The Perfect Place for Canoes and Kayaks!

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Photo #716: Low WaterLocation Taken: Hoh River, Olympic National Park, Washington
Time Taken: June 2008

Look at this lovely river!

The water is the stunning color you only get near the source, free of all the mud and debris usually accumulated. The mountains in the distance give the clue as to where it comes from.

And there’s those lovely large flat areas the river meanders around. Briefly visible during the summer, when the weather patterns dry out the local rainforest, and the snow on the mountains has finished the deluge of the thaw.

There’s some trees still hanging out on the sandbanks, ripped up during the last seasonal flood, waiting for the next.

Though really, it can’t get too high, all told. Else they’d never have built the road with only five to ten feet of elevation above the low summer water levels…

  

Just a Normal, Everyday Road… Realllllyyyy….

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Photo #715: Normal RoadLocation Taken: Hurricane Ridge, Olympic National Park
Time Taken: June 2008

Huh. Well, I now know what sort of setting to give the next horror story I’m never going to write.

This does look particularly apocalyptic, doesn’t it? There’s the classic fog, the weathered asphalt, the bare rock on one side and tilting trees on the other…

It’s not, mind you. This is a fairly normal stretch of road, all told. Well, for one on top of a mountain, that is.

That’s not fog, mind you. That’s a cloud. This road goes that high up the mountain.

The asphalt is weathered not due to long-delayed maintenance, but because being in an area where it can snow at any time of the year wears the roads down faster, and makes it tougher to get equipment in to fix them.

The rock is bare not so much because something stripped away all the vegetation, but because vegetation has trouble taking hold with the super-short growing seasons found here. Ok, that’s not fully true. Someone did strip away the soil and plants on that side, as part of creating the flat area the road is on. The short growing season is why the plants haven’t reclaimed the slope, though.

And the tilted trees? Those are pine trees, which have shallow root systems. That lets them grow in rockier terrain, but makes them more prone to coming loose from the ground. Especially on steep slopes like this one, with the added strain of the regular mountain snow.

Alas, you’re not too likely to run into a knife-wielding maniac or a horde of zombies here. Might see a bear though. That’s close enough, right?

  

From the Files of “What the heck is this?”

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Photo #714: Winding CanyonLocation Taken: South of Thermopolis, Wyoming
Time Taken: November 2012

Written on a piece of lined paper I recently found hidden deep in my old school things, in handwriting I do not recognize.

1: Do you know it is raining? I am wet.
2: But why would you be wet?
1: Because it is raining.
2: And why would it be raining?
1: Because there is water falling from the sky.
2: But we are inside!
1: I must be imagining it then.
2: Perhaps not. I still haven’t fixed the roof.
1: We have a roof? I hadn’t noticed.
2: There is a little bit over there.
1: Then why are we standing here?
2: Because the living room has no roof. That place with a roof is the bedroom.
1: Have you noticed the sky is lime-green?
2: Hasn’t it always been that way?
1: No. Yesterday it was blue with orange spots.
2: I thought the spots were more of a harvest gold.
1: Orange.
2: Gold.
1: Orange.
2: Fine, whatever.
1: Look, that cloud looks like Elvis.
2: I thought it looked more like Mr. Rogers.
1: It looked like Elvis a minute ago.
2: Say, do you know that chickens are evil?
1: Chickens are evil?
2: Yes, hadn’t you noticed?
1: No, I had not. I have a question. Why is your hair purple?
2: Because orange is too bright.
1: What about green?
2: Green looks too much like the sky. I wouldn’t want to be mistaken for a cloud.
1: But purple is the same color as the grass. Surely you don’t want to be mistaken for grass?
2: And why not?
1: Because if you were grass, everyone would walk all over you.
2: Speaking of grass, why do you wear a grass skirt?
1: Because paper is too thin.
2: Look, the rain is picking up.
1: Watch out for that house floating by.
2: Which house?
1: The one with the screaming people on it.
2: Not the one that just sank?
1: Nope, you don’t have to watch out for that.
2: Say, why are those people waving at us?
1: I don’t know.

  

Is that a Giant Blade on that Truck or are you just Happy to See me?

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Photo #713: Massive BladeLocation Taken: Columbia Gorge, Oregon
Time Taken: June 2008

If you ever want to tell the true size of something, drive past one being transported.

Like this particular beauty. You know those wind turbines that keep popping up at all the windy areas, gently turning and producing electricity? This is one of the blades for that.

Please note the “Oversize Load” sign. Please also note that it wasn’t for width. These things are absurdly long.

When you’re just looking at one of these wind machines, perched happily on a ridge or at the edge of a farmer’s field, the blades don’t seem that large. At least not until you start running through all the perspective clues. The sheer height of these turbines puts the blades where there’s not many clues as to scale; they’re backed only by the clouds and the bright sky. It doesn’t help that they tend to be in inaccessible spots, away from the roads and houses. Unless you own the usually-empty land they dwell on, or are there to maintain them, you never get close enough to see how massive that center pole must be.

Just think, that round area at the end? That’s a good five feet in diameter, wouldn’t you say? Take a look at how the blades connect, at how the whole system works. That five feet is a fraction of the size of the central area that contains the generator, and that’s all perched on a thick pole. It has to be some twenty to thirty feet across, at least! You could build a decent-sized house on the amount of land that covers!