Sidetracked Charley

Some decades ago I applied for a job working on an island. A small island.  One with only a couple miles of road. No car needed.  The company provided golf carts. And evidently boats for diving trips just off shore. I had just gotten my open water diving certification and it seemed ideal. Then someone raised the specter of island fever. I had been snowed in most of a winter in a Colorado ski resort and certainly understood cabin fever but don't we all want to be stranded on an island? Besides I would have thirty days twice a year to go back to the mainland USA. And in a moment of stark awareness I realized I would probably spend every single minute of those 60 days driving. Driving has been my way of escape since I was 16. No destination necessary. Just hop in the car and drive. I may have even fallen in love with photography because a camera in the passenger seat gave me an excuse to just drive.  But it doesn't take an island or a snow storm to close you into feeling

Yes, this photograph was taken in Utah. I could live in Utah. Looks like a nice little fixer upper with room for expansion. And Trump seems to be in favor of selling parts of our public lands off. Alaska, my sister and I agreed this morning, has entirely too much winter but climate change could alter that. The perma frost is melting. But it brings up why people choose to live in Alaska with all that winter. It has wonderful scenery and you can raise huge cabbages in just 45 days of "summer." And a traffic jam is a moose on your major route to work. I visited Alaska with a USO tour in August in some year in the 1970's. Could have been '76? Admittedly it was hard to get me out of the parka the government provided, but locals said you adapted. So why Alaska? Or Utah? The people. Or the lack of people. And the people that are there are different than you find in big cities. And both have better tourists. What is a better tourist? One that doesn't tell you how