Have you ever wondered why the places we travel to often seem more amazing and beautiful than the places we live? I know that I fall into this category each time I hit the road. As I was cleaning up in the kitchen this week I glanced up.

Across the top of our cabinets are rows of outdoor pictures, antlers, old ammo boxes, and a myriad of other woodsy stuff. One particular memory caught my attention. It was a photo of my dad and I standing together and we were holding a stringer of fish. The setting was the Northwoods.

The colors danced from the photo in an array of vivid blues and rich greens. The conifers bristled across ridge tops like a hedgehog on full alert. The closer I looked into the photo I could see brilliant gems of water dripping from the fish and landing back into the cool surface of Birch Lake.