Vacation to Happiness

So I spent the summer in Baltimore, which is actually a much cooler city than I ever would have given it credit for without living here. But there were definitely parts of me that suffered from being so separated from the outside world. My three week vacation after the first quarter gave me back all of those parts of myself I had been missing all summer, and will go down as possibly the three most amazing weeks of my life. It started off with a backpacking trip to the Dolly Sods in West Virginia with my friend Amanda.

Couldn't have been a better kick off to the vacation....despite the fact that we got lost....and got all of our food eaten by a bear and had to come out a day early. It was just amazing to sit in the dirt and grass and not worry about sitting on a hypodermic needle.

After we woke up to our ransacked stuff sack and realized we were lost we were a bit disgruntled...

...and then we happened upon this diving board that some fellow hiker was kind enough to construct in the middle of the woods. So we chucked our packs and shoes and took a much needed swim.


After that excursion I turned around and got on a plane to Seattle.....where everything was right in the world for a week :) Here's why:

















That last one was the view from the plane as I was leaving, as if to say "don't forget how much you love it here, we will be right here when you come back."