Favorite Places

Today's Prompt is:

"Describe a favorite place. Focus on how that place affects your sense of taste, touch, sight, sound, or smell."

There are lots of places that I would describe as a favorite place. In fact whenever I go someplace knew I usually love it and think, "THIS is my new favorite place."

Like Canada. When I was maybe 15, we went on a 3 week camping trip in British Columbia on Lake Knouff. Awesome place! And we happened to find it by asking locals about good fishing. It was so beautiful and quiet. I love being in the mountains and it was a perfect place. In fact my family has gone back several times since then. That trip we also went to Glacier National Park (in Canada and the US) Banff National Park in Canada (though we just drove through--it was stormy and no one wanted to camp in the rain again). Then we went to Yellowstone. Another one of my favorite places!  If you haven't gone, GO! I've been a dozen times (a perk to living so close when I was in college), but every time it is AMAZING!

Then I fell in love with Mexico, and Cancun. When I was 18, we stayed in a gorgeous resort that was again a bit off the beaten path and down the coast from down town Cancun. It was beautiful and my favorite part were the excursions to Chichén Itzá and Tulum.

I love Seattle. I visited there with some of my old roommates and I loved it. It was a cleaner version of San Francisco, which I also love.

I love Monterey. It is beautiful. I came to appreciate the beach as some place relaxing. Most of my beach experience has been limited to cold and rainy.

And I love home. I think of all the places, Home is my favorite. Our property was a magical place for us to grow up. We had lots of grand adventures. In fact, once we found a "petrified dinosaur egg" in a rock formation that was next to the "Stairway to Heaven" (Steven named it--obviously after the song). We had Camel Rock, The Jungle Road, the Widow Maker, The Big Rock (which covers a good portion of the property), Indian grinding stones, "ancient ruins" where our great-uncle lived on the property.

There was Mushroom Rock, The giant fig tree (it's bigger than an acre!), there is even a rock grave yard (the rocks were lined up as though they were grave stones), The willow tree that was once dead, but then magically came back to life. We had huge gardens and orchards. We each had our own special spot that was our "fort". Then there was "The Park" that had a BBQ pit, shooting range, and our favorite swimming hole, complete with a beach one year after severe flooding. There were all sorts of real and imagined wildlife. And we had dogs, cats, horses, cows, and wild turkeys. And sometimes mountain lions.

The end of February / Beginning of March is my favorite time of the year there. Everything is green and the Buckeye trees are all green with leaves. And when the fog rolls in, it is magical.

Sounds like the best place in the world, doesn't it? That's because it was. As hard as it was to hike up and down "Heart Attack Hill" multiple times a day, and change the water, and work in the gardens, and pull weeds (2 cents/weed! woohoo!), and round up the cows (awesome!), it was amazingly perfect.

And so I think home is my favorite spot. :)

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Today I'm thankful that we had 50 acres to roam freely as kids. It was spectacularly fantastic.