Training all Day

Summer has finally hit the Pacific Northwest. Or at least a little pre-summer tease of warmth and sunshine. It really has been the warmest, sunniest spring I remember here in the Puget Sound area for quite some time.

Flowers are blooming.

Streams are running high from the snow melt.

And with the melting snow, trail tread becomes exposed and people hit the trails. Including me.

Yes, I have a summer planned full of hiking and photoing, nights under the stars and sunrises over alpine lakes.

But I also have something else planned.

Each year I try to do something new. Something beyond my comfort zone. Something that stirs a bit of fear in the pit of my stomach. One year it was a solo road trip to the Southwest. Another it was climbing Asgaard Pass to the enchanting Enchantment Lakes.

This year, I will be riding the fabled Seattle to Portland bike ride - 200 miles, 2 days.

So with the flowers and the melting snow, I will be out huffing and puffing on long training rides hoping my butt doesn't go numb and willing myself to make it through the jitters. I know, if I can make it to the starting line, I will make it to Portland.

After all, the apprehension is always worse.

The image is from that first solo road trip to the Southwest - a rare quite moment in Antelope Canyon.

Icons

What do you think of when you think of iconic images when you about to head of on a trip? Do you think of those images that describe the "Place?"

The view from Kerry Park on Queen Ann Hill of Seattle with the Space Needle in the foreground and Mt Rainier in the background?

Yosemite Valley with Half Dome looming at the far end?

A palm tree shading the beach on Hawaii?

How about an image that describes the experience?

Several years ago while I was on a road trip, my first in the southwest and on my own after getting married, I was driving along a highway through the mountains of Southern Utah. Snow, blown by the wind against my windshield, made me wonder why I was out here in March. It looked damned cold outside and I had several more nights in a tent before heading home. I was trying my best to look at the sights around me without becoming a traffic hazard, when I viewed this little abandoned cabin set back in the woods.

I suddenly became that traffic hazard I was trying to avoid being. I made a u-turn right in the middle of the highway (luckily it was a lonely stretch of highway).

That cabin became the meaning of my trip. If I took no other image during my drive, I would have been happy. There was a loneliness to the cabin that described what I was feeling at the time. And yet there was a protective encirclement of trees, a safety of sorts for the cabin. And I knew there was one for me too.

Since that lonely trip so long ago, I have gone through several life changes. A divorce, financial hardship and a severe bout of depression had taken their toll. Through it all though, I could get lost in my viewfinder to see the good and beautiful in the world.

It was time for another road trip.

I chose Eastern Oregon, a long time favorite destination. This time I was going to a few old faves (John Day Fossil Beds, Bend) and a few new places (Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, Smith Rock State Park). A week on the road, exploring and photo-ing. Just me and the turtle.

I looked forward to the time alone. The time to think. The ability to go where I wanted, when I wanted. Sing badly at the top of my lungs.

I turned onto this road early one morning while driving through southeast Oregon. It was straight, cutting through the prairie like a knife and seemed as if no one was there with me.

I loved the lonely, the silence. I loved the straight road leading me on, beckoning me to move forward to something new and something comfortable. The road and the image above became the icon for my trip.

The image below is the cabin I shot so many years ago in Utah.