Sophie asks us to “look back at things you love(d) in your life, things that have happened, places you visited that you’d like to experience again. Anything, really, as long as it’s part of your treasured memories.” Here are places I loved and hope to visit again.
View of Mt. Baker from Ferry on the way to Orcas Island.
For thirty years Creighton and I took our summer vacation at Beach Haven Resort on Orcas Island, WA. We were avid bicyclists in those years, and toured every island where the Ferry docked. When I look at the photos, I see how young and active we both were
View from the summit of Mr. Constitution
There is no way I would try to bicycle up Mt. Constitution now; pedaling 4.8 miles, gaining 1,840 ft (561 m) at a 7.3% average grade! However it was a challenge we accomplished every year we visited.
Another thing we both loved was making music with Bill, an absolutely amazing guitarist. For several years the three of us played and sang swinging Jazz and Bossa Nova together as the “Jazz Casual Trio”. Over three summers, Bill vacationed at Beach Haven too, and we jammed on our deck and also performed for the guests at Beach Haven. Bill moved to Ashville, NC several years ago, so making music again is not in the cards, however a visit to Beach Haven is something I’d like to do again.
Creighton took us for a visit to Albequerque, a community he always enjoyed. We visited the Native American Historical Museum, shopped old downtown, and other sites. The best part was taking the tram to the top of Sandia Peak 10K above the town and seeing the lights at sundown.
For our 25th wedding anniversary, Creighton and I took a three week trip to France. We were hosted by his cousin Catherine, and her husband Jean-Francois. They took us on an intimate journey of France and the Le Coq family history in Bretagne. We were welcomed and entertained by many aunts & uncles and extended lines of family. I would love to go again, and tuck in a visit to Scotland as well.
Thanks to Sophia for this challenge. All of these photos are non-digital, as you can see from the fuzziness! Still, they bring back fond memories and it was such a delight to dig into the old photo albums to find them.
On your walk with life, please honor our earth, encourage dignity and share kindness. 🐾
In this week’s Challenge, Anne-Christine asks us to show photos that express the “mood of a place of situation.” What a wonderful topic to help me escape (if only for a while) the angst caused by hurricanes worsened by global warming, and politics fueled by divisiveness and deceit. In response, I have selected some of my favorite places and scenes in nature that visually express the poetry of peace and serenity.
The golden hour of sunrise at the Breakers, with mist rising from the dunes, and sweet beagle Jello. Mist and fog are both favorite mood-makers for me. They filter light and soften the edges of any landscape.
“Somehow I believe we search for surroundings that lift or match our own mood.” (Leya)
The green bower over the Martha Jordan Birding Trail, Leadbetter State Park, wraps me in tranquility. As my beagles sniff the underbrush, I amble, enjoy the sights and breathe.
An immature Bald Eagle, surveying the incoming tide, appears calm and unruffled.
When sunrays shine towards earth through clouds at sundown, the sight is awe inspiring. The technical name for this phenomenon is Crepuscular Rays. Somehow that just doesn’t fit how I feel when I witness these events! Understandably, many call it God’s Rays, and I have settled on Twilight Rays.
To conclude this journey through nature’s tranquility, another golden hour photo, this one at sunset on Long Beach, WA.
On your walk with life, please honor our earth, encourage dignity and share kindness. 🐾
Thank you Anne-Christine (Leya) for this opportunity to calm my soul!
Thank you to Patti for inviting us to look around and find those wonderful moments of unexpected beauty. Often, as I am wandering along trails or walking the beach – or just about anywhere – I’ll see something that tickles my fancy and snap the photo. Sometimes they are duds, yet more often than not, I find a charming delight, and often mystery in them.
There were wildfires burning all around Odell Lake in central Oregon, when I was fishing with my family this past August. As I looked across the smoky lake, it reminded me of photos I’d seen in magazines of fishing boats in far-off lands surrounded by mist.
This strand of jewels is a bit of drying wave-foam reflecting light from the afternoon sun.
Could it be the Milky Way? Not quite. It is the reflection of our Sun, upon shallow tide water at Long Beach, WA. I was captivated by the beautiful shimmering light on the surface, and now I have a perfect excuse to show it to you! The original image is essentially black and white, to my eye the process filter creates more sense of depth.
