Viewpoints

Anyone who has ever driven any distance with me on a road trip knows that I am a complete sap when it comes to 'Scenic View Ahead' opportunities.  I can't seem to pass them by - excitement mounting as I turn in, reaching for the camera...  What wonderful vista will open up before me?  Will this be the 'next great' photo opportunity? 

Unfortunately I've been having trouble with them lately.  I'm getting disillusioned.

Here in the northwest the view is nearly always obscured by trees growing ever taller, a phenomenon that must have been completely unknown to, or was certainly totally unanticipated by, the Scenic View Development Committee a few years ago, but with which I personally have vast experience. 

There is a great possibility for a world-class view on the highway to Mt Rainier (which, by the way, should be pronounced in such a way as to indicate that it is rainier there than most places - or perhaps snowier there, to be more precise - but it isn't.) This should be a view up a valley right to the mountain, following a river which tumbles dramatically from its heights in a deep ravine, complete with waterfalls flowing directly out of the glacier ice.  I can almost salivate in anticipation.  As we are climbing in elevation up the road we can see bits of it, but there is no place to stop and the angle isn't quite right.  Then suddenly there is the sign!  Scenic View Ahead!  I pull in.  Mark groans. (He is wiser in the ways of life.) 

But what do I see from this view?  Trees.  Nothing but very tall trees surrounding the turn-out.  And an interpretive sign. 

We headed that way yesterday - around the 'back' way to the mountain - so that I could finally see the mountain above 'Reflection Lake' on the beautiful clear day we had.  We took an extra day off work just to do this - realizing that clear, beautiful days are hard to come by here in rain country.  (Not to overemphasize a point or anything...)  I've seen pictures of this 'view' in all kinds of places advertising the most beautiful sights in the world etc., etc., etc.  So what do we see when we get there?  Ice on the lake.  Completely frozen over still - on this, the 5th of July.  No reflection at all, of the mountain or anything.  And for that matter, very difficult to see the actual lake because of the 20 foot snow drift in front of it.  Mark takes a picture of the picture on the interpretive sign.  That is as close as we can get. 

So while I don't have spectacular shots of spectacular scenery taken from well-place Viewpoints - I will share a few pictures from a weekend of day trips.  We were in Blaine, WA to see the Peace Arch betwen the US and Canada borders, on Camano Island (home of the famous Barefoot Bandit) where we saw yellow lupine which we thought only grew on the shores of Pt Reyes in California, and of course to the Mountain that dominates our skyline: