On the Road to Okanagan
Aminus3 spurred memories of a road trip and horse skull that you now get to enjoy
You can thank (or blame)
for triggering this post. Aminus’ recent prompt on “Travel” drove me into a catalog I hadn’t opened in a few years. I spent most of last night revisiting these early attempts at landscape shots.In 2018 I had just gotten a new camera system — an Olympus EMI Mark 2 and a few Olympus primes. I hadn’t really hit the streets yet and was mostly using it in my garden, on vacations and on hikes. And thanks to the incredible woman I married who seems to thrive when I’m away from the house, I was also able to take a few long solo road trips.
These images are taken from a trip in August 2018, from Seattle to the Okanagan, a rural area in the northeast-most part of Washington State that extends into Canada. Sparsely populated forest and rancher country, much of it at 5,000-ft. elevation.
On my return, the Washington Pass crossing over the North Cascades had been largely abandoned of traffic due to wildfires. The image above is of a forest that had been burnt the year or two previous; the rich colors of the flowers blooming where the ground brush had been destroyed by fire were pretty incredible to experience.
The ones below were taken as the fires were spreading south of the pass as I was coming home. The air was thick, but the fires were miles away. As long as I didn’t breathe, I was safe.
Back in the Oakanagan.
I’ve got a feeling that 53 below, my nemesis as I tried to trespass onto a ranch, is no longer with us.
Shortly after retreating from 53, I met a woman selling horse skulls by the side of the road. I couldn’t resist.
Horse Skull and Baby Head are still with us and are documented in more photos than is healthy for any single human to have taken in a lifetime.
Like I said, blame
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Glad to have inspired you to reconnect with these old photos. Much like your colorful flowers growing from the burned out remnants of former fires, there is something about revisiting images with fresh eyes and experience that creates new growth.
Amazing images.... and v associative for me. Spent many a childhood summer break in the British Columbian Okanagan, and road tripped there with good friends after high school...