Natures sand-art is another favorite subject of mine, like this single mushroom in the dunes with the shadow of grasses crossing it.
In previous posts I have featured this beautiful “by the wind sailor” jellyfish (Velella). Completely at the mercy of wind and ocean currents, these small blue gems can be found washed-up on shores around the world.
On your walk with life, please honor our earth, encourage dignity and share kindness. 🐾
Thank you Patti for an opportunity to shine a light on unusual occurrences in nature that I find beautiful!
When I saw Tina’s challenge for this week, I first thought I whould go out and about to feature some of the dramatic and special sights here on the Long Beach Peninsula. Then, I decided to follow her lead and show what I see when Max and Daisy take me for our morning and afternoon walks. The Breakers condominiums are near a residential neighborhood where we take our morning constitutional.
After strolling down Seacrest Avenue, we turn back and follow the fence along the west end of the Breakers grounds. On the way, there are always little surprises to enjoy.
Rain or shine, in the early afternoon the beagles get restless, so out we go for an afternoon promenade. Starting at the parking lot entry to the Discovery Trail, we peruse the trails that take us to the Pacific Ocean shoreline.
By the end of our beach walk, Max is ready to get home and take a nice long nap. Daisy, on the other hand, is still out in the underbrush hoping to scare out a deer! Once back at the condominium and dried off, we settle in for a quiet afternoon and evening.
On your walk with life, please honor our earth, encourage dignity and share kindness. 🐾
As I finish this post on Friday morning, I am concerned for Tina and her little slice of heaven on Kiawah, with the hurricane/tropical storm Helene bearing in that direction. Sending prayers for you and your fellow islanders, Tina.
In considering my response to Egídio’s challenge to this week, “to explore fun destinations and favorite pastimes,” I came up with three general categories of landing places that I consistently gravitate toward for enjoyment and relaxation; activities that engage me creatively, being with family and friends (including beagles and their friends!) and being in nature. Though I will present them separately here, in my life they are intrinsically interwoven.
Creative activities are especially fun for me, including photography. Instead of saying “I’m going out to work in the garden,” I say “Oh, boy! I get to go play outside in the garden!” The top left photo was taken after I had redone the landscaping in my vegetable garden plots last fall. The next three photos show this years Lemon Basil both growing and cut, and finally in a pot of bubbling olive oil with garlic to make infused oil to give and to use throughout the coming year. Next, on the right are tomato plants, harvested tomatoes and the fruits being processed to make tomato sauce.
Being with family and friends, including beagles and their buddies is always a fun destination. Top left is of me with my sisters in St. Louis last year. We have another trip planned for this October, which I’m looking forward to very much. Next is my immediate family at my home for a Christmas gathering, husband Creighton with Max, and a shot of our Dog Park friends, Daisy taking the drivers seat, and the group of writers I have been gathering with to write and share our works for several years. This photo was taken when we visited the Community Garden features here on September 2, Garden Delights+Cee’s FOTD.
Being in nature is my number one go to fun destination, especially Long Beach, WA. All summer we stayed home in Vancouver, and did not go out to Long Beach because it is always very busy in summer, and we prefer the quiet times. On returning this week I participated in a nature walk to an, as yet, not open to the public area in the Willapa National Wildlife Refuge. After being transported to a drop off point on old logging roads, we followed an Elk trail to Bear Creek which had been diked and dredged during the logging years, and is now being restored to, once again, be a natural Salmon spawning habitat. What a delight to see such dedicated folks and organizations working together to reclaim this beautiful wild space.
On your walk with life, please honor our earth, encourage dignity and share kindness. 🐾
Thank you Egídio, for another wide open challenge. So sorry I’m late getting my post finished and up for you to see. Sometimes “life” gets in the way of schedules!!!
This week, Ritva challenges us to “take the mundane and shine a different light on it… to highlight an object or scene that we normally pass by without notice, and make it something special.” I decided to select some photos from my archives for this post.
I love a nice vase of posies, and I’m always drawn in by a pretty sunset, so when sunlight glowed through these spring daffodils and pussy-willows, I quickly grabbed my camera. I love how the light is filtered through the flower petals and creates a halo around the edge of the willow catkins.
A head of cabbage in the grocery store is about as ordinary as it comes. However, this very large one in a friend’s garden drew me in. The evocative texture and lines of the leaves lead our eye to the solid center of the cabbage head.
Driftwood logs are a common sight on the Long Beach Peninsula. Photographing this one at eye level along its length, provides a sense of its immense size and wonderful texture. Black and white keeps our focus on the log rather than drawing us out to the ocean and sky.
Another branch that drifted ashore rests upon wave-sculpted beach sand with morning sun casting dramatic shadows and highlighting the lovely honey tone of the wood.
At this time of year in the Pacific Northwest USA, leaves are turning and beginning to fall. This leaf, caught on a strand of spider gossamer, was spinning in the wind as I walked by. Sometimes serendipity provides fun and compelling images, like this one!
On your walk with life, please honor our earth, encourage dignity and share kindness. 🐾
I realize this is a stretch of Ritva’s assignment, however it’s the best I can do this week. Thank you for another lesson on intentional photography!
Anne Sandler of Slow Shutter Speed invites us to go on a journey to shorelines, any place “where water touches land.” Like Anne, I find my mind at peace and my body able to relax whenever I’m near water; lake, river, stream, ocean and even my little backyard waterfall and Koi pond.
Odell Lake
Big lakes like Odell in central Oregon, and Priest in northeastern Washington State have been protected from excessive commercial development. Both are surrounded by hills covered in evergreen forests that grow right down to the shoreline.
Even smaller lakes in these rugged Cascade Mountains have trees all the way to the shoreline, like here at Miller Lake. Even so, on both large and small lakes there are stretches of sandy beach and places to pitch a tent, park an RV or rent a cabin.
When I was in grade school, Conconully Reservoir in Okanogan County, Washington USA, is where my parents took their young family to camp, fish and play on our summer vacations. In the early summer there were pollywogs in the warm sands along the shoreline where Salmon Creek enters the reservoir (below). My older brother, sister and I had many adventures with our little row boat here.
When I was 12, my family drove on a ferry from Anacortes WA, to San Juan Island, WA. Thirty years later, my husband and I started staying on Orcas Island, for our summer vacation. I have so many memories of our thirty years touring the islands on our bicycles. After I retired and we acquired a condominium at Long Beach, WA we had one last visit to Orcas. Below, the shoreline at the Anacortes landing, and low tide on the west side of Orcas, with Freeman Island in the distance.
The Long Beach Peninsula features miles of sandy beach to recreate on. Below a group is digging for Razor Clams, a man is riding his bicycle along the shoreline, a king tide spills up toward the berm, and a man is surf fishing in the swirling tide.
Whether day or night, sunny or cloudy, I enjoy listening to the breakers as they roll in, and watching the many shorebirds that frequent the area.
On your walk with life, please honor our earth, encourage dignity and share kindness. 🐾
Thank you Anne for the perfect excuse to virtually visit some of my favorite places on planet Earth!
Usually I remain home on busy holidays like Labor Day, however, I was excited to gather with my fellow writing group friends on Saturday to visit Hariana’s gardens in Portland.
Sitting in the shade of a pear tree, Hariana glowed as she explained how to store and sow the seeds she had gathered and was giving us. While we walked through the community gardens, I could see how this would be a little bit of heaven for her. She loves plants, flowers, bugs, and teaching others about them. It was pleasant to be with this small group of nature loving writers on a walk through a garden of many delights.
On your walk with life, please honor our earth, encourage dignity and share kindness. 🐾
Walking With Eagles is a collection of original poems and photographs by Lindy Low Le Coq. A lifelong naturalist, amateur photographer and bird enthusiast, Lindy’s verse, composition and photographs open a window into the essence of her subjects. Her poems and photography reflect the rich natural wonders of the Pacific Northwest.
Bald Eagles mature over the course of five years. Walking With Eagles invites the reader to take a poetic and visual tour of this odyssey.
view ~ Walking With Eagles ~ in top menu bar for a preview, though the folio is much nicer!
Lindy Low LeCoq 