The other NY

My family and I are lucky to live in Seattle, but we're originally from rural NY. Even after ten years of living in the Pacific Northwest, NY is still home.

Each summer my mother and father-in-law and my wife and our two kids hop in a flying tin can and head to the Adirondack mountains. We spend some time up here on a nice lake (The Great Sacandaga), and then we head down to the southern part of the state to visit my side of the family. One of the things I like most about coming back here each summer is what you see in the picture above - space.

With that space we do things like fish and swim and Jet Ski and get muddy on things with motors and wheels and tires that crash through the woods. That's our son up there, and right after I snapped the picture his head exploded because he was so happy. I can't think of anything better than being nine years old on a four wheeler or dirt bike with a full tank of gas. Not sex, not great food, not a sandy beach, not nuthin'.

Mom had these wizards up on a shelf in the utility closet. I completely forgot about them from when I was a kid in the 80's, but man, they took me back.

Happiness is a stocked pond.

Weirdness is whatever this is. If I took pictures of all of the crazy stuff like this we've seen over the past few weeks, you'd think I grew up in West Virginia. Not that there's probably much difference, really.