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photos from there It wasn't that much of a surprise when I got to work and saw that very little had changed while I was gone. In some ways it felt as though I had never left. The institutional quality of the place kills all sense of time. Everything has to be uniform and mechanical, so that things can carry on when someone is missing for a few days. All that I wanted to do was sigh for the next eight hours. It isn't as though I hate my job, but I spent the past week outside most of the time and now I am sitting in a room without windows for at least forty hours a week. It will take some time to adjust to it again. On my final flight back to Milwaukee, I was already thinking about where I wanted to go for my next trip. I know that I can afford one more this year and I thought that Vancouver might be a good choice. Then on the other hand, I had said that I would go back to California one more time this year. California would also be less expensive since I can stay with friends and family while I am there. The trip did get me to thinking about moving out of state. I hadn't really given it that much thought last year since I was in the middle of a relationship and I had just started a new job. Now I have been at my job for a year and leaving sometime next year wouldn't be that unreasonable. Of course just a few weeks ago I had told myself that I would buy a house here next year. At this rate I'll keep changing my mind each month and never reach a final decision. I got my photos today and part of me wishes that I had taken more than I did. Even though I have fifty-two pictures, it still isn't enough for me. Something got lost in the photos. Yes, they are proof that I was there, but the emotional quality that I felt when I was there is missing. I know exactly what is happening in the photos, but they tell less of a story to someone who wasn't there. On a more practical note the larger prints probably would have been a good idea as well. The picture count averages out to about seven a day, but I shot one whole roll on Wednesday so it really isn't that representative of everything that I saw during the week. What happened is that I would be driving along and say that something looked pretty and kept on going. Most of the time there wasn't much room to pull over to the side or there was someone right behind me on the road. I probably could have doubled the amount of photos that I have now, if I just taken a little more time. At least I have my memories of what I saw there. Sometime soon I'll need to get a pair of boots to replace the pair that got sacrificed to the North Atlantic. There was a point in the kayak trip, where we had to half carry half drag our boats over land to reach more open water and salt water does not do kind things to leather. After letting them dry out for a day, I knew that they would never be the same and left them behind in the hotel room.
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