September travels.

We did some traveling in September...thought I'd share a bit of the sights! 

Early in the month Mike & I headed up to Seattle with a truckload of Allison & Stephen's stuff!  They were settling into their new digs near the UW campus, getting started with school and work, and we were able to spend a few days hanging out with them; seeing the campus, biking, paddle boarding (for the first time!) and getting to know their new neighborhood!

Then, we headed across the waters and over to the Olympic National Park.  I've never been, but Mike had gone years ago with a photography class, so he was eager to show me around.  We stayed in Forks, WA...and if you are a Twilight fan you will know that it is where some of the film(s) were shot.  I have not read any of the books or seen any of the movies, so the tourist attractions in the little town were lost on me!  We did, however, wander a beach path after dark and it was plenty creepy...sure felt like a vampire was lurking...!

Spent our days driving here and there, did a little hiking, found an amazing spot to paddle board (Lake Crescent...amazing emerald water that was unbelievably clear, surrounded by hills covered in beautiful trees) and we sampled some local fare.  Our evenings, we headed to the beaches for sunsets!

After a few days of exploring, we headed South to Pacific City, Oregon.  Home away from home.  We hiked out the beautifully forested, muddy trail to Cape Lookout on one afternoon...spent a couple of days just hanging out watching the dories come and go...paddle boarded a nice lake in Lincoln City...and explored Cape Kiwanda a little more (oh, and if I am offering full disclosure, I might also mention that we ended up in the ER late one night, Mike passing a kidney stone!).  We made an unexpected trip to Hermiston to honor Mike's Uncle, Dave Landon, who passed away after a long illness.  Dave was one of the first "Ryan" family members I met as he and his wife, Carolyn, lived in Hermiston when Mike and I first met there...and Dave always made me feel like part of his family; a daughter.  He was the first voice I recall hearing when I woke up in the hospital having just had Ashley...he told me "she is beautiful".  I will miss his laugh. 

Mike headed back after a week, leaving me to set my own pace for the rest of the time...I did a lot of beach walking, took a paddle board yoga class on the Nestucca River (and never fell off!), enjoyed time to read and write and daydream...and took a glass blowing lesson one afternoon (made a cool paperweight)!  "I come to the sea to breathe" is one of my favorite quotes...and I sure do love it...something about the unceasing movement of the sea that calms me.

I made it home safely and spent a day re-grouping at home before I packed up Ashley & Harper for a road trip to Island Park to visit some friends!  It was a fun visit and great to spend a day with Ashley & Harper, too, after having been away for 3 weeks!  Harper is growing so fast now...busy learning new things every day (stay tuned for the next post for a Harper update!)!  That next weekend, we met those friends in the Grand Teton Park and spent a beautiful Fall day doing a little kayaking down the Snake River...and then we camped out at a spot where we could watch the full moon go down as the sun rose up right over the Teton Range. 

September was spent mostly on the road, for me...and Fall always feels like a good time to settle back in at home for a bit...so this month I did some portrait work with some sweet clients, did mountains of laundry and plenty of housework and dreaded paperwork, caught up with some old friends in Boise and took Mike's parents to a BSU football game.  And then, I traveled once again, to Seattle to visit Allison...this time with Ashley & Harper!  We did kind of a girl's weekend (we let Stephen stay...and baby Uriah!), with shopping and sight-seeing and ice cream and cookies and plenty of sitting around watching Harper!  I managed to do a couple of photo shoots too...stay tuned for that! 



On a ferry, leaving Seattle for the Olympic National Park.

The Seattle skyline.

Lake Crescent...incredible waters!

Hurricane Ridge, Olympic Park

Second Beach

Second Beach

I can't resist making towers on rocky shores!

Rialto Beach

Rialto Beach

Pacific City, Oregon...home away from home.

Moonset and sunrise, over the Teton Range.

Heavenly.

I am home after nearly a month long adventuresome absence and am beginning to settle back in for a bit;  going through the stack of bills that inevitably pile up when you are away, finishing up the mounds of laundry that comes with dumping out suitcases (complete with little piles of sand in the bottom), cleaning house, doing some great Fall portraits with some fun clients and trying to get back into the groove of "regular" life which includes plenty of my to-do lists, of course!  Although there are certainly more pertinent chores to attend to, I couldn't help myself but to download some of my pictures from our Seattle-Olympic Park-Oregon coast trip and I came across this one, from the Olympic National Park, which makes me just sort of sigh... 

