Photo 101: Home

When I first moved to North Carolina, I didn’t have a place to live lined up. I figured I’d camp out at a park for a few days until I found one. Lucky for me, NC has approximately a bazillion state parks, and I found one nearby with a campground.

A few days turned into two weeks, during which it rained the ENTIRE TIME and I got more and more frustrated as various possibilities fell through. At one point, I posted this extremely green photo on Instagram and Facebook:

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Home sweet home…

A post shared by Bethany Harvey (@bethanyaharvey) on

My concerned friends back in Florida replied that they hoped this was just a temporary situation. It did turn out to be temporary, and a friend who lived in the area called some of her friends, and they offered me a place to stay for a couple of days. Then I finally managed to find someone with a room to rent who didn’t sound creepy and didn’t think I sounded creepy. And after a year of that, I moved into a little house all by myself, and I still live there.

So, this photo? This is not home. This is just the spot where I was camping this weekend. For fun. And it didn’t even rain!

tent

Published by

Ethan Harvey

You can find my games at https://ethanharvey.itch.io, and I occasionally blog about under-appreciated wildlife at OverlookedNature.com.

11 thoughts on “Photo 101: Home”

  1. Hello to a Blogger’s World member. I have set a goal to visit all the BW members so here I am with you tonight. Enjoyed your article about home. I saw that you were inviting people from other places to contribute something about their homes. That was a nice thing to do. Did it work out yet? I’m clicking your follow so I can keep up with you.

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    1. Hi! That’s an ambitious goal. How many people are on BW? A lot, I’m sure. The guest posts worked out well! They filled in for a few weeks when I didn’t have time to write anything. I’ll try it again next time I know I’ll have no time a month or two in advance.

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      1. I believe there are about 135 members in BW. I have visited about half. If I can do so I go in and read and comment. Quite a few are inactive; I still leave a follow so I can catch them if they come back on. Nice chatting with you. Since I marked follow, I will see you.

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  2. Wow your story is incredible! I’ve never even considered camping as an alternate option while being temporarily homeless. It’s amazing that you were able to do that and I’m glad things worked out in the end!

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    1. I’d been using state parks as a cheaper alternative to hotels on road trips, so it seemed like the easiest thing to do. (And I wanted to save money, knowing I’d need a security deposit.) I did not plan on staying for two weeks in bad weather, though.

      I had a work-from-home job at the time, so I’d go to the public library to work during the day — I appreciated the roof and the free wifi. It was a while before I went back actually looking for books!

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    1. True. Although car camping (where you can park near your campsite instead of carrying all your gear on your back) isn’t that hard, especially if the campground has a water source. This site was a mile from the parking lot and had no water, so it was a bit more work. It was kind of a practice run for me — I’m planning a week-long backpacking trip this year, and I wanted to test out my backpack, tent, sleeping bag, etc. and see how heavy it would be carrying everything. (It wasn’t that bad, but I don’t think I’m ready to hike 20 miles a day without some training.)

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      1. Whoa! Quite some hiking. I do hike with not more than 15-18 km a day, of course with major altitude gain. btw why is your blog named overlooked nature?

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        1. That’s quite a bit, especially in steep terrain.

          The original plan for the blog was to post a photo and a short article on a plant or animal every week, mostly animals people don’t know much about because they only come out at night, or live underground, or are tiny or well camouflaged. Like, “this animal might live right in your backyard, but you might never have noticed it”. It’s become a little less focused, but I still try to do those posts once in a while.

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