Have you ever been somewhere that your soul felt immediately at home, even if you had never stepped foot there before? It’s a feeling that takes your breath away and wraps your heart in a warm blanket, that lulls your mind into believing that a piece of you has always been there, waiting for you to rediscover it. Kind of like the concept of a soulmate, but for a geographical region instead. For me, that place is New England, specifically along the coasts of Maine and New Hampshire, but I also love Massachusetts, Vermont, and Rhode Island (I’ve yet to visit Connecticut). I’m not terribly picky so long as I find myself within that region of the US.

Maybe it’s the presence of all four seasons, the smell of the salt on the air, the quaint yet sophisticated architecture, or the cobblestoned history. I love the sounds of working harbors, the fresh, briny taste of a lobster roll. I love the art galleries stuffed full of dreams captured on paper, next door to the antique stores packed with lemon waxed stories. I love touring history, sampling new flavors, trying on a future. I am deeply, desperately, in love with it all.

It fills my heart and soul up to the brim, so it should come as no surprise that I hope to move there one day. If you would allow me to don what I call my “dreaming cap” for a moment, let me inform you that what I most often have my head in the clouds about is designing and opening a small bookshop tucked away in a sweet, little alleyway within a stone’s throw of the water. I would walk along the shore at sunrise with a mug of tea in my hand and a dog at my side, searching the sand for treasure, before pushing open the door to my shop with a tinkling of a bell overhead. I’d fluff the pillows on the cozy chairs, straighten the local artists’ works that adorn the walls, dust the spines of my beloved friends, arrange the shop pup’s bed in front of the fire…don’t worry, I’m well aware that I’m hopelessly romantic and woefully ignorant!

The first time I visited New England was with my parents after I graduated from college. We flew into Boston and drove up the coast to Acadia National Park, and I fell hard. I was head over heels and left with a bruised heart when it was time to tear ourselves away. It felt like I had finally found my geographical “home” for that one short week. Nowadays, my husband and kids and I try to get there each autumn to marvel at the foliage, walk the streets of Salem and Portsmouth, stay in an old, wonky house. We visit pumpkin patches and get lost in corn mazes, wander through mansions and apple orchards, hike along coastlines and through the White Mountains. For one week most years, I get to live out my fantasy.

I’m so very fortunate that my family humors me with these dreams of mine, and all of this is not to say that I don’t love it here in Alaska as well. Alaska has clawed its way into my soul and buried itself deep within my heart, for which I am eternally grateful. However, this was the first time in years that we did not go and while I survived just fine without our annual foray, I found myself wistfully looking at the hundreds of pictures I’ve taken over the years and realized I had never posted any here. I’m not even going to attempt to tell you what I was shooting with or with which stock, or even where we were at the time and when. I’m just going to put up a relatively small selection of those images that make me nostalgic and hope that my love is understood :-)