Away to AK...

Going home to AK...we hate to leave the ones we love ...but long for the mountains...life is so rarely simple.

We are waiting to sink our feet into the moss covered floors of pacific northwestern forests, to breath the deep, sweet scent of the green mountains, to dip our hands into the icy azure of the Yukon…but until then, every day has it’s treasures, it’s delights and it’s pricks of fear and longing for what we have left behind, and what is ahead.

Our first full day of travel was the far reaches of west Texas and over the border to New Mexico.

What strikes you there first, quite literally is the merciless heat, where the sun stares like an unblinking eye and it’s light hits you as though you were an ant beneath a glass….no motion is hidden, dust betrays the slightest movement.

The stark face of the west has it’s own beauty, the clarity of the high blue and beneath the stubborn, naked, brown creases of mountains. The Rio Grande lays a green ribbon down the valley....

Onward, through Arizona and into the stark reaches of the Mojave....into the brown rolling hills of southern Cali, past crowded cities, to fertile valleys where roses and almonds, olives, oranges and vineyards compete for fecundity...

Next, up the Pacific Coast Highway, hairpin, hair raising turns and breathtaking vistas a every turn. Here, the wind was cool and fresh and the beaches differed at pull off. Big Sur, Monterey...we rummaged the beaches like children looking for treasure, dashing cold waves and shrieking in delight.

Unfortunately, it was fairly difficult to pull over in many places because we have an RV to drive as well as the car to pull. Many of the best pullouts on the Pacific Coast Highway were on the other side and were very difficult for us to access but we managed a few and then spent the night at an RV park on the beach, walking there in the lovely, cold air as the sun wet.

Northern California in it's uppermost reaches began to remind me of home. We spent a night in Mt. Shasta, an exquisite little town....unique stores, amazing restaurants, but best of all, the mountains reaching high above us and the trees so tall, overshadowing us.

As I write this, we are sitting in verdant southern Oregon and husband and I find ourselves feverish with delight at being back in the Pacific Northwest....
I realize I do not have a lot of fantastic pictures of the Southwest, many times it has been difficult to stop...so I have posted a some pictures that seem fairly meaningful to me or worthwhile. They will be much nicer if you click on them to enlarge...
More later...