Mountane 1 of 3

Ok, here we go... another round of super old pictures! Last July, DMA & I had a great time cruising along the Mountain Loop Highway. We started our trek in a great spot... A-town! Our first stop was at the Trafton School just off Jim Creek. It turns out that it was a great time to visit: they have recently closed the school! Given this information, it was bitter sweet to walk the grounds of the school.

I took a ton of pictures this day! We continued from Trafton to Darrington, then took a right at *the* stop sign onto the Mtn Loop Hwy. We stopped by the ice caves, too, but my pictures from there were kind of so-so. I broke the pics into three posts to keep the scrolling to a minimium ;) This one is focused on the Trafton School, #2 is a tribute to some little petals of sunshine & #3 wraps up the day with random pics from the road. Thanks so much for looking at my pics!

Mountane 2 of 3

This is the second round of pics from along the Mountain Loop Highway. I actually have had this set on my mind for awhile... they have been my incentive to finish up the earlier pics from June & July. Kind of like photographic candy.

Somewhere (I can't remember where now...) we pulled off the main road & found a side road with a bridge over a river (probably the Stilly?). There were a TON of wildflowers in this area. I searched for the perfect clump of daisies & spent about a half hour here! These are a few of my favorites...

Thanks for taking a little look!

Mountane 3 of 3

This is the third set of pics from the drive DMA & I took last July via the Mountain Loop Highway. The first two are viewpoints from the road, the bottom three are from good ol downtown Darrington.

Thanks for taking a looksie!

Snow Lake

oooh sniffles. fever is gone, thankfully, but ugh. I still don't have enough energy to quite muster up a thoughtful blog entry. So, I'll be keeping it simple, thank you very much.

Waaay back in July (yes... eyes rolling... July) dma& I hiked up to Snow Lake. It was awesome, and looking at these pics now makes me want to hit the trail again soon!

So, here are some pics from the trail. Oh how I love stopping water!




And a couple views from the trail...

And Snow Lake itself! I lack the POWERS to make this photograph dazzle as much as the real thing, so I just kept my edits to a minimum.

Check out the cool design of the ice!!

Thanks for taking a look, hope all is well!

Yakima

I was supposed to be in Yakima today. Or Seattle. Or anywhere else that had an ounce of photographic inspiration. Instead...I was home. With my cat (awww, euka!). and a 100.2 degree temp.


oh well... gave me a chance to edit these pics from July while re-watching When In Rome.

In all my years as a Washingtonian, I never knew there were canyons in Yakima. What a lovely surprise! And a drive home via Chinook Pass? Could a summer day get any better?

And that, dear friends, wraps up my lovely summer road trip. And now... time for Theraflu...zzzzz

I gotta pocket full

...pocket full of sunshine. oh oh oh oh. oh oh oh ohhh.

Take ME away... back to July of 2010 when dma and I strolled around Greenlake. It was our first trip there & a memorable one to boot. The first time photography has ever really been dangerous.

The situation rolled out like this:

Me... looking around, scanning for a frame
Random drunk guy blocking my shot: "its ok, you can come over here."
Me: "no, thats ok... not sure yet what I want to photograph."
Random drunk guy: "lkjslkasjlewkmewlk" (my apologies....I don't translate drunk-during-daylight-hanging-out-on-my-bmx-bike-in-the-park very well)
Me: "well, I don't see what I am looking for... um, Take care!"
Random drunk guy: "No. YOU Take Care. I don't take care. I KILL people"
and exit right. swiftly. very, very swiftly.

Random drunk guy aside, it was a nice stroll. And, given the crummy clouds that I viewed all day today from my office, this little peek at sunshine is quite welcomed. Like visual vitamin D.

The good news is that the sunset was at 5pm today... I am grateful for even a few more minutes of daylight! Thanks for stopping by!

le spook

Can you believe it.... another post from June! yikes!

This one, though, I have been putting off intentionally; there were too many pics to chose from & the place was hauntingly spooky. The scaredy cat in me didn't want to edit these per my usual approach...at home alone, late at night, sitting on my couch watching whatevers on... I know... silly, huh? They are just pictures for pete's sake! anyway, I finally edited these a few weeks back while visiting dma, so, now I have put aside my goofy chicken-ness to post these pics. They probably don't look spooky; but trust me, the place IS spooky. booooo-ooooo!

Nice Start
The day started out just fine... a nice little ferry ride & a walk through the woods at the Guillemot Cove Nature Reserve!

Let the spook begin

And then we found the "Nest House" spooo-oo-oooo-oooky! DMA tested his luck with the crumbling structure and took a tour inside; I kept my cool outside. No way was I going in; no way jose.

This image of the bed was the most haunting image to me. The way the light was hitting the pillow and the rest of the room was engulfed in shadows caught my eye. As I came across this scene, I wondered what had happened in this space. Why are so many items removed, yet some remain? What has happened in this space since it was abandoned? Has anything tragic ever happened here? Hmmm.... I tried to compose this shot to capture the intrigue. Does it make you wonder, too?

There was also a barn in the area; a barn that offered its own set of mysteries & questions

Ok, gotta wrap up this post now! latersssss

Quick Blast

wow, what a difference... in contrast to the post from yesterday, today's pics are bright & colorful! And, I think they weren't timed all that far apart? Oh summer in Western Washington... you are so fickle.

Anyway, these were taken at Deception Pass; an area very familiar to me from my childhood. Today's adventure took place along the beach, just casually strolling & taking pics. What a lovely day.

Old school
I did some minor edits to this classic beach image to give it an old school feel. It reminds me of something of my grandparents' era. I am thankful, too, for a 3-stop neutral density filter, to be able to capture motion on such a bright day!

classic lolo

and this one is just a regular 'ol picture of rock on a beach. Nice & soothing, yes?

Learning
This image shows my attempt to master depth of field in landscape photography. I adore those images with glorious patterns in the foreground; you know the ones I am talking about... like sand dunes in Zambia or Namibia something. Where you feel like you can just jump onto the picture; one where it gains a new dimension and doesn't look so.... so... flat. Anyway, I didn't edit this too much (I don't think I can correct the blown out highlights of the intense evening sun anyway!) so I am just posting my work-in-progress.

Just Pretty

These last few frames aren't anything too spectacular, just nice, pretty images of one of nature's beautiful light display.

Phew! And that wraps up another round of pics! Thank you so much for taking a look & hope that all is well is your neck of the woods ;)