Justice is not done here…the images are just so so compared to what was actually there.
And as noted, I had only ever seen it in other people’s photographs, never in the actual forest.
Yet, here we are…there I was…early morning vapor in the woods…sun broke through the clouds and fog.
Arch Cape, Oregon…May 9, 2025, 9:20 am.
A small blessing.
May we always see the light shining through the forest.
I had been there only once before…late October over ten years ago…the morning sun was up…
…but the branches were bare and I could see through the forest for seemingly miles…the leaves were all brown and on the ground…soon to be covered with snow.
The middle of June is a different story…an unrecognizable forest…one bright with sunshine and new life…cool breezes…carrying the light perfume of chlorophyl and new beginnings….
It was only beautiful.
“Our job is to record, each in his own way, this world of light and shadow and time that will never come again exactly as it is today.” – Edward Abbey
Morning and late afternoon…May 12, 2025.
The morning’s low tide was very low…way out there…
…and the wave action had been so severe earlier, that it left something of a raised berm of sand…allowing for multiple reflecting pools down near the southern end of the beach.
Dark skies, the singular rock…and a collage of little pools and waterways….
I returned again to the northern end in late afternoon and found all of these black shore pebbles/rocks washed down from the higher, elevated beach boundary.
Looking north from south…nice clouds, shore fog.
Darker skies reflecting…a menagerie of pools…ribs of light…dimples in the sand.
An overnight scattering of pebbles…like spilled coarse black-pepper on a table cloth….
iPhound art.
The last Saturday of February, three months past, I found myself headed toward Wyoming for breakfast…
…it’s just a little over 90 miles from my home…all freeway…places I had never been between here and there…
…probably 10-20 miles west of Evanston, Wyoming…I spied a field with blowing snow off to the right of the freeway…
…a barn…cattle…a dirt road…a truck in the distance…snow covered field with tracks…
…so I had to pull over…frost covered grass…19 degrees outside…frost covered fence-line…
…and the unfortunate juxtaposition of a tattered United States flag with a “No Trespassing” sign…
…the image below was the first glimpse…what I saw from inside my speeding truck…heading eastbound…
…on a beautiful, wintry, Utah morning. Thank you for visiting.
I hadn’t been to the ocean since probably 2003 or 2004…and had never been to Oregon…
…so putting both of those together and finding myself on a beach in northern Oregon was rather wonderful.
The constant breeze was cool and refreshing…
…and the sound of the surf hitting the shore was a constant for the week we were there…a dull something…
…not a roar by any means…but an ever present white-noise…almost urgent…and novel, as well.
On this beach, for the first time in my over six decades of life, I witnessed two bald eagles soaring overhead; of one I managed to capture the white tail as it flew past…of the second I didn’t even bother to reach for my camera…I just stood there and marveled at the sight.
These images are from the first day…from the beach just a mile or two north of where we would be staying for the week.
Treasured time together…
…marveling at the forces of nature…
…contemplating the tides…
…and the ocean’s gifts…
…and enjoying the carefree company of our own selves.
Thank you for visiting.
This is the first of what will probably be a small handful of posts about my recent explorations on Antelope Island, so I’ll provide a link to the state park’s website for anyone who might not be familiar with the location.
The causeway leading from the mainland in Syracuse to the northern end of the island is seven miles long…it seems to take quite a while to make it from one end to the other, given the number of photo opportunities that exist in that little stretch of road.
If you’re interested, here’s a link that takes you to the Antelope Island subtab in the Categories section at the bottom of the post…it will be a continuous scroll of posts that I’ve shared after my handful of adventures out to the island over the years.
If you’re able to head back to the first post in February 2012, you’ll be able to see the drastic change in water level of The Great Salt Lake between then and these current images. While it’s an interesting phenomenon, it’s also kind of scary…the loss of all that water, stopping places for the millions of migratory birds…the possibility/likelihood of the “poisonous” dust that will be sucked-up into the wind currents and then blown throughout the Salt Lake Valley and surrounding environment.
There have been other changes to the island in the 13 years since I first visited…Egg Island is no longer open or available to visit. With the water level being so low, it’s very easy to access, but there’s now a sign upon reaching it that advises one to proceed no further…which is actually probably very good…so that none of us human people disturb the bird people who use the place for nesting, etc.
I will be sharing other posts from this recent trip to Antelope Island in the weeks to come.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this brief glimpse into my latest visit.
Well…just looked out the kitchen window this morning…over the sink…facing east…toward the Wasatch Mountains…
…and I was struck by the activity of the clouds, the lighting on the mountaintops…and my attention was then captured by a certain little structure-looking some kind of thing way…way out there.
According to Google Maps…Snowbird Ski Resort is 23 miles from the house…
…and there it is…the aerial tram…right outside the back window…kind of…right there.
Happy Sunday from the west side of the Salt Lake Valley…and Snowbird, Utah.
Near the confluence of Interstate 84 and Interstate 80, in northern Utah…heading east toward Wyoming…
…pretty much smack-dab in-between Coalville and Echo…
…lies the Echo Reservoir…a beautiful expanse of 1,394 surface acres of ice and snow covered water….
I had seen the reservoir on the map…but wasn’t really prepared for what I found out there.
It was something like 19 degrees in the full sun…made it feel like it was at least 23…a perfect winter morning.
It was just after official sunrise, I suppose, but the canyon was still darker than many other places because it’s actually a canyon…with high ridges on both sides that prevented the morning’s light from reaching the deeper places…for a while anyway.
I was just up here in early October, driving this road, and admiring the Fall-colored canopy that is now covered in a beautiful blanket of snow. The Park Service/County folks close the “Winter gate” on November first of every year to allow the canyon to recuperate from all of the people traffic in this very popular venue. They’ll re-open it again in late Spring…but until then, no vehicles are allowed past this half-way point in the canyon…only foot and ski-traffic for the upper 4.5 miles.
The roofs of the out-houses at the upper picnic-grounds were covered in three and four feet of snow.
The bridge at Elbow Fork is one of my favorite Winter spots in Millcreek Canyon.
I didn’t modify the color of this image of the snow-blanket…this is the way it registered in my camera.
Tiny treasures…icicles on branches dangling over the stream. Another treasure that I experienced further up in the canyon was that of standing alone in the sun-drenched, snow-covered roadway, with my eyes closed, and listening to the hiss and roll of the stream…a constant, perpetual, ever soothing sound that could be mistaken for nothing else…just the living and moving water of a mountain stream.
Welcome back to Winter in Millcreek Canyon…it’s been a while.
Scott's Place...Images and Words 