we're back!

View from the road this weekend - small town West Virginia. 
(Or is it Maryland? - I'll have to ask Larry because I can't keep track of all the little towns we drove through.)

Whew! We're back. We were home for a couple days after Larry's secret birthday trip (I promise to write more about that soon!) and then we hit the road again for another weekend out of town - this time to western Maryland and West Virginia to visit Larry's family and attend his brother's wedding. In the past six weeks, we've taken three trips. In the past week alone, we've slept in three different beds in three different towns.

We've been to the beach and to the mountains. We've driven through the countryside. We've vacationed with friends, visited family, and traveled solo - enjoying the solitude. We've celebrated birthdays and marriages. We've been out of state - and explored parts of our own state that we'd never seen before. We've eaten meals on the road (pretzels and Yoo-hoo) picked up from gas station mini-marts and we've made delicious home cooked meals. We've picked fresh berries in the woods and visited kitschy roadside attractions. We've woken up to deer outside our window and fallen asleep to giant moths buzzing against the outside of the glass. We've cursed the fact that the EJECT button on my car's CD player broke and we can only listen to one CD over and over and over again...

We've been doing things, lots of things, and I love it. This is the first summer in years (maybe since childhood) that has felt summery to me. Being away, exploring new places, roadtripping - these are the best ways to enjoy summer (so much better than sitting behind a desk all day - though the realities of the real world and adulthood often prevent this.) We've talked about how important it is to find ways to make it work - find ways to travel, find ways to visit family, find ways to have fun and do what's important to us.

I've got a lot of catching up to do, but I'm inspired. I feel motivated to start some big projects around the house and to try new things with my art. I'm inspired to keep seeing new things.

This is what summer is supposed to feel like.