This may not be my best technical photograph, but it does what photos are supposed to do - it makes me feel something.
One evening, while I was down in Florida, I was talking to Carmen and I mentioned that I was kind of sad that I was probably going to miss the mountain laurels blooming this year.
You see, I became conscious - aware - of how much I enjoyed seeing these in the mountains a few years ago. I can remember them as a kid - and I didn't really pay any attention to how fleeting they really were, just that they were pretty, and showed up every year. A beauty of the early summer.
This year, it looked like I was going to miss them completely. They were budding out, but not open, in the low country, which is usually a couple of weeks ahead of the mountains - and I was going to be gone for nearly a month. I was surprised by how sad this made me, realizing that something that happens once a year wasn't going to happen for me.
Once I came back to West Virginia, I returned to parents home, near Richwood, and got to spend time with my folks, debriefing everything that happened down in Florida. On Sunday, Carmen and I decided to head home "the back way", up over Scenic Highway. It was a beautiful, white-puffy-clouds day up there. And there, on top of the mountain, in a place that I would have described as one of my favorite spots growing up, was a sea of blooming mountain laurel.
It felt like home had held on just a little longer, just for me.
When people ask why I love this place, it's things like this.
Hope folks have a great weekend!
Mountain Laurels In Bloom - West Virginia