Dark Nest Travels : In Between, Settling and --- 1994

Everyone starts somewhere, so I'm going to, once again, take a trip down the path of the past. Maria and I started out in a stuffy one bedroom apartment. It was on a hill in a small city. Across the street there was blue water and occasional freighters would rattle the windows, as they floated along in the river. It was beautiful, but we, and our belongings, were outgrowing it, along with our cat Scrumpy, yes you read it right. He was a terror and the small confines of an apartment didn't suit him, cats will be cats, they own the world. Our apartment was bursting at the seams to get us out. Maria got the idea that maybe we needed to get a house. This was in February, 1994.

Here's a picture of Scrumpy.

It was winter, a soft one, if memory serves me right. We began our house hunting. There were so many houses to choose from, there was so much to look for, our pre-approval, which should have been meek, was ridiculous, which, thank goodness,we didn't drink that kool-aid, we stayed within our budget. We continued to look for a house that was within what realization and a hearty sense of reality could afford and we put in an offer on our future home. It was accepted, and come that April we were closing the deal, and became homeowners. Here's a couple shots of our corner lot, in the city, nice fenced in yard, garage, shed, and a beautifully landscaped lawn. Three bedrooms, just in case our family expanded (and God did it expand), a bath, and a den/study for this procrastinating author.

We were content, but really, just a cat and us? We decided to get a dog and journeyed to a Humane Society down river. We saw him, his reddish fur, his tore up long hound ears, bitten by his siblings, his big paws. He was adorable, and needed us, or more so, we needed him. We took him home, he barely fit on the passenger floor of our Ford Escort, and let out a lonely howl, we were in love. Believe it or not Scrumpy fell in love too, he seemed to calm down after the move into larger territory. The picture's a bit blurry, I must have taken it, Maria was the one back then with the eye to shoot a great picture, I wasn't.

So it all began, our house, our family, and us, we were so happy, and our hound, which we named Barney, who was the size of a Beagle as a puppy, grew into an almost hundred pound dog, but he was awesome, and Scrumpy, who was a terror, became a great and loyal friend to Barney. I remember when the sunlight used to stream in through my den's window, Scrumpy would curl up to our big skinny Barney and they would sleep next to each other for hours, content with the sunshine.

I'm going to end this post here. I have travels to talk about from 1994, but digging through these old photos and remembering how our beginnings were, is a bit emotional and necessary to write. Thinking about the pets we've lost, that were there from the beginning, and the memories we created with them when they were with us, brings tears to my eyes. It brings back a slight sense of sadness, a happy sadness, because they gave so much to us, more than we ever could give to them in return.