Home Sweet Home...

What Does Home Mean to You?

An interesting question, with many different answers depending on who you ask and when. To me, home means wherever I'm most comfortable. Of course I find home in my family and whenever I'm with them but when I think of myself as an individual, I always look to the mountains. Not just any mountains, but the mountains of the Olympic Peninsula... There's something incredibly unique and endearing about them. The air is pure, the forest is dense, and the sense of loneliness is overwhelming at times. It all comes together to create a powerful force that tugs at my soul all year long.

This place in particular I've been to many times over the past decade and is the one spot I don't mind making the grueling slog up to year after year... After eight and a half seemingly endless miles with a dizzying ascent for the last two, you end up in a lonely basin with towering mountains on all sides and at the bottom of the basin lies a small tarn filled with the bluest water this side of Banff.

If someone asked me "What does home mean to you?", the first thing that would come to my mind would be this place... And then I'd struggle to find the accurate words to describe it. How do you describe complex feelings and emotions you associate with a place, let alone trying to describe the smells, sights, and sounds?

It sounds silly but I take a lot of comfort in the pain that it takes to get to these places, it makes me feel human, all of the aches and blisters... A subtle, or not so subtle, reminder that I'm on this earth for a short time and I better make damn sure I experience it to the fullest. I end today's post with some photos of what I consider to be home and a simple questions for you all... What does home mean to you?