I know there must be a heaven...and I kind of like to think this is what it is going to feel like...

 



I confess, I am not really a morning person....

...particularly when they are absent the smell of freshly brewed coffee...  But this particular cold April morning...well, this beautiful, golden sunrise was worth the cup of instant java I was sipping on by the banks of Oxbow Bend...



For some, it might be hiking alone in the mountains...

...for some, floating down a long stretch of river...for some, wandering in antique shops and for some, it is the hum of a city...  For me, well, if you know me at all, it is walking along a beach.  Whatever it is, wherever it is, that you find yourself feeling most like yourself...do that once in awhile...it's rejuvenating to the soul of who you are. 

I got to spend some time along the Oregon Coast again, my favorite place in the world, thus far!  There were sunny days, windy days, calm days and yes, for sure, a couple of rainy days...but for me...every day, barefoot in the sand, listening to the constant waves of the ocean is a really good day!  I relaxed on the deck, people-watched, whale-watched, did a little wandering, took a few pictures, got completely hooked on Mexican mochas, hiked up the dunes (to work off the mochas!), shared the time with family and friends (and oh, my goodness, cute pictures of baby Harper on the beach to come soon!) and, I renewed a promise to myself...to write a book. 

I've had a dream, probably since I was a teenager, to write a book.  But, there is never enough time in the day, it seems, and always another adventure to plan or another project to undertake (or a house to clean or kids to raise or bills to pay...oh, yes, all those other things you have to juggle and seem to always take priority!), and...it is incredibly difficult to isolate yourself enough to think straight or stay focused for hours at a time...but I am going to do it!!!  I have it in me to write a book!  I do!  It's not just going to be a dream, it's a goal...and now, I've said it out loud!  I'll keep you posted! 

In the meantime, one of the beautiful evenings on the Oregon Coast...

First day on the island.

No wake up call!  Yay!  For the first time on vacation we had no place to be, nothing to pack or unpack, and no one to meet up with!  We spent the entire day at leisure...wandered up to the breakfast buffet and enjoyed a relaxing meal and caught up on my coffee drinking!  (Did I mention that I love coffee in the morning, but after realizing that trips to the bathroom, while on safari, are few and far between I had given up my morning java...?!)  Ahhh, to drink coffee again...! 

We made our way to the pool where we spent much of the day lounging and taking quick dips in the pool as the heat came on.  We walked along the sand at low tide, picked up a few shells for my collection and enjoyed our quiet day.

Those who know me can attest...my most favorite thing to do is to walk on an isolated beach.

The guests here range in age and nationalities; a couple of families with small kids, and some honeymooning couples, but primarily middle-aged couples, seeking quiet, I think!  Pretty sure we may be one of the only Americans here as the English we hear definitely has a more European accent.

We had lunch by the pool, yummy fresh fruits for me, a huge biscuit hamburger for Mike.  We got on the internet periodically, to check for messages and pictures from home!  Lyle and Sue made it home and posted sweet pictures with Makenzie which made me wanna cry all over again, but instead we decided to try again to give Ashley a call!  (We had tried last night but the lines were down.)   

It was so good to hear her exhausted, happy voice!  She was still in the hospital but likely headed home today - all was well with Harper, except, I am certain, she was wondering where her Nana and Papa were! 

We spent the rest of the day enjoying our leisurely pace...had a really lovely dinner in the dining room and got to bed pretty early as we had to be up at 7 for our tour day!

Day 2 - Ngorongoro Crater

We were up early, to try to get into the crater as early as possible, taking a different entrance road this time, and this time Mike and I rode with Margaret and Debra, with Martin as our guide.  Another glitch in the vehicle, a flat tire at the entrance gate, caused a delay for a bit, but after a quick change, we were off again, to the crater floor.

I would have to refer to my images to be completely accurate with my list of the many animals we saw, but I know that it included lions right off the bat; a pair of males, (brothers, Martin told us) and a female.  One of the males was sleepily protecting what appeared to be last night's kill, a warthog, from the hungry jackals and vultures.  The other male was snuggling, literally, with the female and eventually they got up and moved across the road in search of shade.

