This could be an incredibly long entry... I have been daydreaming about hiking in the mountains, and having incredibly vivid dreams about SCUBA diving, doing flips in the water.  And thinking about big beers on ice and outrageous conversations and karaoke with "One" guy along the Mekong river in Laos. 

NATURE is one of the things I miss most.  I love Chicago in so many ways... but we are not blessed with mountains and streams and oceanside cliffs and volcanoes and waterfalls.....

I have FINALLY organized my pictures by country/city/event... I thought I had 3,000 but it was WAAAY more than that.  Anyway, looking at all these cool women in India, monks in Laos, children in Cambodia and friends I made along the way in many different countries, I miss THEM!

PEOPLE - TONS OF DIFFERENT ONES, with different perspectives and tastes and colloquialisms and accents... we have a unique, interesting, talented and diverse population here in Chicago.  No doubt about that.  But I'll show you some of these photos.  The laugh lines on these ladies -- they had stories to tell, which echo in my ears still.