This morning I said goodbye to my brother and saw him off as he left to go move to South Dakota. This is probably going to be the last time that I will see him about 2 years and the first of my family members that I've said goodbye to.
How much this effected me surprised me a little. My brother and I haven't been super close at all. We have seven years separating us but I guess since we lived and worked together this year we were close. Now he's moved away and our work schedules won't really permit us seeing each other for most likely two years.
The biggest thing is that if my heart is shaken over saying goodbye to my brother what is is it going to be like when I bid the rest of my family, especially my twin sister, farewell.
Today was my last day to spend time with my big brother. Tomorrow he is moving away and since I'll be going to Taiwan next month this will be the last time that we will see each other in probably a year or two.
We had to think of something that we could do together that we would both enjoy. We were originally going to go on a day canoe trip since we have one and live close to the Delaware River but he was able to get into the summer training program and is leaving much earlier than planned. So we comprised and spent the day hiking.
Our first stop of the day was to Hickory Run State Park's Bolder Field. It is basically as it sounds. It is a natural field that is filled with rocks that a glacier deposited there hundreds of years ago. Its pretty cool and the last time I was there was when I was 15 so it had been a while. The nicest thing about the visit today was since we were there early we had the whole place to ourselves.
The second stop today though was not as good as the first. My brother wanted to check out a new trail which basically turned out to be a paved trail along side a river that you couldn't even see because it was blocked with trees. We called it quits on that and headed over to Big Pocono State Park. As children we spent a lot of time there having picnics and flying kites. Unfortunately we didn't bring any kites but we were able to get the nostalgic feeling by eating our lunch there. After lunch we hiked two of the trails around the mountain. Once we had gotten our fill of hiking we headed home so he could finish packing.
Here is some of the pictures that I took today:
