Schoodic Mountain, The Maine Woods in Autumn

This is some of the flora and fauna of the Maine woods in autumn.

Maine Coast in Rain and Fog

The day I picked to visit the Atlantic Ocean was a rainy, foggy, wet and cold day.  This made the rocks slippery, the colors vibrant, and the experience brief.

Taunton River Sunset Memories

Across the road from where my parents live, down the hill and through the Gordon Cemetery, is the Taunton River.  It is a tidal estuary.  It is beautiful to visit anytime, but sunset is particularly enjoyable.  On this visit I tried not only to capture realistic images, but also to use this water as paint for my digital canvas.

I admit to some frustration as I look at the incredible wealth of fantastic images existing in today's digital world.  It seems there is nothing new under the sun, nothing that has not been photographed, and everything has been photographed very well.  To create something new is a challenging endeavor, and I'm redoubling my effort.

Government Shutdown, Tea Party violates contract with America

My enthusiasm for blogging was dampened by the frustration I experienced, after planning a vacation for a year, expending significant time and money to travel to Maine (including purchasing an "America the Beautiful" pass to our public lands for $80) only to find that due to the Tea Party Government Shutdown the promise made to me at the time I purchased this pass was not to be honored.

Mt. Rainier National Park

On the homeward leg of our vacation, we camped just outside of Mt. Rainier National Park.

When we awoke the early morning light was reflecting off this stream.

We drove up to Paradise, and stopped on the way to look down into the steep canyon carved by the dark, silty glacier meltwater that feeds the Cowlitz River.  It was well over 100 feet below the bridge to the water.

Though you can't see it in this image, the canyon is just at the left of this meadow, and the meadow sits on solid rock polished smooth by glaciers.

Mt. Rainier is covered in snow and blue ice glaciers, and the water from melting snow and ice cascades in rivulets and waterfalls.

Tiger Lily. Lilium columbianum.  With beargrass in the background.  The wildflowers were an astounding symphony of color.

Olympic National Park

Cyndi and I visited the Olympic National Park, Dungeness Spit, Cape Flattery, and the Olympic Peninsula in northwestern Washington this summer.  I saw a new life bird there, the Rhinoceros Auklet.

I saw many Heerman's Gulls.

Our favorite bird, though, has to be the characterful puffins.  The puffins there are the Tufted Puffins.  I had never seen one this close before!

We spent an enjoyable day hiking on Dungeness Spit, and this view shows the lighthouse at the tip of the spit with Mount Rainier in the distance.

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Here is a veiw of the spit.  It is about five miles out to the lighthouse.

We also went to the Hoh rainforest.

Moss covers everything in this area where there can be about 180 inches of rain every year.

We also stopped at a few of the many beaches on the Pacific coast.  The beaches further north were composed of cobblestones.

There were not very many people out in the early morning.

Driftwood was piled high, and this particular image caused me to imagine animal faces looking out to sea.

Further south, the beaches become broad expanses of soft sand.

This trail to the beach winds through a grove of Sitka Spruce, and many of them have burls growing on them.

The sandy coastline goes on for miles, and camping is allowed on many of the beaches.

Pearly Everlasting grew at the edge of the sand.

There were interesting bits of shells left behind by the receding tide.