Back in Oregon. It's been so nice to reconnect with everyone and have Caecelia (my cat) and Tobey (my dog) around again (thanks mom and papa for watching my kids!). I have to admit, although it's been nice to sleep in my nice big bed again and eat fresh food, there is a part of me that is yearning to be back in the mountains, waking up with the chill in the air, and having a day of movement, exploring, and just being ahead of me.

I've posted a "highlights" album from my more than 500 pictures. You can either look at them in the slide show here or click here to go to my Picasa album. I'll be posting all my pictures in another Picasa album if you want to look through everything (a lot of the mountain shots are 360 panoramas).


Warning, political statement ahead: I'm sorry if this offends anyone, but after hearing another snippet of Sarah Palin's speech at the Republican Convention, I need to say something -- and this is what blogs are for, right? Palin has supported and even increased the raping and destruction of the wilds of Alaska in which I found so much beauty, joy, awe, and spirituality. She supports increasing drilling that causes deep scars across the landscape, warms the tundra, and destroys breeding grounds. She has put a bounty on wolves (the excuse is wildlife management for caribou, but there are other, more humane ways to manage wildlife). She has allowed and increased aerial hunting of wolves and bears (tell me, what is the sport in having an airplane fly above an animal that you are shooting with a high caliber rifle?). She says there is no problem with global warming and the polar bears are doing just fine ... yet the first day we were in Anchorage, there was a story about polar bears swimming in the open ocean because they could not find ice. The bears were expected to perish. It was astonishing, even to liberal me, how many people from various social levels mentioned the fact that, even with the cool summer they'd had, Alaska in general is getting warmer and there is a lot less snow and ice than there was before -- and they attributed it to global warming. I don't understand how someone who claims to believe in God can consciously cause so much destruction to what is supposed to be God's creation like she has.

Please support Obama and Biden.