One of the highlights of the day came next, a huge, old elephant.  We could see him from quite far away, lumbering, very deliberately across an open field.  Martin positioned our vehicle right in his path and he never lost a step, but came right across the road in front of us, majestically.  It was hot by then and the dry heat was rising off the land as he paced himself toward a patch of green.  He was pretty cool.  Almost as soon as he got to the green grasses a lioness popped her head up to see who had disturbed her nap!  It was truly another one of those "we are in Africa moments"...especially to see the animals living together in the crater.

 

 

We headed towards a group of lions who were stalking, or at least staking out, a herd of buffalo...the drivers from all the different companies talk to each other on walkie-talkies and in passing, so they always have a pretty good idea of what's going on and where.  It was pretty hot and I had been sitting up in the front seat with no shade and I began to feel a little sick at that point...so we watched the lions for just a bit, but then headed towards a pond for some shade and a chance to get out and stretch our legs.  A rainstorm rolled in while we were watching a few hippos in the pond and it cooled everything, including me, down nicely so we were off again! 

Martin had heard that the two black rhinos we had seen from a distance yesterday were now closer to the road so we headed off in that direction.  At first, we saw them from a distance again, but Martin predicted they would be crossing a perpendicular road so he took us in that direction...and sure enough, they came...right towards us!  Ancient looking, huge animals!  Really amazing to see up close...a female (the larger one) and a young male, maybe 2 or 3 years old, Martin guessed.  We were all standing up clicking away with our cameras, along with a row of other vehicles, and they began to pace sort of anxiously, trying to find a spot to cross the road.  Martin told us that they have very keen hearing but very poor eyesight and suggested that we stop taking pictures for a minute to see what they would do, and sure enough, they hesitated to listen and then came right towards our quiet vehicle!  So cool!  There are only about 20 black rhinos in the crater, and only 4,000 or so in the world...they are considered a critically endangered species, threatened to be extinct...it was pretty amazing to see them, particularly so close.

 

 

Between the big elephant and the black rhinos, it was a pretty great day, again!  And, we weren't late getting out of the crater, so the drive out wasn't nearly as harrowing!  We got to the hotel, the Serena Safari Lodge, an older, larger place, with rooms spread out along the rim of the crater.  All of the rooms had amazing, panoramic views of the crater with nice little decks....and a nice long shower felt really good!  Mike headed to dinner with the group, but I was kind of beat so I elected to stay behind and get a little extra rest!  I charged some batteries and downloaded some of our memory cards and fell asleep midway through trying to be productive!  

Mike came back with some exciting news...Lyle & Sue's daughter, Chelsea, had her baby!!!  They were able to talk with her, and even Facetimed with them, and they were so relieved to know that everyone was fine and healthy!!!   Welcome to the world, Makenzie!  Your Bibi and Babu love you so much!

A wildebeest momma and baby!

...reminded me a little of Yellowstone.

The crater walls...pretty steep!

Wildebeest.

Trying out his little legs!!!

My favorites...momma and baby zebra!

A heron...all fluffed up!

Hyena!

Hyena pups!  Two different litters...the one in the hole was much smaller than the other.

Little guy!

Gnawing on a piece of bone.

Another post-sunset shot.

It has been an exceptionally beautiful week here in Pacific City, Oregon.  Lots of sunshine and very little wind...really incredible weather, especially for January.  There have been surfers enjoying the waves every day, along with a few paddle boarders, a couple of kayakers, and even one crazy person swimming...well, more like squealing and flailing like he was on fire!

I've enjoyed the quiet early mornings watching the world wake up, one dog beach walker at a time, while I wake up myself with my coffee on the deck or tucked in by the fireplace reading the paper.  I managed to get a little bit of computer work done, but definitely spent more time staring at the waves than at the computer screen.  It's mesmerizing, to be sure. 

I've had some fun with my photography...even daring myself out to the very edge of Cape Kiwanda to capture a few images of the crashing waves below!  I've certainly LOVED the sunsets!  I've walked miles and miles of beach, including up and down the dunes several times, which is no small feat!  And I got to spend a beautiful day at Indian Beach thinking about my parents and how much I miss them in my day to day life.  I am so excited to be a grandparent (a "Nana")...it reminds me how much I would've liked my girls to have known my parents more, longer...they were really amazing people.  So, I hope I am around a long, long time...to enjoy days like these...and days with my kids, and their kids...and maybe even their kids?!
 
