Belly of the Whale

This year has been a busy one and not one where I have successfully kept up with my journal.

My apologies.

This shortfall will likely not be remedied in the next two months. I have packed up and moved out. I have said my good byes and tomorrow I shall start my drive (2500 miles) to Alaska. The trip is a vacation, but also a dream—I have never been and have always dreamt of Alaska, a sort of logical (or ideological) extension of Montana.
Also Jamie Blythe now lives there and we always have to spend a bit of time together. She has a little time off so that we can go and peruse among the mountains and have good talks. This is likely the closest I will be to AK for a while.

After AK I am heading back to South Carolina. I am going to spend some time with Dad and the family. I am going to make use of the library, work with Palmetto Ut. or with Dibble, and maybe take a class or two at the University. The goal is to get my stuff in storage, spend some time with family, make money, save money, work on my writing, research ideas and opportunities, and make a plan.
By the time I am thirty I want to have a little money and a good idea and plan for my future. Sailing and climbing will have to wait or be fitted in free time in North Carolina and Charleston. Now I need to learn how to make travel viable and sustainable, which is no easy task. At some point I would hope to be able to write—but not now, not for a while.
It seems I have graduated but still have quite a bit to learn. And I am really excited about it. But for now I am taking a break (though not really). I want Jamie to teach me about big mountains. See the movie “Touching the Void”—it is a phenomenal movie that is frighteningly human and mortal in it focus.


So I hope everyone is well. Sorry I have been so out of touch. Perhaps in the fall I will be much more active. Moving to South Carolina is scary—a move away from so many, but also toward many others. I don’t know what I will make of life without mountains for perspective and with the intense southern heat. The south isn’t an easy place fore me to live, but I am excited about the choice I’ve made: I have more opportunity than I can seemingly make good on.