Musings

Our eastbound mosey began today. Meet Gorge Creek Falls. About one-quarter is chopped off the bottom (the perils of a horizontal format).

I think these are Jack Mountain and Crater Mountain, part of the Cascades. I particularly enjoy the vertical snow streaks that are avalanche chutes…they show the power of MaNachur.

We drove through miles of standing fire-killed timber. These fires are some of the ones that so drastically lowered air quality in Seattle and far beyond in 2020.

Posted at 10:23 PM | Comments Off on Traversing the Cascades

This is very close to what it looked like standing there. You have to imagine the fresh air, slight breeze, and faint noises coming from the water and moving vegetation. Down two-thirds of the way from the moon to the land, and to the right is Venus (thank you, SkyGuide app), and between the moon and Venus is Mercury, but I couldn’t pick it out, and the camera missed it, too.

I do like the camera’s computational capabilities, but this example is maladroit, and I didn’t take the time away from all the fun social hubbub to finesse it.

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Daytime’s goodbye

The high school nephew had an open day today, because: covid. So we had an outing. We took a short ferry ride, a little longer than it took to wait to board, board, and disembark. We were told to stay in our vehicle, because: covid.

Since it was mid-day, our first stop was food. We drove by the possibilities and picked a hometown burger place. With a food truck. This is the drivers control area. Shift on the left, which I do not recall ever seeing for a left driver. Not because: covid.

After wiping our chins and downing the last fry, we drove on to Point No Point Lighthouse. It is the shortest lighthouse I remember ever seeing.

Atop a row of evergreens I suspect were planted to protect the lighthouse from the prevailing winds, we saw eagles land and watch the doin’s below from on high—not so much the tourists as the fishing.

Down on the beach, we spotted an otter moving along, then finding something to eat—clam perhaps? An eagle spotted this, too, and dived the otter; however, the otter seemed to have positioned her/himself to see if this happened, and quickly plunged into the water, saving lunch from the feathered, screaming predator-thief.

Next stop had no David Attenborough drama, instead an eroding escarpment called Foulweather Bluff. Rusty red dot lower right is nephew’s jacket, so you can tell it’s a tall bluff.

Lucky us, the tide was out. We used our identification crutch, the iNaturalist app, and found out these are aggregating anemone. With seaweed and what we thought was a tiny jellyfish.

With plenty of excitement behind us, we headed back to the ferry, and were stopped behind HTBNANA. The plate surround indicated that “it only happens twice.” We remain unsure what that refers to.

Posted at 8:54 PM | Comments Off on Ferry adventure

New sports fields at the high school. I assumed the matching rust color in the building and “grass dirt” was deliberate. And, yes, I found that ball trying to escape to a nearby forest and tossed it on the field, where it rolled to the line between the fake grass and the fake soil.

Alley view. I stayed in the alley and minded my Ps and Qs.

Ah, there’s that across-lake mountain view, with cloud-caps.

Posted at 9:12 PM | Comments Off on Pieces of landscape

Every once in a while you can find a spot where you can see a great distance. There are mountains beneath that lowest bank of clouds, which are obscuring their tops.

No mountains here, but more of a lake view.

No distance here at all. What a careful, artful hedge-trimming job. The notch on the far right is to the depth/line selected by the trimmer working on the neighboring lot.

Posted at 11:31 PM | Comments Off on Distant views

We crossed no state lines, although we did change time zones.

The high point was partying with old friends, and later new—so so many laughs. Such good company. Such lovely eats. So special-precious.

Title refers to second photo comments, but you already figured that out.

Posted at 1:20 AM | Comments Off on Well-nourished

First, we were headlight-flashed by a semi. Then, we saw a large, propped up, plywood sign with crookedy letters, “Sheep on road.” Okay, we’re wide awake; we saw this in Scotland, and usually the signs are not Fake News™. Next, we saw sheep evidence (like the black smears in the left lane), then we popped over a hill, and voila! sheep, all on the left side of the road, and extending for a LOOOOONG ways up the highway. We carefully crept along, alert to Stupid Sheep Behavior—that is, stupid from the vehicular point of view. Sure enough, we were most of the way past the flock, and a few decided to cross in front of us, and instantly were head-down browsing. Like…um…sheep, soon dozens more followed. We inched along on the far right as a semi was in our lane, heading toward us and trying to make headway against the flock drifting into his lane. Surely there’s room for all, no? Just so the sheep part.

The size of the flock suggests it was being relocated for summer forage at higher elevations. With all the fenced land, the only possible passage was via the highway right of way. In Europe, it is possible to find the networks of drove-ways that have been used for thousands of years for seasonal movement of domesticated herbovores.

Scenery.

Snake River, where the banks are not cliffs.

Snake River making Shoshone Falls, and the Falls making rainbows. The River has cut through a lava bed from long ago that blankets the area. If you’re back from the rim perhaps a quarter mile on that flattish lava bed, you can’t see the cut the river has made, making it rather like a giant ha-ha. This falls is so high that the progress of spawning fish is halted, and this is an excellent hunting spot.

Posted at 10:10 PM | Comments Off on Transhumance and more

The Big Muddy dominated half our driving day. It was big and it carried sediment. “Formidable” seems rather tame for summing it up, although it carries the appropriate tenor.

This is on the north edge of Alton, Illinois, where the river slid along limestone bluffs that Euroamericans heavily mined. I assume these are abandoned mine entrances.

For the other half of our driving day, we pushed west, to stop in La Plata, Missouri, pronounced like plate, so: lah plate-uh.

Rather unremarkable town with an Amtrak Stop [that I assume Joe Biden has never visited] and an art deco style station that is suffering genteel decay (the exterior, anyway, as we didn’t get inside—yet).

These two also live in the town. It is bucolic, with frequent train whistles.

Posted at 8:02 PM | 1 Comment »

This magnolia is rather small as magnolias go, perhaps not quite four inches across…so…vente?

Looks like a lake…looks like a river…um, impounded river…still great for boaters and kayakers on a lovely Saturday afternoon.

Dusk sky hues, stripes, and graduations…such lovely eye-candy.

Today’s state count: four. PS: title has nothing to do with baseball.

Posted at 9:22 PM | Comments Off on Striking out

This is a kousa dogwood flower; they have the pointy petals. Only they aren’t petals; if you’re wearing your precise botanic hat, they’re actually white bracts.

No idea what kind of insect is visiting that right bract.

Bract. Bract. Trying to remember that word and its meaning.

Posted at 6:11 PM | Comments Off on Mind your vocab