Browsed by
Category: landscape

Ice Cave Ridge

Ice Cave Ridge

Comments 0 Comment

When I was a kid, I liked to explore the farm behind our house. It was mostly a cow pasture, but my romantic 14-year-old self once mapped it, naming one sheltered section the Land of Eternal Snows. 

I probably made this discovery in early March,  and I imagine that the small amount of white stuff that remained was gone the next day, but the Land of Eternal Snows it was.

Today I walked past fissures so protected from the sun that snow can last in them well into June. Since we were hiking in August, these were simply caves, not ice caves, but to peer into them was to see the earth revealing itself, layer by layer. 

What was most impressive about this trail, though, were the views off the ridge: mountains beyond mountains and a brow across from our trail, higher and more impressive than the one where we stood. I stayed well back from the edge. I always do. 

Skipping Ahead

Skipping Ahead

Comments 0 Comment

Today we travel west to Pagosa Springs, Colorado. There’s family there, and a lot to explore. 

It’s been a while since I’ve driven through the American West, and I’m looking forward to the feeling I get there, a sense of limitlessness, of big skies and possibility. 

As a daughter of parents who drove across the country on their honeymoon, who thought nothing of cramming four kids into a station wagon and heading from Kentucky to California, skipping any part of a land journey feels like cheating. 

I should be driving to Colorado, a part of me says.  But the older, wiser part disagrees. Are you kidding, this is what you always wanted when you were a kid, to skip ahead, to forgo the tedium of familiar landscapes for the crisp, pure difference of western terrains. 

Skipping ahead is what we plan to do today.

(Colorado’s Great Sand Dunes, 2019.) 

Rock Maze

Rock Maze

Comments 0 Comment

The rocks appeared when we were told they would, a half mile into a fern forest. They seemed to emerge from the center of the earth, massive shelves of rock, dim and cavelike, green with moss. 

Rhododendron trees twined their roots around and through the rocks, and fissures erupted where you least expected them. It was an accidental discovery, a place found while looking for somewhere else. It was eerie and awe-inspiring, a glimpse of another world. I’m so glad we explored Maryland’s Rock Maze.

Paddle to See

Paddle to See

Comments 0 Comment

A favorite children’s book on our shelves is Paddle-to-the-Sea, a delightful tale of an Indian boy who carves a wooden canoe and paddler and sets them free in the headwaters of the Great Lakes. The little boat has many adventures, even crosses the Atlantic Ocean. The grown-up boy discovers it years later.

One of my favorite experiences on this trip was also a paddle. Not a paddle to the sea, but a paddle to see. It was just a kayak trip across a small lake, but the leisurely pace allowed for an exploration of lily pads and a tall-pine forest where low boughs kissed the water. 

I felt like I was seeing the lake for the first time. Dragonflies sipped water from my toes. The blue lake reflected white clouds. I thought about the restorative value of time on the water, of being adrift on a distant pond.  

Mountain Maryland

Mountain Maryland

Comments 0 Comment

Mountain Maryland, it’s called, and yesterday I had a good taste of it, having turned left instead of right at a crucial juncture. No matter: all the better to explore this slice of heaven, this melding of lake and hill and sky. 

This is the fourth year for an expedition to western Maryland, which is as different from D.C. Metro Maryland as one can imagine. 

Here there are fields of daisies and roads along ridge tops with views of barns and corn and cows. There are shady glens, broad vistas, and lakes with lily pads. It was love at first sight, and later visits have only confirmed the initial attraction. 

Mountain Maryland is a place for me.

Sand: An Appreciation

Sand: An Appreciation

Comments 0 Comment

A return yesterday to the coolest weather I’ve experienced in weeks. No heat wave, no subtropical humidity. Instead, a pleasant warmth and weight to the air. I can’t say I miss the heat, but I do miss the beach, the breeze, even the sand. 

Yes, it sticks to the back of the legs and collects in the shower drain despite best attempts to wipe it off at the door. But sand is a most amazing element. 

I think of my beach walks, striding across the fluffy stuff to find the hard-packed sand at water’s edge, constantly adjusting my route based on wave reach and tide. 

I think of the bounce in my step sand provides: what a wonderful striding surface it is. 

My beach trip may be over, but the memories remain. And a little of the sand does, too. 

Time and Tides

Time and Tides

Comments 0 Comment

The walks come when they will, when I wake up and make my way to the beach. The tides have their own rhythms, drawn from moon and sun and gravity. 

When I stroll the beach, I’m part of the elements, pulled into their orbit, at one with sand and sea.

Time passes slowly. Eternal time, at least for an hour or two. 

The Sky Rules

The Sky Rules

Comments 0 Comment

It’s what I notice first every year, even before the foamy breakers, the spun-sugar sand. It’s the sky: vast and blue and dotted with clouds.

Here at the beach the sky stretches out boldly to the horizon, no curtain of green to obscure it. 

Were I to live always beneath such a sky, I’d feel bare and exposed. But when I’m here, for this precious week, it opens me up, enlarges my vision. 

Here at the beach, the sky rules. 

Night Light

Night Light

Comments 0 Comment

Watching the light fade last night, I see leaves grow indistinct, dark masses without color. 

Searching for bats, I see blurred forms cut through the darkness, visible only when they cross a patch of still-blue sky.

As sunlight vanishes, fireflies rouse themselves from the ground, blink and twinkle as they flutter their way to the treetops.

Closer to where I’m sitting, the deck lights snap to attention. They’ve been storing sunlight all day and now release it.

Two types of night light on an early July evening. 

Stopping for Sunset

Stopping for Sunset

Comments 0 Comment

A late walk, not timed for sunset but finding it anyway. There at the end of the street, the end of the neighborhood, the end of the day.

It was not an untrammeled view. Lines and lights and poles obscured it. But maybe, I thought as I snapped, they were the point. Stop, say the red lights. Savor the colors, the clouds, the setting sun. Make time for them as often as you can.