I've been looking at the photos Lynette took in Washington. It's easy to forget how beautiful it is there, especially when the pictures are taken on clear, sunny days. I'm surprised that they don't make me want to go back (understand, I do want to visit, but for my family not the geography).

It does make me long for beauty, though. For the most part, I'm an indoor, climate-controled kind of person. I don't even go barefoot in house. Nonetheless, the awe-inspiring sight of nature unfettered is about the only way to truly lose oneself to the embrace of God.

Florida has it's sights. The beaches, the Everglades, many and huge lakes, but it's all from the same flat vantage point. I loved the different flora when I moved here, and still do (call me silly, but looking down at Bahama waters from the deck of a cruiseship is the best of both worlds), but the sight of and from mountains is hard to top. There is a brooding, contemplative nature to forested hills and snowtopped peaks that Southerners can't enjoy.

So why the South is the Bible Belt and the North is the most atheistic part of the country, if not the world, I'll never understand. Microsoft, Boeing, Warehouser are all surrounded by forests; the technical world cozy with the natural world (which is, I think, the supernatural world). Yet the wealthy of the Northwest encourages a man-centered lifeview. Incredible.