Leaving Home

Saturday night I lay down with the window above the bed open.  The night was cool and I listened to the sound of the leaves falling off the trees gently hitting the ground.  My little cabin on the top of Dewey Hollow felt cozy and safe.  On the ridge, on the opposite side of the hollow, I heard dogs barking.  Their yelps and bays grew louder as they climbed further up the hollow.  They were coon hounds from the sound of them. Soon I heard them barking loudly then the inevitable shot as the coon was treed and brought to the ground.  My neighbors from down in the valley were enjoying a fall Saturday night coon hunt.    It's the start of the hunting seasons in Pennsylvania.  The night before I  had ran into some friends and told them I was leaving.  They were disappointed I was going to miss bear season with them but excited for me.  Saturday night, it all made me think of what I was giving up to try a new adventure.  I have never lived far from the cabin on Armenia Mountain.  The only constant home I've ever known.  I'm going to miss my friends, family and this old mountain that I know so well.  They all mean so much to me.  Tomorrow I start my journey across the country to the west coast. Then up the Alaskan Highway through Canada and the Yukon Territory into Alaska.  Living in Anchorage will be an adjustment. I'm excited for the chance to work in Alaska and explore it with my camera in hand.  The pictures and possibilities are endless.  This thought keeps me going as I step away from the world I've always known into the unknown.  I would say "into the wild" but this rings too much like the misadventure of Chris McCandless and his well documented demise in the Alaskan wilderness.  I'm praying that my adventure will end much more positively than his.  I know it will.