The birds have been waiting for me all damn year

swim into the morning,
then, a trucker's breakfast.

Mountain Dew,
M&M Pancakes.

go to bed with wet hair,
wake up tired.

How to escape to a place where life can be seen from a safe distance:

All summer long, the hills called our name. And so, before the weeks had their chance to blend into autumn, the four of us packed up a car and made a swift, clean morning exit from the city.

The roads rolled north and the window view turned green as we climbed into a place with few other cars, no electricity, no cell phone reception. Behind us were our cluttered inboxes, unchecked voicemails, and the notes explaining our where-abouts that we forgot to leave.

What lay ahead was four days of water bound mystery, several campfires, and more silence and darkness than we had had in months. Below is a short documentation of that adventure.

First, we ate a feast for us, the new kings of the forest.

Then we brushed our teeth,

to get rid of that after-smoke smell.

Dirty feet didn't matter where we were.

And every tree presented a new possibility.

There seemed to be magic in the vegetation.

This, we discovered, is where the wild things are.

Alex examined nature up close.

Real close.

I joined Team Zissou.

We had a sunset rubdown.

And I trained for an eventual escape into the wild.

Summer's up. Float on.