Mt. Jefferson and the Patchwork

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Timberline lodge overwhelms its visitors with both its interior (as I posted last week) and its views from near the summit of Mt. Hood. Fifty miles away is Mt. Jefferson; between the two, as we see today, are acres of forest. Within these spaces are these tiny patchwork spots, cut clean from foresting. They regrow surprisingly quickly; Oregon seems to handle the whole process pretty effectively.

Today’s photography is definitely worth clicking through to the large size; the detail in the forests is hypnotic.

Mt. Jefferson and the Patchwork

77 Log Bridge

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If you have never visited the Nitobe Memorial Garden on UBC’s campus you are really missing out. It is an authentic Japanese garden which is painstakingly maintained. Strolling through you get the feeling that not a single rock is out of place, and that ever leaf is placed precisely where it ought to be. It’s really the kind of place you could spend an entire afternoon walking through and enjoying.

Pictured here is one of the bridges, the so-called 77 Log Bridge. I fee like this shot really captures the tranquility of the garden, reflected in the stillness of the water.

Tranquility and the Log Bridge

Hot Rodder

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While in Vancouver, BC, this weekend, this mid-1950’s Austin Healey 100 (check out that chopped windscreen!) blasted past us. (And I know it’s not technically a hot rod.) I just loved the driver’s expression and demeanor: hair blown back, sunglasses on, focused on the drive. The details of this picture are what really get me, though; the car was perfectly washed and waxed, and you can see reflections of both the road and the surrounding buildings in its perfect surface.

Hot Rodder

UBC Rose Garden

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It may be hard to imagine that a kid that grew up in and around Seattle then went to school in Bellingham never managed to make it up to visit Vancouver, BC but somehow this describes me. Not that I never made it to Canada, I visited Victoria, BC plenty of times in high school. Now having visited I’d estimate I missed out on a lot by not visiting sooner. In the Vancouver environs is the beautiful campus of the University of British Columbia which is really something. I’d say that UBC’s campus is, in many respects, precisely what a campus should be. Here’s a college campus which is incredibly close to major metropolitan area but which has somehow managed to completely surround itself with nature.

Pictured here is a shot in the late afternoon of one of the myriad of green spaces on campus, a rose garden perched atop a parking garage. What better way is there to hide an ugly, but necessary, facility than to cover it with something people want to look at? The view of the water and mountains beyond are just bonuses as far as I’m concerned.

UBC Rose Garden

Three Tree from Shorewood

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Another shot from Shorewood’s community beach, this time looking to the south at (from right to left) Three Tree Point, Seahurst park, and the waterfront houses on Standring Lane. The water was exceptionally calm on this summer evening and the gentle lapping and soft lighting were extraordinarily relaxing. At low tide you can practically walk straight across to Seahurst beach, but alas this was taken at an extremely high tide.

Three tree from Shorewood

Quiet in the Lodge

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I spent several nights this week at Oregon’s Timberline Lodge, located very literally at the timber line of Mt. Hood. Just outside the room is nearly year-round skiing on the Palmer glacier (and the exterior used in The Shining), but the interior is constructed of enormous wood beams, nearly 100 years old (the lodge was built in 1936). The center of the hotel is this multi-story common room, featuring multiple levels of tiny reading areas, enormous fire places, and friendly bars.

Quiet in the Lodge

Shorewood Beach at High Tide

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As much as I like the California ocean beaches for being the epitome of ocean beaches, I think my favorite beaches are the ones around Puget Sound. They may not be particularly sandy except at low tide, and the water may be too cold to really enjoy even during the hottest part of summer but Puget Sound is always so calm and subdued. It’s a gentle lapping of waves rather than a roar of the surf.

Shorewood Beach

Americana Double Feature

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I had my own staging of Two-Lane Blacktop in central Oregon this weekend, with the company of this particularly lovely 911 Carrera 4S Cabriolet. This is grass seed country, and this particular weekend fell in the middle of the harvest. Long, perfectly maintained roads are intercut with forested hillsides and busy fields. By this point in the evening, however, nightfall brought calm with it.

Teutonic Americana

For every sunny hilltop like the one above, there was a tree-lined valley. The setting sun really picks out the details of every treetop, but it’s a shame that Oregon has such a clean, healthy atmosphere. Without other molecules in the air to scatter the light, the sunsets lack the exciting colors of other parts of the country. This photograph captures the feeling of blasting down the road, wind in my hair, with only an occasional truck for company.

Country Highway

Moonlit Puget Sound

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One of things I remember most about growing up where I did was the view of the moon’s light reflecting off of Puget Sound. On particularly calm and clear nights the moon’s reflection will be particularly clear, almost like there are two moons. It was a little cloudy on this particular night but it was still a spectacular sight; it almost looks like a painting.

Moonlit Puget Sound

The Grass Courts

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The Longwood Cricket Club of Boston, MA no longer plays cricket. In fact, its members haven’t really played cricket for more than 100 years. What they do play is tennis, and they have acres of gorgeous grass courts on which to do so. On this particular day, as members relaxed on the front porch, the grass courts were empty. A massive storm the night before (that I also had a chance to photograph) meant that the courts were too wet. The view was perhaps all the more surreal for the juxtaposition of crowded porch and empty courts.

The Grass Courts

Afternoon at the Beach

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I know I’ve said it before but probably my favorite thing about California is the coast, and probably the folks out on the beach on this particular day would agree with me. I don’t know that I’d have the fortitude to surf the chilly waters of the northern California coast but the surf does look sort of inviting in the late afternoon.

Afternoon at the Beach