January Thaw

Anyone who has ever lived in a high mountain valley knows that high pressure in the winter can mean dense fog and temperature inversions. Things are not much different where we live. The advantage here, or sometimes disadvantage, is that we live at the mouth of the Columbia River Gorge. When high pressure parks itself over the Portland area, be it winter or summer, it means strong east winds funneling out of the gorge and into the city. In the summer, it moves our pleasant 75 to 85 degree temperatures into the very high 90s and sometimes over 100, but it usually only lasts three or four days. There's great wind on the river for sailing, like in this picture taken a couple of summers ago, but Dave says it's like sailing in a convection oven and I don't disagree.
In the winter, those winds keep the fog somewhat cleared out, but we do still get pockets of dense fog in areas that are protected from the wind. You would think that the fog would always be in the same places, but it's not.
Last Saturday morning, it was clear and sunny at our house, so we headed out to the marina to take pictures of the sunrise. There's a place that overlooks the west end of the Portland Channel that affords a nice view of Mt. Hood. We were hoping to get a picture like this,but when we got to the I-5 Bridge you could barely see the top of it because of the fog, and you could hardly see the water below when we drove over it. We were prepared with a backup plan and drove to other places to take fog pictures.
The railroad tracks run past Vancouver Lake and it's always foggy there in the morning. It was interesting how many pictures you could take of railroad tracks and fog. This was my favorite.Dave thought black and white would be more interesting.Notice that he stood on the railroad tracks and I stood in between them. I don't know if that's significant or not. It just adds to the premise that we see the same things, but through different eyes.
Since there are only so many pictures you can take of railroad tracks in fog, we moved on to a popular swimming and fishing hole just west of I-5.We were almost too late because the sun was rising above the hill and starting to burn off the fog. If you double click on this picture, you can see that a fish jumped just before it was taken.
There's something peaceful about fog rising from the water.There seem to be about 15 or 20 people out here fishing every morning. Each of them quietly going about their business. They come everyday and I'm sure we'll join them on another foggy morning.

On A Clear Day You Can See Forever

The past two weeks have been sunny and dry and have presented several interesting, if not unusual, photo opportunities for this time of year in this area. Blue skies and sunlight are virtually unheard of in January here and especially for nearly two weeks in a row. Saturday, we were out running an odd combination of errands around town that took us to North Portland and the St. John's Bridge area. There's a park below the bridge where we took this picture last summer.The St. John's Bridge was built in 1931. It's a steel suspension bridge that resembles the Golden Gate. It has 400 foot high towers and a 1207 foot main span and a clearance of 205 feet at low water.
As we were driving across the bridge, an unbelievable vista opened up. It was another four mountain day and there they were right in front of us. Of course when we got off of the bridge, you couldn't see them anymore. There was only one answer--park the car and hike onto the bridge. Halfway to mid-span you could clearly see Mt. Hood,Mt. Adams,And Mt. St.Helens. And just to the left of Mt. St. Helens, between the trees, looking like nothing more than a snowy foothill, is Mt. Rainier.We finally had our proof that you really can see almost to Seattle from Portland on a clear day and fortunately, we didn't have to stop in the middle of I-5 to get it. It was as easy as being 200 feet above the Willamette River on the St. John's Bridge.

The Search Continues

Since Dave's buried at work, I've had to carry on the search for spring on my own this week. It is turning out to be a fun way to pass the winter. Everywhere I go, I'm looking for those little signs of returning life. I can see it being like viewing the world through a time lapse video. I'm using a macro lens, so you may need to double click on the pictures to get a better view of the detail. Also know that I do not use photo shop or any kind of post processing on any of these pictures. What you see is what I saw whether it was cloudy and dark or sunny and bright.
One of my favorite things about spring in our neighborhood is when the line of flowering plums from the park to the church bloom. It's about a quarter mile of pink blossoms. (Look for those pictures in April.) Right now they are in the preparation stages. On my way home from errands the other day, I noticed not only the buds on the trees, but raindrops. They just kind of glistened like little diamonds on the trees.Dave sent me on an errand last week to pick up some computer software that took me to the south end of Portland. It never ceases to amaze me how much difference just twenty or thirty miles can make in the weather around here. I have no idea what kind of trees were growing in this parking lot, but I did see that the buds were breaking lose to a degree and you can see the white of some impending blossom.The rhododendrons will be bursting forth here in April and May, but when I was at the grocery store the other day, I noticed these buds on a plant in the parking lot. I wanted to capture the remaining raindrop, but my poor eyesight didn't see the reflection of the other branches on the plant in the water until I got home and looked at it on the computer. Can you see it on yours?Here's another plant I'm not familiar with. If you know what it is, please comment. These were planted by the rhododendrons in the Albertson's parking lot. It just looked promising to me, so I moved in close and took a look.When I got home, I felt it necessary to check on the little tree in our front yard. It's a far cry from the reds and oranges of fall. It will probably be a while before we see much more than moss on it, but I couldn't resist more raindrops and that small patch of blue sky behind it.I hope you're enjoying this half as much as I am. It just brings a little light and life into gray winter days. The search will go on.

In Search of Spring--Part 1

I was watching the news the other day and someone verbalized a thought that I had been having for the past few days--there are only two more months, after this one, until spring. It sounds ridiculous, but I thought watching for the signs of spring might be a fun way to spend the winter. When we look out the windows, it's easy to see nothing but gray skies and bare trees, but I know there are signs of life out there--we just have to go find them--and that's what we intend to do. Over the next few months, we plan to go in search of signs of the end of winter and the coming of spring. This weekend we took a drive out to the marina in Camas to look up and down the river and see what there was to see.
The Columbia River is running full and fast, but no flooding yet.
There's a dusting of snow on the foothills, but warm rains this week should melt it away.
The trees have shed their needles and they're everywhere.
Moss can be found growing on rocks and curbs and every other solid, cold, damp surface.
Even though small piles of snow still remain, the search for signs of spring will continue.