Staycation

by Jon Sullivan - 2022-11-09 - Jonism

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Irregardless of the whining in my last post, living in Oregon is like being on vacation for me. So many adventures, so many photos.

I just took a four day weekend to explore and take photos. Nothing special really, just tangibly taking the first big step on this new journey towards "best life". I'm purposefully not trying to define what my best life is or isn't. I'm mostly just letting my photo hobby lead me where it will. I've said it many times, but one of the main reasons I love photography is that it takes me places I'd never go otherwise. It's always taking me somewhere new. Somewhere beautiful. And it forces me to look very closely for beauty everywhere. And that's what my weekend was. Four days of beauty.

That's been the plan for close to three years now. But it was a bit of a crazy plan and even to me it sounded naive and risky. Would I hate the cold and the wet? Would buying a new expensive car turn out to be a financial waste? Would I even be able to break out of being a hermit? What about the crime and the homelessness? What about the lack of culture? Is something as narrow as photography enough to lead to "best life".

That's all in the past. It's no longer a dream. It's happening.

Jon is happy. I had so much fun the last few days. One of the odd things that brought me joy was noting the hundreds of great photo compositions I was driving past to get to the adventures I'd picked out. I'll never run out of stuff here. I kept seeing agricultural stuff I needed to go back and get. An old farmhouse with chimney smoke drifting up, foggy mountains in the background, sheep grazing in the foreground, an old barn off to the side, rolling dramatic clouds over it all. Now multiply that by 100. And then again by 4 for the seasons.

It was everywhere I went. The McKenzie river is going to eat up months of time. Hiking around the forest floor looking for frogs and mushrooms and interesting decay will be a regular outing. More than once I stopped at the coast and wanted to just camp there for days trying to get perfect wave photos. And.... of course.... I will. That's the plan. So much beauty and wonder.

The most joy came from just having it done for real. The good parts and the bad parts. I CAN do this. I am DOING this. All the hard work and expense have paid off. Right now I feel like I'm living my best life. Finally. And there will be photos. I will show you.

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