2023 North Carolina

In the fall of 2023, Lisa and I traveled to North Carolina to visit the Biltmore Estate and drive through the Blue Ridge Mountains at peak color. The mountains were anything but blue. They were ablaze. Layer upon layer of gold, rust, crimson, and deep green rolled toward the horizon, a landscape that felt both expansive and intimate at the same time.

For me, North Carolina carried more than scenery. Decades earlier, I had spent seven formative months at Fort Bragg, first in basic training and then for a long stretch of time, waiting without orders, a very stressful experience. Returning to the state brought those memories quietly back. Not heavily, but as a kind of background presence. Even so, we still had a good trip. Beauty has a way of asserting itself, even when the past hums softly beneath it.

These galleries are our record of that visit. The grandeur of the Biltmore Estate. The sweep of the Blue Ridge Mountains in autumn. And perhaps, for me, the gentle closing of a door to my past. 2023 would turn out to be my last year ever of flying for travel, which makes these images feel a little more final than I realized at the time. I’m glad we went. I’m glad we saw it. And I’m glad to be able to share it with you.