My place in the world

I'm going to do something I haven't done much of... post some pictures.

I added sitemeter a while ago, so I could see if anyone is reading this. Didn't realize I would also find out how many different places people come from to get here.

Since I started keeping a list, there have been visitors from 62 distinct US cities, 29 different states, and 14 foreign countries. And these are only the ones that sitemeter can identify the location for- which isn't even half.

It's very interesting.
I wish I could go to all the places people come here from.
Sadly, I can't.

But I can show you a little of what it looks like here where I am. I happen to live, I think, in one of the most beautiful places there is.

These pictures were taken in early October, about a week before peak leaf color.

I walked outside after teaching a class on a Sunday afternoon, and after putting gear away in my car, I looked up and this is what I saw on a rare sunny day. This is taken from almost exactly in front of my parked car. A week or two later, that hillside would be even more colorful. In the winter, this part of the lake freezes over, and inevitably people walk out onto it. I've done so, years ago. The year I got my first camera for Christmas, we went to the lake, and I walked out on the ice and took a picture back towards the shore.




This was taken on my way home, from about two miles up the hill to the East. I usually drive a sightly different way home, coming over the hill a bit to the North of this, but I like the view coming this way. It's about a mile or two longer to get home, but worth it.


About a mile closer, coming down the hill. That part you can sort of see, between the hill I'm driving down, and the one on the other side, that altiplano area... that's the town I live in, in all its glory. And this is what the sky usually looks like.

Now, on the way home, a mile away, from the other direction. The previous picture was taken coming down the hill you can see in the distance, on a road almost directly across from this. Almost, but not quite- they are offset a few feet because a creek crosses the main road there, and there is a little bridge between the roads to the East and West.

Almost home! People who live here might be able to tell just how close. Or not- roads that look like this are very common. I kind of like the "artistic" blurriness in this one... I was driving, and took it through the windshield, the view I see.

One more.

This is one of my favorite little spots. It's on the way down the back side of the hill, and ends up at about the city limits, the end of the "miracle mile," heading into town. That would be the nearest city/town, not the town I actually live in. We don't have a miracle mile. We don't have a miracle FOOT. We don't have stores at all. No fast food, no gas station, no nothing.

I like it that way.

There's a guy who wants to change that soon, and put a gas station about a quarter mile from my house. As convenient as it might be in some ways, I hope he doesn't.