Hiking Half Dome at Yosemite

I’ve had a lot happen in the last six months, most of which I haven’t found the right words to describe. One thing I can speak to is my trip to Yosemite National Park in September. We got permits to hike Half Dome, and it was an incredibly painful and scary experience. We left well before dawn. My headlight burned out just as the sun thought about rising. Storm clouds loomed at the top, so I rushed the ascent and the descent soon after I felt a drop on my lip. A deer family crossed our path. My feet burned with eight miles to go. It was a painfully long hike, but the landscape was my salve.

Painted Mines outside Calhan, Colorado

My man and I went for a beautiful three-mile walk in the Paint Mines outside Calhan, Colorado. Compared to some of the more breath-taking landscapes in the Wild West, this spot doesn’t stack up, but the fact that it emerges from rolling farmlands is very interesting. Living in this part of the country is a constant gift of perspective with so much grandeur. It’s essential that we respect these spaces and not use them as Instagram vanity backgrounds. We saw plenty of people standing on the rock formations. Please stay on the gravel trails.

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Multnomah Falls outside Portland, Oregon

My man and I went to visit family in Vancouver, Washington over the first weekend in July. We did a beautiful hike to Multnomah Falls on the Oregon side of the river, and the weather was excellent. Check out that beautiful shiba inu!

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Rain clouds blow through the highlands of Scotland

I had heavenly expectations of the highland air. I thought it would be uncommonly sweet, a cold drink of water for my lungs. Instead, the air I invited in smelled like fresh biology, life and death but more of the former. Somewhere nearby, there was undoubtedly a cow sweating, a rooster breathing heavily, an earthworm realizing it could now slither back underground. From a 1st floor window, I sucked up all that biology in a moment of wonder and discovery, in the specialness of a start.

Photographing Christmas with the family

Sometimes when I'm home, I turn the camera on my family. They like to cheese it up in photos, but when their cheek muscles relax a bit and they get into their element, you can see the real smiles emerge.

Let's take a second and think about... wax.

The most recent Word session was brought to us by the word "wax," an option possibly inspired by the candle that sat close to the pieces of paper. This was what I came up with in that available hour.

A patchwork quilt of my days in Japan

For the last two years, I've used these little collages as a way to quickly chronicle a chapter of my work life. While this says "Hiro" (a.k.a Hiroshima) and some of the images are from elsewhere in Japan, this represents some of my favorite moments this term, the ones I continue to savor even months later.

Kyoto through the lens

I wasn't a part of the planning process for Kyoto, so every day presented new information and surprising activities I gulped up. The highlights included walking through a bamboo forest, watching chunky snowflakes coat the city, and our tea ceremony with a maiko, a geiko (or geisha) in training. I rolled my own sushi for the first time, which was a bucket list item, and I finally visited the orange gates captured in Memoirs of a Geisha.

A patchwork quilt of my Indian days

My third exploration of these Instagram collages is providing some great perspective on our time in India. Instagram images feel like highlights of daily joys, and usually a sum-up post of images from a place is a showcase of your best and most influential moments. Making a little visual quilt of the daily joys seems to weave the kind of fabric that makes sense to my mind and likely memorializes a place akin to how I will mentally.

What is evidence of good travel?

We burn fuel, and sometimes we observe where that takes us,hypothetically hoping it's toward patch-covered nirvana, an open mind Regardless of the "where to" but focusing on the "so what" What is travel, and what is a traveler?

A patchwork quilt of my Boston days

I found this idea while in Buenos Aires and used it to memorialize my little life in the Argentine capital. I tried it out again with the beautiful city and experience of Boston, MA.

Attending my first opening night via the interwebs

Thought it wasn't my first choice to attend virtually, it was my only realistic option, as I was deeply embedded in school on May 1st, the day of the event. But this was a big moment for me, a first exhibition for an art major and with deep significance in location at that. I wanted to be able to absorb these factors viscerally and emerge from the experience enriched and with the sense that I had exhibited work always meant for others' eyes.

Spring Break: the tropical one where I kept saying "What are the chances?"

I booked my ticket to St. Thomas a week prior to going, and one hour after I confirmed my flight, my friend from high school posted a photo of his current view from the same island.

Help me prepare for my first travel photography exhibition

This exhibition entitled "Far, Far Away" is a chance for some people in Wabash, Indiana to see destinations and cultures they otherwise might never see. Additionally, all the images were taken by people who claim Wabash as their hometown, adding a layer of accessibility to the images. The other person sharing the space with me will be showing many images from Antarctica. Just amongst the two of us, our images will span all seven continents!

A little valentine for my dear, sweet Buenos Aires

Not only was this the longest time I've lived in an international city, it also happened to be a culture I fully embraced. Our impending departure pricked me in the last week, drawing up thick sentiment I could only process through creation. What could I make that would facilitate a meditation on a city that showed me a wonderful time?

This is what the last four months in Argentina looked like

Recoleta cemetery, Buenos Aires, sunset, Argentina

On top of having a beautiful apartment in a central location, I lived with an hilarious roommate and part-time caterer with a debilitating case of FOMO. Together, we worked and played in this international city that showed us both its best and worst. It was the setting for incredible discovery at school and major learning moments personally. There are nail marks across our apartment floors and airport terminals where we refused to leave.

A patchwork quilt of my Argentina days

Packing commences soon for the USA. Mental packing happens sooner. I had a little life here in Argentina. It will be remembered a little something like this.

Photoblog: Sundays in Buenos Aires make the whole week

For over a month, I've been sinking my claws into Buenos Aires, Argentina. Within the first two weeks, I found an apartment with a new roommate/co-worker in the beautifully-located barrio called Recoleta. Its coordinates in the city as well as decor and baller terrace(s) cause me to internally chant: I'm not worthy!

Photoblog: a summertime reunion of travel friends in Vermont

One year of teaching in China and two years of Peace Corps in Malawi later, my dear friends from Semester at Sea and I finally reunited. Alexis and I flew to Burlington, Vermont within 20 hours of Garrett's homecoming, and these are the good times we enjoyed. When I'm not at work, I don't want to be continuously documenting my life in high def. That's why I played with Instagram this time around (click on the images to view in lightbox).

Photoblog: a gray day in the Swedish village of Landsort

After the Berlin trimester ended, I flew to Copenhagen to begin a wee Scandinavian tour. The best part of this week was being with friendly residents and visiting their homes. Yes, homes. Not houses, accommodations, hotels, hostels, or dorms. In both Copenhagen and Stockholm, I stayed in city homes and then visited vacation homes by the water. Both cities are impressive and relatively unknown to me, but I valued most those moments where I was experiencing someone's place of hat-hanging. Rarely did I want to venture away.

Kari and Kristian heading to Öja, Sweden

Landsort is a village on the island of Öja an hour south of Stockholm. It marks the southernmost point of the Stockholm archipelago. My new friend Kari took fellow TGS co-worker Andy and his two friends to his vacation home on the island of Öja by way of a flat-bottomed boat. The sky was gray and occasionally spitting, but we enjoyed some walks along the central road (rarely a motor in sight) and up by the lighthouse that gives the village its name.

The southernmost point of the Stockholm archipelago: Landsort

The mostly-pedestrian streets of Landsort on Öja island in Sweden

Kristian, Andy, and Luisa at Kari's house on Öja

To see more travel photography, view my Flickr collections.