Heading home tomorrow...excited to see my hubby at the airport!



Indian Beach.

This is Indian Beach.  To get there, you head just a little bit North out of the town of Cannon Beach, Oregon and follow the signs up a windy, forested road to Ecola State Park.  Once in the park, you head down another windy, narrow, steep, forested road to the parking lot overlooking Indian Beach.  It's a nice, quiet cove, usually pretty unpopulated, with a perfectly Oregon Coast rugged, rocky south end...and it has a special place in my heart.  It was particularly lovely this chilly January night, just after sunset.

That's the thing about sunsets...this one, the actually setting of the sun, was kind of unremarkable.  There weren't a lot of clouds in the sky, just a skiff on the horizon, so nothing really popped in the sky...it wasn't an obviously beautiful sunset.  But, if you are patient, and wearing lots of warm layers (because as soon as the sun disappears so does all the warmth in the air)...you might be lucky enough to get this kind of image...a beautiful, calm, vibrant reflection in the low tide.  Worth the wait (and the goose bumps)!

That's the thing about beauty in life, isn't it...sometimes you have to be patient, and really, really quiet, to appreciate it. 

Thanks Mom & Dad. 

It's not just the gorgeous sunsets...

I have always loved the Oregon Coast.  Well, almost any coastline, actually, but the Oregon Coast has been a special place for me since the first time I visited, when I was 12 years old. 
My parents and I, and I got to bring along my friend Lori, drove, the summer of '76, from Michigan to Oregon, camping along the way.  When we arrived at the Oregon Coast, Lori and I got to pitch our tent right on the beach (can't do that anymore in most places) and sleep with the roar of the ocean literally right out our screen door!  It was incredible!  I think we stayed up all night, just watching the waves!  And I was hooked.
The next year our family moved to Eastern Oregon and we visited the coast often, usually ending up near the quaint town of Cannon Beach.  Mike and I spent our first 'vacation' together there, on the coast, in a really sketchy, cheap hotel in Seaside with Mark & Kelly (remember the slanted shower and the broken chair?!)!   Once we were married and had returned to the Northwest, we began a tradition of taking our girls there every summer for a week.  One of our fondest memories is the vacation to Yachats, Oregon where everything seemingly went wrong...kids with the stomach flu, pulling up to our hotel to fire trucks putting out a fire, a flat tire...and one of the best trips ever, just the 4 of us, hanging out at the beach.
So, there is certainly something nostalgic that draws me back to the Oregon Coast...like the home I grew up in, in a way.  But then there is the obvious...the beauty!  People think of the beach and it is bikinis and sand castles and miles of crowded sandy beaches...and I love that too, sometimes...but the Oregon Coast is different.  It is usually chillier than you expect for "the beach", no matter what time of year...and rugged...and fairly uncrowded, in places...and, well, relentlessly beautiful. 
There is an artist/writer, Mary Anne Radmacher, who resides on the coast who wrote "I come to the sea to breathe"...and I think it's true.  I feel more at ease there than almost anywhere else...something about the constant hum of the ocean...

Anyway, we just returned from a great family Thanksgiving in Prosser, Washington...had a really good time catching up with everyone and just hanging out with a great family...and we had a fun baby shower for Ashley while we were there (only 3 more months to go!)!  Then we headed farther west to the beach for the week...took Mike's parents with us for a few days to enjoy some sunshine, dune-climbing (and, yes, at 74-years young, Mike's dad ran down the dunes with us!), puzzle-making and surfer-watching!  Then, picked up Allison towards the end of the week and, well, we loved the chance to hang out with her. 
So these are a few images I took with my iPhone (thankful for that little gadget in my life!)...on a particularly beautiful evening.

Now it's time to start thinking about Christmas!  Getting the tree up this week, and the house decorated, gifts wrapped, goodies baking...and settling in for a homey holiday! 

Thankful for all the friends and family we have in our lives...and all the blessings we enjoy.

Sunset.

