The last 3 years have lead to us to be very sedentary. We didn't have a car, and the city doesn't really inspire me. It's no secret that I'm most at peace in nature, preferably where there's few, if any, people within miles. Unfortunately, 3 years of sitting isn't kind to the body, and I gained a lot of weight.

A couple months ago I decided to see if I'd prequalify for a car loan at a local used car place. My intention was just to drop off the appropriate paperwork and wait to be denied (so I'm cynical, :/). What ended up happening was I was approved on the spot, we picked out a car, and made the down payment. A couple days later and we were in a 2001 Oldsmobile Intrigue. It's a small car, but I like it. It's much better on gas mileage than the Durango I had a few years ago.

Since we picked up the car we've driven thousands of miles. Sometimes we're just roaming, and we always seem to find something interesting to do when we're in wander mode. For example, we ended up at the Hubbardton Battlefield in Vermont by just wandering. A very peaceful place despite the fact that many people had died there in the past.

More importantly, having the car allowed trips north into the Adirondacks, where both rayne and I rediscovered our love of hiking. We decided to try our first backcountry hiking in the Hoffman Notch Wilderness Are in Schroon Lake, NY. We hiked in and enjoyed some time by the pond with a nice big fire and just relaxed. Getting out almost sucked, as we couldn't find the trail. We were never in any danger, and we had supplies to spend the night, but it was getting dark as we were trying to pick up the trail again.

Fast forward a monthor two  and we've walked or hiked nearly every day, mostly close to home, but we've been down to the Catskills and up into the Adirondacks a couple of times. In August alone we walked and hiked 60 miles. That's a lot for us!

Being back in the Adirondacks has made me want to do much more hiking. In fact, I would love to bag our first of the 46 high peaks. That's one of my new long term goals, becoming an Adirondack 46er. To that end, we just recently purchased an Elliptical to supplement our walking. My core muscles got so weak in those 3 years, but I'm happy to say there's already been a huge improvement (went from 306 lbs on 7/29 to 289 on 9/4!).

All of this means having inspiration for photography. Lately I've been stuck on panoramas. I like the fact that you can see so much detail.

I'm really happy that we've had such a full summer, and I'm looking forward to fall and winter this year for the first time in a long time. This fall we're planning a number of back country hikes in the Adirondacks, including our first night of back country camping. We'll spend some time in Vermont as the trees change color as well, and of course we'll fit in some geocaching.

This winter I hope we've made enough progress to try snow shoeing and cross country skiing for the first time. We don't normally do anything in the snow, and I'm really looking forward to trying this.

So that's the update, and I hope to have a lot more photography and Vue Esprit renders to post soon. That's the problem with being so busy; it's hard to find time for anything else!