkable for other reasons too. Deep stuff, that is still swishing around a little, trying to process. The things I want to write about all seem to come into my head as advice, or suggestions, or maybe even preachy demands. Stuff that I realized or learned, but that I want to tell other people to go figure out immediately, whether rolling through a mountain pass or banging your head against the steering wheel in Chicago traffic. 

Anyway, here's what I have so far:

1. Ask your parents about their childhood and young-adult (pre-marriage/pre-children) life. Then ask them to recount THEIR memories of your family vacations to you. Write them down.  It struck me over and over again while driving "out west" that my family had come on vacations to Yellowstone and Washington when I was a kid, but I have very few memories of it, and only a few pictures. Did we camp? Were we in Wyoming, or Montana? How old were we? Had my parents ever been there before? Did we whine? Was it fun for them? And my dad had lived in Washington for a while between high school and college. Why? Where did he live? How long was he there? Why did he come back to IL? I wish wish wish I could get the answers to those questions. I wish I could hear my dad tell me about his deep deep love for the west coast, for mountains and oceans. I wish I had it on tape. Go. Go right now, and call your parents, and ask them.
2. For the love of Pete, stop STOP worrying about how you look and just enjoy your freakin' life! It took a weeks-worth of ridiculous windswept hair and mosquito bites on top of my zits to take a deep breath, look at the photos again, and realize that I look HAPPY. And "happy" and "peaceful" go a long way towards "beautiful". Gray hair, bizarro wrinkled camping clothes and all.  
3. Girl-fest road trips are great. Travelling with someone you love and like a whole lot is very freeing and can do wonders for your mental health. That said, I'm looking forward to my next rambling trip with the Hubs. I kept wishing he was with us to see the beautiful things we saw.
4. If you are looking for some incentive or nudge to get going with a "green" routine, head to a breath-taking place, thank God for the insanelyridiculous beauty of the earth (and the US!), and then remember the WHY of all your greening efforts and WHAT you are really working to protect. If we ever have kids, I hope I can bring them to Montana and Seattle and still see trees, clean rivers, and orcas leaping out of the ocean.
5. Getting away from the office, the city, the noise, the busy, the rush, the internet, the work, the worry was the BEST thing I have done for my heart in a very long time. Sneak away, even if not far away, and see what happens. Perspective. Gratitude. Even a little bit of missing the city.

Well, there are more messy half-thoughts to sift through, but that should do for now.