Ticksourri (a little kickback I found on my phone from May)

That's what I'm going to call this place. This place is Bennett springs Missouri and this is the first time in my life I've ever looked down at my legs, seen so many baby ticks that I just decided to let them be until I had completed the remaining 7 miles of my 8 mile hike. Yes, that means I was 1 mile into a 4 mile deep hike when I counted literally dozens of ticks on my shoes, ankles and legs and decided I had gone too far to turn back now. How many miles is 7 miles in tick miles? I don't know but those little bastards baffle me. How do they end up on my legs like 3 feet high when the grass is 2 fuckin inches tall?
Anyways, despite the tick fest, this place is exactly what I need right now. I think I am finally starting to feel how everyone (I'm guessing by people's questions about my tour) have thought I must have felt the whole time. For lack of better words, that is, alone. The first leg of my tour as I explained to questioners did not really feel like I'm on some big journey by myself. There was seriously not a single place that I did not know people. Leg 1 shall be called Alexa's visiting old friends and making new ones tour 2014. And the first show in Oklahoma, although I didn't know anyone, was just a precedent to the Tulsa show with a Maui friend reunion! But after a really fun week with an old friend who is now a better friend I really am alone. I am alone now, I will be seeing an old Maui roommate for a few days next week then I don't know when or where I will see anyone that I know again. It's sort of exciting/scary/etc. but it is what is it is and I am what I am, and that's alone.
So that hit me.  And I am feeling a bit of anxiety about being in a huge city for 5 straight weeks so a few days in a state park is a perfect balance.

Hiking in nature is my religion. Trail running is my prayer. I'm running on a beautiful mowed grass path, everything is so green. I hear rustling in the woods surrounding me. I see deer. I see deer again. I love deer. I love animals. And apparently I don't even really hate parasites that much. I'll get them off later :)  as I'm running through the trees, they feel like a tunnel over me. This smells like Costa Rica. The power of smell is supposedly has the strongest link to memory of all the senses and I do not doubt it. I legitimately feel like I am there. Like I'm just running up the path back to mark and Wendy's finca. It feels so comfortable. Like I'm going home. It also feels like Huelo in Maui. It must be the temperature (perfect) and the humidity that's reminding me of these places. That must be what I smell because none of the plants can be the same. I feel like I could just turn a corner and be at the huge outdoor kitchen greeted by a dozen cool 20 something's who are also escaping their lives for a few months to hang out on a farm on Maui's north shore. I miss that. I miss those people because right now, I am alone.
Running through the tall grass/weeds/whatever. They sort of look like they're vibrating. I wish I had my go pro and was filming it, but the way they are moving, or look like they're moving in my mind is reminiscent of a mushroom trip. And the wild flowers everywhere make me feel like I'm spinning and frolicking in a fucking prairie. I am still just in Missouri and I feel like I've been around the world. I'm actually high on nature. Stress doesn't exist, art shows don't exist, just here and now, with my dog in the woods. Being tick taxis.
The temperature has just changed. It dropped that one degree, that one critical degree between really wanting to jump in the cold spring and  preferring a hot shower.  Well, spring it will have to be so better hurry back.
The sky is pink now, a really epic color of pastel pink. Soft, gentle. As we turn the final corner, through the trees, I can see my Rv. Home. I am home. I am home here, I am home now. This is exactly where I need to be and exactly where I am.