This week’s prompt page from The Daily Post says this about monuments: “They insist on their own importance, but at the same time allow locals and tourists, pilgrims and accidental visitors, to share a moment and to get a taste of each other’s stories.”  The same can be said of the photographs we take and treasure and post.  They are monuments of our journey, where we’ve been, what we’ve seen, the stories we’ve told and heard.  So, I’d like to share some monuments from my journey on Friday.  Steve and I are trying to take a weekly field trip out into the more rural areas of Wisconsin.  We are researching a new life, a new home, a new way of embodying what we value: simple, honest work in a lifestyle that respects the planet and is less dependent on human systems.  We drove up into the North Country, beyond the oak savannas of southeastern Wisconsin, through the Driftless Area (unglaciated during the most recent glacial event) with its windswept sandstone outcroppings, and into the cranberry bogs and pine forests of Ho-Chunk land.  The monumental feeling of this expedition is built of adventure, re-connection with the Earth, the joy of being alive, and the peace of being open to whatever we encounter.