Where I feel at home

I shot this photo while visiting my husband's parents a few months ago.  They live in Idaho.  

Ah, Idaho.

Their home is surrounded by farms.  The air is clear.  There is actually silence, and you can look down the street and see no one. 

And yet you know there are people there. 

People in their homes, cooking.

People outside working.

People in the heat of summer, and people in the icy wind of winter.

Not only is my husband from Idaho, but most of my relatives originate from there as well.  I think that this might be one of the reasons I am so smitten with it.

I believe people are like trees.

They have roots, real roots.  Roots that you cannot see.

You may try to pry them from the ground and plant them somewhere else, but those roots will always remember where they came from.  

They'll remember the taste of the soil and the scent of the air.

They will always remember home.

...now that I got that poetic-ness over, I'd like to show you the other place I love.

These are the mountains behind my home here in northern Utah.  My husband and I just moved back here after spending two years of school in northern Virginia.  Ah Virginia.  So perfectly warm and humid that you actually have to cut trees down so that you can build a house.  It is just so green there.  Truly beautiful.  And yet I always felt slightly out of place.  

I think it's because I am originally from a desert.  Utah is a desert, with cold nights and scorching days (at least during the summer).  I won't ever forget the first night I walked home just before midnight from my restaurant job in Virginia.  I was expecting to walk out into the night and be cooled off.  It was still just as hot during the night as it was during the day!  I was surprised.  

We recently biked halfway up the mountain in this photo and looked out over the valley.  I have to admit that if you were not from here this place not be very appealing to you.  There is a salty lake across the valley, and the only inhabited areas are the strip between the Great Salt Lake and the mountains.  It's like a long thin civilized desert.  Lots of grays and browns.

I love it.

Just something I was thinking about.  I love that we can go anywhere and live anywhere, but we can always choose where our heart feels most at home.

Where are you from?  What do you love?