September was kind of a busy month for us!  I can always tell, in retrospect, when we've been busy, because it takes me awhile to download my memory cards, and then even longer to post them here, or on our websites...but when I finally get a chance to sit down for a few minutes to look at them, it's like Christmas morning, re-discovering pictures I've sort of forgotten about momentarily!  This one jumped out at me, well, it actually kind of beckons me, to return...! 

A beautiful sunset at Cape Kiwanda, Pacific City, Oregon...  Just wanted to share this one while I scan through the rest of these September images!

Oregon Coast!

A spur-of-the-moment trip to the beach this past weekend proved to be the perfect way to celebrate Memorial Day. Remembering lives past and honoring the future always seems more relevant to me when surrounded by the sound of crashing waves and the sight of those dramatic coastal horizons. The chance to reflect is never more accessible than when you are walking, a little bit aimlessly, eyes down towards the sand, wind at your back, the sound of waves a constant rumble...

I love the Oregon Coast.

(...and I love my new iPhone, with the cool photography apps I've found too! This picture was taken with ShakeItPhoto and then collaged with Diptic. So fun!)

Mother Nature.

It was so nice of Mother Nature to provide my favorite color in the sky on Mother's Day (kind of a purple-y haze)!  Okay, so I probably would've prefer it not to be in the form of a crazy, blowing snow storm, but hey...it was pretty cool nonetheless!  



Corvallis, Oregon

This is not representative of my recent visit to my daughter and future son-in-law, in fact, the weather was generally lovely and visiting the kids was so much fun, but it is what it looked like the morning I was packing to leave...  An early morning fog had settled in on the Willamette River just outside the hotel and I couldn't resist running down onto the walking path in my p.j.'s to capture the mood! 
I love Corvallis, such a great little college town...and I sure do love my kids!



Happy New Year!

We rang in the New Year in one of our favorite places, again…Jackson, Wyoming. It was frigidly cold, well into double digit negative numbers, but oh, so beautiful. The critters were mostly tucked away and not many people were venturing out into the cold, so we enjoyed a serenely quiet day amidst the grandeur of the Teton Range…watching the sun move across the sky, listening to the sound of crunching snow under our snowshoes, dancing to my own absurd songs in an effort to thwart the cold (not an easy task, by the way, dancing in snow shoes) and enjoying immensely our heated vehicle!

And there, in the calm of the sun setting upon the mountain landscape, I decided upon my resolution for the New Year…to seek and appreciate simplicity. It truly is, after all, the simplest things which give us joy in our lives…not the hustle & bustle, nor the to-do lists, nor the objects we acquire…but the purest appreciation of our own lives, the people in it, and the moments we share.

Peace, to you and yours in 2011.

Tetons in Fall!

There is no better time to visit the Grand Teton National Park, than Fall...well, unless it be Summer, when the temperatures are warm and the days are long, that's nice too...or Winter, when the mountains are white and the animals are visible...or Spring, when the wildflowers are in bloom...  But I digress...  Fall is really spectacular! 

Confession...I've been a photographer for awhile...

I know it's crazy...but I actually shot film for many years!  Remember film?  I still have some in my freezer!  Do you remember the darkroom...not the digital one, but the one that smelled like chemicals and had that ever-present sound of running water?  And Velvia slide film!  Oh, I loved the saturation of Velvia!
Anyway, that's where I began.  In a darkroom, with black and white photography, then onto color slides...which is what these images were, until I scanned them for use in our digital world.  If you ever shot film you may remember being really selective about when to click the shutter, 'cause you only had 24 or maybe 36 images on the roll.  Nowadays it is easy to shoot through a 4 GB card (a couple of hundred images in RAW) without much thought.
One of the most important things I learned, as a film user, was how important is was to be selective about your composition.  Sure, you could crop into a photo to eliminate extraneous elements, but there was no easy "bandaid" for spot healing or "clone stamp" for erasing things you may or may not have even realized were a part of your image.
My style, maybe as a result of trying to eliminate all of the "noise"...became one of simplicity.  I prefer the simplest version of an image, whether it be a sweeping landscape, a personal portrait, or capturing a sense of place...my style usually reflects a sense of simplicity.  It isn't right or wrong, that is certainly not the lesson here, it is, instead, that you have to find your voice, in everything you do.  Make it your own.