Visiting home can be awesome. Running into old friends, seeing what all has changed since you’ve been gone, hanging out with family, having Pal’s for lunch (or breakfast or dinner or all three, I’m not judging). Often times those visits can wear you out – family fights over you, you spend your vacation time running around, you eat way more junk food and drink more beer than you know you should, and it rarely takes very long before you’re reminded why you’re happy you moved away in the first place. All of these things happened this past week when I played in Kingsport for a few days while on PTO.
My folks are great entertainers and I got to spend a lot of time with them both – shopping, eating, drinking, chatting. I got to spend a full day shopping with my mom and my step dad grilled lovely chicken and veggie kabobs on my last day with them. I had Pal’s cheddar rounds for breakfast one morning and a Big Pal with Cheese for lunch the next day. I’d call it a success!
But a success for more than just that. I’ve been meaning to walk around and shoot the streets, signs and art that make up the rustic, small and stinky downtown Kingsport, TN. Each time other “stuff” comes up and I miss out on it but not this time around. I dragged my folks around with me while I checked out some of the scenes that make me proud of where I come from even if I don’t always like to admit it.
Some select photos below but, as always, check out the full set on Flickr. These were all shot with my kit lens with 0.43x super macro wide-angle lens attachment.
I’ll go ahead and also acknowledge that I’ve officially changed the name (and URL) of this blog from Mr. Simpson’s Blog to a more anonymous “Beard Hair in My Coffee”. I think it’s cool and is an accurate description of a moment of my life nearly every day. Beard hair in my coffee – in my water – on my shirt – on the sink – you get the idea. Now it’s in my blog. Deal with it.
Beard Hair In My Coffee 5.0 