At last — in case anyone cares — here is documentation of my trip to West Virginia: eight days of hiking hiking hiking condensed into a six-minute slideshow featuring an appropriately bluegrassy soundtrack. All the photos were taken on Dad’s farm, except when I accidentally wandered off by following the wrong ridge. On my connection the slideshow takes a couple minutes to load, unfortunately. Once it’s ready for you, a little “play” triangle will appear in the lower left corner of the movie screen.
Next, below is a little time-lapse photo thing I put together, also with a lovely little soundtrack. If you try to load this at the same time you load the thing above, your system will choke. I took the photos from the deck of our house. Dad built that thar snake fence years ago:
[flashvideo filename=wp-content/video/sunset.flv image=wp-content/video/sunset.jpg /]
And here are a few stills. This is my still-beautiful, nearly-80-year-old mother who gave birth to three odd-looking children:
Here is a picture Molly took of me visiting my father in Lewisburg:
And here is a picture Lulu took of me as I snoozed on the flight home. I found it by accident on her photo blog. I should sue her:
So, what _is_ the soundtrack behind the snake wall? It has a timeless quality. If you played it on a lute, you could easily imagine it Elizabethan.
West VA does look rather beautiful, GA. CA is _so_ brown in summer, and has a lot more yellow in its greens, even in winter. Much more blue in an Eastern green, and there is something very comforting in that.
— R, who grew up within a stone’s throw of Lake Ontario, and who is inclined, with advancing years, to forget some of the more appalling aspects of the climate there.
The song excerpt in the background of the sunset thingie is Trail of Tears (my kind of song title) by Tony Ellis, one of my fave banjo players. He does beautiful stuff. And the background for the slideshow is Jerry Douglas, We Hide and Seek.
See you soon, I hope? I’m counting down to my Big Departure. You wanna know where I want to go next? You know that river rafting trip in Chile I’ve been wanting to go on for years? It’s at auction again, closing tomorrow morning. MAN do I want it. Go here — http://www.yubaauction.org/auction.htm — and check out Item 111.
…….odd looking perhaps, except for the youngest child, who has a haunting beauty.
A haunting and even a pale beauty.
Thank God (or whomever?!) for your photos.
I’ve never been able to find the cemetary.
The one time I think I might’ve maybe gotten close I panicked-you know, the mama mountain lion and all…
Some country girl, huh?