Brrrrrr

One would never think that I would come to love frosty mornings so much considering how freezing cold I am all the time.
Before thyroid cancer, you could write it off to a non-functioning thyroid, but since I have no thyroid now and take synthetic thyroid medication I have no excuse.
With the beauty I found on frosty mornings in January, I haven't really thought about being cold. I just bundle up and go.
There really isn't much to say about these pictures except that to me they show beauty in the simplest of things.
They are so fleeting. In some shots you can almost see the ice melting.
I'm sure these mornings are probably over, but I do find myself looking out the window for another glistening coat of frost before winter fades away.

Chasing Sunrises

I can't believe I'm staying up to do another post, but after looking at those gray fog pictures, I have to share something with a little color. I've found myself chasing sunrises these days. Other than the sixteen inches of snow in December, we seem to be having a rather uncharacteristically mild winter so far. I find myself out early a few days a week and so I've decided to not leave home without my camera.
I've learned a lot about sunrises in the last few weeks. I won't bore you with all my pictures--just a few favorites.
The first thing I learned is that the best color is long before the sun ever breaks the horizon. I try to have everything out and set up at least a half hour before sunrise.
The second thing I learned was not to discount the effect of clouds on a sunrise. I left the house one morning and it was definitely quite cloudy. I was driving west and it was so cloudy that I didn't even glance to the east to check the sunrise. Suddenly I looked in my rearview mirror and what I saw was unbelievable. I didn't have time to go back to the best viewing point, so I stopped at a stop sign on a side street, pulled out my camera and took this out the window of my car. I'll never again assume that cloudy skies mean a bland sunrise.The next morning was partly cloudy also, so I left early and went to the Salmon Creek Trail. I stood there for forty five minutes watching one of the most beautiful sunrises I've ever seen. (In case you're wondering, there is no post processing involved here. This is how it really looked--I promise.)

The last thing I learned seems ridiculously obvious, but I'll share it anyway. Once the sun breaks the horizon, the sunrise is over. The most brilliant colors are gone and all you really have is a bright orb slowly lifting above the horizon.
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Winter is a great time to chase a sunrise because it rises so late and the crack of dawn was only about 7:45 when I took these pictures. Our days are getting longer and now it's rising about 7:30. An additional 15 minutes of daylight in two weeks--I'd say that's a sign of spring too.

Disappearing Bridges

One of the signs of spring around here will be foggy mornings. We've had several recently and on Saturday we decided to go take a look at bridges in the fog. We stopped at the I-5 Bridge and it was so foggy that you could hardly see to mid-span.We did find this goose taking a break under the bridge. As always, I'm too impatient to wait for animals to do anything. I thought I watched this guy forever and he didn't move a feather, but leave it to Dave to stay with it long enough to get this shot.Next, we made our way to the St. John's Bridge. You'll notice that there is no picture of the St. John's Bridge and that's because the fog was so thick you couldn't see it AT ALL. You couldn't even see it when you were driving over it.
We headed into the city thinking that the fog might be a little less dense closer to downtown and it was--but just a little. This is the Hawthorne Bridge. This was taken from the same area that we take our night shots. What a difference.I walked closer to the bridge, but Dave stayed back and took this serene picture of a kayak by the dock. The irony of this picture is that there were a bunch teenagers running down the dock taking off in their kayaks as we walked down to the river. By the time we got there, they were gone in the fog and this was what was left. It's as though they were never there.
We went over by the Steel Bridge to see what things looked like there. We found that the best thing to see from the Steel Bridge was the Burnside Bridge.The EastBank Esplanade (a fancy name for a floating bike and jogging path along the east side of the Willamette River) is a good place to look back at the Steel Bridge. This is where we'll come in June when Navy ships come into Portland for the Rose Festival. It will be quite a different sight, I promise.The fog seemed to be lifting, but was still quite dense. With the sun trying to come out and the fog beginning to burn off, it was the end of the disappearing bridge pictures. We headed home for lunch and a few Saturday projects before going back into town for the Blazer game. It really did turn out to be a nice afternoon and we were glad we grabbed a camera before we left for the game so we could catch this sunset over the west hills just before we went into the Rose Garden.

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.

We're Havin' A Heat Wave

After days of being confined to the house and then when you could finally go out, four-wheel drive was necessary, the east winds are gone and it's warming up again.There was sixteen inches of snow on this table Christmas Day and it was snowing again. It seemed as though it would never end. It was like Groundhog Day--the same thing over and over everyday. Each storm was supposed to bring south winds and warmer temperatures, but instead it just brought more snow. I've never been so glad to see rain in my life.It was 50 degrees at 10:00 tonight when we were coming home from the basketball game. Outside of the piles of snow in store parking lots and the side streets that don't get plowed, like ours, most of the snow is gone. Our problem now is that our house faces north and our driveway is getting icy, but a few more days like this and we should be back to normal--45 degrees and rain everyday.

Our Winter Wonderland

Last Tuesday was the last day we saw the sun. We went to the Blazer game Tuesday night and by the time we got home it was starting to snow lightly. It snowed off and on Wednesday, but only accumulated enough to be annoying on the side streets. The freeways and main roads were clear, but the threat of freezing rain caused school closures Thursday and Friday. The freezing rain never came, but it started to snow Friday evening and didn't stop until about 8:00 Saturday night. The freezing rain finally came in the night and left a crispy coating of ice over our six to eight inches of snow.This morning we woke up to this.Everything is cancelled all around the metropolitan area. Roads are closed to the coast and blizzard warnings in the gorge have closed I-84 east and westbound. Our elevation is less than 100 feet at our house, so you can only imagine what it looks like in the hills around town. We took a little drive around the neighborhood before lunch. Not much happening at the park--or on the baseball field.Freezing rain started to fall before we got home to add to the thin sheet of ice from last night.And low and behold, in the midst of all of this--covered with ice--we found the last of the fall leaves.