Great Outdoors

When I was little, I would go outside and play really hard.  Then I'd come inside, sweaty and stinky, and my mom would hug me and squeal, "Oooo! Cole smells like the great outdoors!"  She said this with a big smile on her face, and I'd just had an awesome time outside, so I associated "smelling like the great outdoors" with an AWESOME thing.

My dad is a classic Mississippi man.  He hunts.  Almost every possible season.  I can remember throughout my life my daddy going with some man-buddies on several-days-long hunting trips.  He'd come back and I'd give him a big hug and squeal, "Oooo! Daddy smells like the great outdoors!"  He'd also have an uncharacteristically scruffy face.

So now I live in a city.  Concrete spaghetti highways and interstates are more commonly seen than a cluster of trees that wasn't deliberately planted in that spot.  I miss the Mississippi great outdoors.  I miss finding peace in the woods.  I miss being around unmanicured lakes.

This sounds BIZARRE to those who have known me my whole life.  "Cole.  When have you ever spent a significant amount of time in the woods."

Well, I worked at a summer camp, but aside from that, not super frequently.  But despite that, I've always had a deep appreciation for the romance of spending time in nature.  Especially in the fall.  With all these beautiful trees changing colors, there is no better place to spend autumn than Mississippi.

I just got back from Duck Camp with my dad and my sister.  Duck camp is a little game hunting lodge on a big plot of land right on the Big Black Swamp.  It's not real swampy at the moment due to the fact that there's been NO rain for months in this neck of the woods.  But it's still gorgeous.

See?  There's a little water in there.  Probably some snakes too.  Didn't see any of those (thank you, Lord).

You can see on the trees how high the water usually is.  That darker bit is usually submerged in water.  These trees are getting thirsty.  But they're still lovely.

Look at that lovely sunset...  It's so peaceful out there.  Except for the gruff rumble of the ranger riding through.

It was lots of fun to practice taking pictures with a snazzy camera out there.  And then I practiced my organization skills and sorted all of the 554 pictures on my mom's memory camera into appropriate folders--dated with short descriptions.

*pushes glasses up nose*

I like orderly things.