We pack our things and run away to wide open spaces. We zip along from Massachusetts to Vermont. The people grow fewer and the trees multiply in number and variety and I always think it looks like God poured a packet of mixed seeds along the landscape and now trees and wild flowers pop up in colorful abundance.

We set up camp and sleep outdoors and it feels good to be close to the earth.

We sit under the trees and the sky and breathe in the outside air. The campfire smoke swirls around in our lungs and we are alive in this wild, outdoor space.

We gather around campfires and relax in the warmth of the mesmerizing flames.

We swim in the cold mountain water and tip toe along the river bed filling our pockets with river glass.

We ride bikes and stretch our legs and souls—shaking off the dust of life lived away from the woods.

I caught these sneaky little ninjas poking around my tent…

…And I couldn’t seem to shake the little savages….but as it turns out—I really, really love them.

God kissed the sky and it blushed pink at his touch.

And the sun set on our outdoor adventure for one more year and we all fell asleep under the starlit sky that seemed poked through with the light from another world.

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

Thoreau, Walden Pond