Still Trippin'

... down memory lane, that is. And let me tell you -- the things I'm finding are starting to boggle the mind.

Take, for instance, this picture.

Why exactly am I hitting on Calvin Coolidge? And where did that shirt go? I'm pretty sure it's the only vibrant orange shirt I've owned since I was five and I have no idea where it is now. [How do you lose something that color?] The strange thing is that it keeps turning up in pictures. Like this one, which I know for a fact was taken the year after Cal and I had our little interlude.

Still orange. Still vibrant.

On an unrelated note, I haven't been able to have Pippi Longstocking braids like that in two years now. I kind of miss it ... Kind of.

As you may have noticed, the hill behind me in that lovely we-were-here shot is steaming. Taken during the family trip to Yellowstone and the Tetons in 2005. Where I took a few more pretty awesome pictures ... Like this.

[Is that Mt. Moran? Why can't I remember?]

About an hour later I took this one, as those ominous clouds from the first shot were receding. To this day this is one of my favorite pictures I've ever taken.

In between those two it looked like this. (Yes. We got wet.)

And a day or two later I took this one. Shorty and Mia Sorella were scaring the pants off our mother, who has a thing with heights ...

I can't say as I blame her. I have a love-hate relationship with heights myself ... Sometimes I love them, like when I'm at the top of a rollercoaster. But sometimes I can't bring myself to cross a rickety-looking bridge or look down from perfectly intact scaffolding. I think it's a matter of whether or not I'm securely fastened to something.

Even though I still want to go skydiving this summer.

Hmm.

Now, this one is harder to explain. I met this awesome chick about a month before those last five pictures were taken, but this is from the following year in Sioux Falls when she came to visit. This is my lovely Russian friend Anya, and it's her one-year anniversary with her awesome husband Nate on Sunday! (Which is where I was heading a year ago right now. Told you it was harder to explain.)

Now, this last one ... This last one I probably shouldn't include, because if he ever sees it he might ask me to take it down. But then again I'm not too afraid of him ever reading this.

You don't mind, do you, sir?

Well, the rest of you might. It's a little disturbing.

But it's up there in the memory banks, just like all those other pictures.

Don't look if you don't want.

And don't say I didn't warn you.

You know, I don't think I've ever really been friends with normal people.