Loving the Vast
Picture Practice!! lj cut experiment!! A new world for me.
My husband and I drove across state last week to visit family. I currently live in western Washington, land of rainforests and water-- and in the middle of that, some big cities, like Seattle, my city. A lot of my youth I grew up in eastern Washington--hot summers, snowy winters, pine trees with little ungrowth--and smaller population centers. Traveling from one side of the state to another you go through miles of wheat fields, large stretches of sagebrush and cattle land...and you cross the Colombia River at one of my favorite places in the whole world, on interstate 90, past a little town called Vantage.
When we were kids it seemed endless and endlessly boring. As I got older I tried to look closely at the landscape and see it and feel it with attentive eyes. Really grown up now--I travel with my husband (and my daughter when she is home!) and we go slowly. Instead of a 5 hour drive, we make it 7 or 8. We stop in little corners of fields and small towns. I like to feel the land, not just see it whiz by from within the cocoon of a car. Also, after living so many years in the lushness of western Washington, I love the vastness of the rolling fields, and the starkness of the desert and lava rocks. What I would love to do is get way out, off the interstate, and walk in the middle of the fields, far away from the roads. You can't really do that in America--I did it in England twenty years ago because there are all these lovely public footpaths that take you right into the land. In America, I'd be trespassing, and I'd be a little afraid of someone coming after me. But I itch to do it...
I don't have great pictures...but I've never posted a photo in lj, so I decided to experiment with a couple.
The two with the river--that's the Columbia, and though it is big and wide because it is well dammed up, it is impressive and vast. I love it. Another is just a picture of wheat fields from the car. I'll see if this works.
My husband and I drove across state last week to visit family. I currently live in western Washington, land of rainforests and water-- and in the middle of that, some big cities, like Seattle, my city. A lot of my youth I grew up in eastern Washington--hot summers, snowy winters, pine trees with little ungrowth--and smaller population centers. Traveling from one side of the state to another you go through miles of wheat fields, large stretches of sagebrush and cattle land...and you cross the Colombia River at one of my favorite places in the whole world, on interstate 90, past a little town called Vantage.
When we were kids it seemed endless and endlessly boring. As I got older I tried to look closely at the landscape and see it and feel it with attentive eyes. Really grown up now--I travel with my husband (and my daughter when she is home!) and we go slowly. Instead of a 5 hour drive, we make it 7 or 8. We stop in little corners of fields and small towns. I like to feel the land, not just see it whiz by from within the cocoon of a car. Also, after living so many years in the lushness of western Washington, I love the vastness of the rolling fields, and the starkness of the desert and lava rocks. What I would love to do is get way out, off the interstate, and walk in the middle of the fields, far away from the roads. You can't really do that in America--I did it in England twenty years ago because there are all these lovely public footpaths that take you right into the land. In America, I'd be trespassing, and I'd be a little afraid of someone coming after me. But I itch to do it...
I don't have great pictures...but I've never posted a photo in lj, so I decided to experiment with a couple.
The two with the river--that's the Columbia, and though it is big and wide because it is well dammed up, it is impressive and vast. I love it. Another is just a picture of wheat fields from the car. I'll see if this works.