https://www.showmestateofmind.com/entries daily 0.75 2026-07-17 https://www.showmestateofmind.com/entries/episode-3-west-virginia monthly 0.5 2026-07-17 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69f349899a8c3e488f928466/58eea94b-ebd8-4693-be41-05b1b78714e0/IMG_0095.jpeg Blog - Episode 3: West Virginia - Make it stand out The portrait of a man who knows he has no one to blame but himself for being outside a closed Radio Museum, because he didn’t think to check what days they’re open. The graveyard is just behind my left shoulder. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69f349899a8c3e488f928466/0f25c756-b59f-48d2-8a15-093e4d304122/IMG_0096.jpeg Blog - Episode 3: West Virginia - Make it stand out When I was disappointedly driving out of Huntington, I turned a corner and right on the side of the road, I spotted a miniature Arc de Triomphe. After my first episode involved a small Leaning Tower, I couldn’t resist pulling over and getting a look at this mini monument. As it turns out, this is a landmark dedicated to the West Virginians who died in WWI, which was as good a reason for it to be there as I could have hoped to find. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69f349899a8c3e488f928466/6a047873-b986-4839-9ad5-7c0841225a1e/IMG_0097.jpeg Blog - Episode 3: West Virginia - Make it stand out At the foot of the mini Arc de Triomphe, there was a buried time capsule, which made me realize that I fucking love time capsules. Everything about them are great. They represent a belief in the future, and a desire to be generous to the people of the future. They also recognize a deep human need to be understood, in how people often put thing in time capsules that they think will help future people get what their present day was all about. Further, even though they are meant to be opened in the future, they have a deep respect for the present, because the very existence of a time capsule implies that there’s something about this present day that is worth being rediscovered in many years. Oh man, do I love a time capsule. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69f349899a8c3e488f928466/0a96fe0a-ad9b-4f07-8913-81fe14f26ea2/IMG_0091.jpeg Blog - Episode 3: West Virginia - Make it stand out An abandoned church that I found in Wyoming, WV. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69f349899a8c3e488f928466/ce0c20df-7d47-4ccd-88e7-4173c9e52285/IMG_0090.jpeg Blog - Episode 3: West Virginia - Make it stand out I walked up to the door, but decided against going inside. It was partially out of a fear of mold or falling debris, but also out of a respect that I didn’t have permission to enter. I was struck by the scene, how it was in complete disarray, but one pew remained standing probably pretty close to how it always was. It felt like there was a visual metaphor in there somewhere. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69f349899a8c3e488f928466/3a2177f7-d89d-4e37-b5ba-42252929d901/IMG_0089.jpeg Blog - Episode 3: West Virginia - Make it stand out A sign for a completely different church in Wyoming County. I chose to take a picture of this because there weren’t a ton of buildings that said “Wyoming” on them, and also because that angel statue kind of looks bored. Like he’s waiting for a ride to come pick him up after Sunday School. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69f349899a8c3e488f928466/44a30f07-0e1c-4a7a-a315-c0e4126cff2d/IMG_0100.jpeg Blog - Episode 3: West Virginia - Make it stand out I took a hike in Chief Logan State Park, and came across this statue along the way. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69f349899a8c3e488f928466/0c3e40fa-f512-4a02-8bfa-b0251f7bc5ea/IMG_0099.jpeg Blog - Episode 3: West Virginia - Make it stand out The plaque on the Chief Logan statue definitely got my attention, and a fair amount of time after the hike was spent looking into this guy’s history. It’s an amazing story of a guy who tried to coexist with white settlers, but eventually they killed all of his family, so he decided that maybe he’d been too nice. Obviously, his speech that’s quoted on the plaque is powerful, but there is a tragic element to it, which is that Logan blamed the wrong guy. Colonel Cresap was a real asshole and a murderer, but he did not carry out the Yellow Creek Massacre, as Logan asserted. That accusation was repeated by Thomas Jefferson in his book Notes on the State of Virginia, and because of the high profile this gave the claim, it was denied which led to Jefferson investigating the underlying crime. It appears that Cresap himself was uninvolved in the actual massacre, but that the men who did the killing were his associates. Jefferson added a correction to his book, but honestly, he probably didn’t have to. Maybe technically Cresap didn’t carry out that massacre, but Logan’s also not wrong. