Location, location, location

So I'm on my (almost*) weekly drive with Mom. It's grey and foggy and you can barely see 50 yards into the surrounding fields. As you reach the top of a hill it's possible to discern a ghostly image of the sun peering through, and straight above a hint of lightness and the blue of a clear sky. Then as the altitude drops, the greyness increases. Finally, we come up a rise and the mist disappears completely. The sun is shining. The view is unobstructed all the way to distant peaks. It's hard to imagine that seconds before we were in a world of gray and now we're in a world of brightness and clarity.

We picnicked** just beyond the summit of Steven's Pass with frost coating the trees above us and a friendly crow on the adjacent snow bank watching our every move. Eventually, he realized he wasn't getting any crumbs, so he swore at us and flew away. We continued on to Leavenworth, and then turned back for home.

As we reached the lowlands the mist over-took us again. When we came out of the grocery store, it was almost dark and there seemed no possibility we would see any sunset colors. However, in the final stretch as we came up out of the river valley to the summit of a small hill, the world opened up into a brilliantly colored sunset with views all the way to the distant mountains.

So and but anyway...there you have it, and stuff.

* Almost weekly, not almost drive... :-)
** For those of you who are duly impressed at the hardiness of our family, I hasten to mention that we picnicked inside the car. We're from sturdy pioneer stock, but we have our limits.