Buoyed by yesterday’s success, we started out this morning by heading west and driving the “blue and white” roads south and west of The Dalles, an area neither Brooks nor I have ever explored. There were not a lot of people on the back roads so we could drive slowly and stop when we wanted. Like all unplanned and unknown journeys we had no expectations. One of the first stops we came to on old US 30 was Rowena Crest, near Mosier. I took what I thought was a clever photograph, but then again so has everyone else that has been there.
Haze was prevalent from our vantage point and we could see the brown smoke layer throughout the Columbia Gorge and going west towards Portland. We continued to explore the back roads and came into some very dense tree growth that is typical of the rainy side of the Cascades. Moving from the wide open spaces of Eastern Oregon to the densely forested Cascades was a huge change. The chaos of dense vegetation and trees made it difficult for me to create a coherent photograph. We settled for working on details, most successfully with back lit leaves.
We broke through the top of a hill and some heavily forested land to happen upon a recently harvested tract of timber. We came upon the still burning slash piles. I had never seen that before, so I had to make a photograph.
We drove by a lot of orchards and vineyards in our trek. It’s way past the end of the growing season and the harvest is in. The leaves are changing colors and it is time for autumn to begin. Often there are different crops side by side and that makes for colorful afternoons.
We were pretty much toasted by 4 PM. We had been exploring and photographing for six or seven hours non-stop and were in dire need of a break. Tomorrow, we’ll head further into the heavily wooded areas of the Columbia Gorge to photograph waterfalls and the like. It’s an area known to us and should provide us with some great subject matter. It seems like every other day is very productive and if our current trend holds true, we should have a good day tomorrow.
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