From glorious mountains with serene waterfalls and light, fresh air, to the sticky humid jungles of South American, to murky underwater slime while SCUBA diving I’ve experience a large range of environments including a few man-made wonders.

Some places touch me, change my perspective of what life is or was like in the past.

One of the most influential locations I experienced was during a fall week-end while helping a farmer many miles from Devils Lake ND. The school accountant (week-end farmer) had rented several abandoned farmsteads and we were traveling on what was little more then ruts on a damp path that quickly transition to dry and very steep hill. When we reached the top, the world changed as a long ago abandoned farmhouse stood. When I entered the structure, an intense sense of loneliness and loss was almost overcoming as I envisioned a single person living completely isolated form others. The structure was in the shape of an L with a small wooden platform where the two rooms intersected. The larger of the two rooms was the kitchen, It had a wood-burning stove and a wash basin. It measured less then eight by less then ten feet The only other room measure measured just under six feet by eight feet. A wooden ladder nailed into the wall of the kitchen allowed you to enter the attic above the two rooms. In the second floor, the average height of the steep slanted roof was only a few feet. Just enough room for a sleeping bag above each room. As winter in Devils Lake is absolutely cruel, I am guessing this, to avoid freezing, is where the farmer slept above the stove. The only other hint of civilization was a barn located a few hundred feet from the homestead. Even with a 4x4, this this farmstead was very difficult place to reach, and once there, aside from the sound of a huge number of birds that lived in a dead tree at the edge of a huge pond, there was no hint of life. Although perhaps not accurate, it was easy to imagine what life would have been like living in that house.

What places have touched you?