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69f349899a8c3e488f928466/47221afe-2ce8-4e8e-ab23-be58ba04aba5/IMG_0093.jpeg Blog - Episode 3: West Virginia - Make it stand out A picture of the river at my campsite that I was able to take in the approximately 90 seconds I had between arriving and the torrential rains beginning. https://www.showmestateofmind.com/entries/episode-2-florida monthly 0.5 2026-07-10 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69f349899a8c3e488f928466/1783066933018-6ZAIJGHJ7QMQOE83FVI8/IMG_0073.jpeg Blog - Episode 2: Florida https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69f349899a8c3e488f928466/1783066951906-ZNUXPM5DT946N46D77MX/IMG_0071.jpeg Blog - Episode 2: Florida https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69f349899a8c3e488f928466/1783066966476-5FDNNMMCNIACNYQE1G38/IMG_0072.jpeg Blog - Episode 2: Florida https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69f349899a8c3e488f928466/0af3ef38-db2b-4f11-afcb-85c46692ad21/IMG_0074.jpeg Blog - Episode 2: Florida - Make it stand out Just an optimistic young man, setting out to find the childhood home of a pro wrestling cult leader. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69f349899a8c3e488f928466/24641481-3779-4b30-a070-e15f0caa9a69/IMG_0077.jpeg Blog - Episode 2: Florida - Make it stand out If I had one negative thing to say about the Snake Bight Trail (other than the heat and mosquitos) it probably would be that there really wasn’t much color to the foliage. It was mostly browns and greens, so when I came across this splash of red, it felt special and out of place; bringing to mind Bray’s line about being the color red in a world of black and white. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69f349899a8c3e488f928466/9bcc7d88-bffa-443d-8305-067b6247ada3/IMG_0076.jpeg Blog - Episode 2: Florida - Make it stand out A very sweaty young man who made it to the end of the Snake Bight Trail, thinking sweet thoughts about a pelican he had loved and lost. https://www.showmestateofmind.com/entries/v5n7n4wwtd5n5t1gpqutpdjlloo3fw monthly 0.5 2026-07-03 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69f349899a8c3e488f928466/eb39db05-e11a-4e09-b887-be5845da41f1/IMG_4495.jpeg Blog - Episode 1: Illinois - Make it stand out My buddy Burger did take one picture of me hugging the Big Tree, so that can give you some scale. Please ignore the untucked undershirt. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69f349899a8c3e488f928466/a9014ac0-24b1-43f1-b246-0fdc4da4dcc1/IMG_0121.jpeg Blog - Episode 1: Illinois - Make it stand out The Humansville water-tower stands mightily over the local Phillips 66 station, where the price of gas may have timestamped when I rolled through town. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69f349899a8c3e488f928466/32f67636-a829-4c05-8719-1763d378f12f/IMG_0066.jpeg Blog - Episode 1: Illinois - Make it stand out The Leaning Tower of Niles stands mightily over the reflecting pool, which I would have called “shabby” until very recently. The bar has been lowered for reflecting pools. Also visible in the picture is the plaque that claims that the tower contains very old bells, which I chose to trust. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69f349899a8c3e488f928466/df0919c8-ca17-41f9-9781-1df3efc6f014/IMG_0067.jpeg Blog - Episode 1: Illinois - Make it stand out A closer look at the plaque that claims one of their bells was made in 1623. A plaque has no clear motivation to lie to me, but it seems so impossible that this tower would have a 400 year-old bell in it and no one would care. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69f349899a8c3e488f928466/157f6888-e394-49c6-8b4f-f4f749d9aac1/IMG_0069.jpeg Blog - Episode 1: Illinois - Make it stand out A mini Leaning Tower that someone decided to build right near the larger mini Leaning Tower. A “hat on a hat?” Definitely, but one of the rare instances where two hats feels right. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69f349899a8c3e488f928466/52237cac-5b95-4d70-9506-6661f6ebba2b/IMG_0068.jpeg Blog - Episode 1: Illinois - Make it stand out The Leaning Tower of Niles stands mightily over the mini Leaning Tower of Niles, in a display that really drives home the strangeness of this place. Five feet to the left is a CTA bus stop. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69f349899a8c3e488f928466/cef76f74-efea-4e53-a497-dd6f562e806a/IMG_0064.jpeg Blog - Episode 1: Illinois - Make it stand out Alternate angle of the Tower. In the background you can see the sign for the hot dog joint across the street, and on the left side of the picture, you may notice fencing behind which was the empty lot that may have formerly been The Y. I am not certain if the Do Not Enter sign is intentionally slightly leaning, or if that is just a coincidence. https://www.showmestateofmind.com/entries/a-new-adventure monthly 0.5 2026-05-03 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69f349899a8c3e488f928466/54d39105-b4d5-4c5e-b55e-7461eff7f662/print.jpg Blog - A New Adventure - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://www.showmestateofmind.com/home daily 1.0 2026-07-03 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69f349899a8c3e488f928466/2940a1ec-b267-4222-994f-686943b81176/6E6AC7D6-CA04-4C5A-A89A-895B95EA8A18.jpeg https://www.showmestateofmind.com/about daily 0.75 2026-05-03 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69f349899a8c3e488f928466/89c37b3b-48eb-43dd-bb64-efc46120c6e3/IMG_0024.jpeg https://www.showmestateofmind.com/contact daily 0.75 2026-05-03 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69f349899a8c3e488f928466/01611c83-dd5b-4daf-85ef-e3b43c8e3e76/IMG_0013.jpeg https://www.showmestateofmind.com/message daily 0.75 2026-06-19