Waiting for mail

I'm getting behind due to a combination of weather, lack of internet, and enjoying life off-line, but I wanted to get a few thoughts about the last days of May before too much time goes by. Here are a few bits and pieces.

Above Marias Pass 

Marias Pass

I spent a number of days up here on the cusp of the Continental Divide, waiting for my mail to arrive from South Dakota.

There is something mind-blowing about straddling the continent: precipitation falling on the west side eventually ends up in the Pacific Ocean; that which falls on the east side makes its way to the Atlantic/Gulf of Mexico.

It's pretty amazing to think about, even if it is just gravity at work.

At sunrise

Reference photo for drawing

One of the very cool things about spending a lot of time in one area is that you get to see the landscape change throughout the day.

If snow falls overnight, it gets whiter; as the sun moves through the sky (or clouds obscure it), the shadows and colors on the mountains, water and sky change, sometimes dramatically.

It's like having a movie play in slow motion for your own personal entertainment.

Besides the beautiful mountains at Marias Pass there was also a very nice Forest Service campground ($10/night), a rest stop, the CDT (Continental Divide Trail – I hiked a bit on it), and... trains!

Sunset near Marias Pass

Trains

At 5213 ft, Marias Pass is the lowest pass in the area. It had been used by wild animals and native Americans for years, but its location was a closely guarded secret to outsiders. It wasn't until 1880 when an engineer for one of the Canadian railways managed to "discover" the pass with the aid of a renegade Blackfoot scout.

The railroad values it for the same reason that other travelers had — low elevation and gradual approach, so there was less engineering work that needed to be done to plan the route. A LOT of trains go through here. It is not unusual to see engines pulling 100 oil cars, or box cars, or refrigerator cars, or whatever cars on the tracks. It brings back good memories of reading to Cam — he loved trains as a child, too.

I grew up a few blocks from what is now the Peninsula CalTrain, and confess I love the sound of the trains. If you've read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, you know that when the trains are running, all is right with the world. The sound of the whistle/horn conveys a language of its own, like a secret message, and the low thunder of the trains going by just means that commerce is going forward, that people and goods are going places, and that is a good thing.

Rain...

Dawn rainbow

You've been hearing a lot about rain on this trip. Yes, it's been raining a lot.

It's not that I don't LIKE rain. I do like rain… when I'm inside.

When camping, though, it's mostly a drag: you get wet, your gear gets wet, and your clothes get wet and stick to you. And when it rains all the time, nothing dries out.

But it does keep the car clean.
  And it does provide dramatic interesting skies.
     And it does bring rainbows.

There was one evening when I'd gone to bed, snuggled warm and dry in N0MAD, listening to the steady patter of raindrops on the roof. It let up sometime during the night, but as the sky lightened, I heard it raining again. Dawn comes VERY early now – the sky is light well before 5am. On this day, the rain was a fine rain, almost a mist.

As the sun rose, it shone through the drizzle and everything glowed with luminous pink. Suddenly a vertical rainbow shot through the trees. I was so surprised and awed that it was a moment before I thought to grab the camera off the front seat and take a picture. Of course, by that time it had faded, so the photo doesn't really show how spectacular it was.

Glacier lily, colored pencil

But it's something I will long remember.

Drawing

I've spent quite a number of days drawing.

The wildflowers are beautiful; it's still spring here, so they freshly blooming and changing every day and with location and altitude.

I love glacier lilies, probably because they're an early-blooming flower and so represent spring and the retreat of the snow. It was nice to draw something with bright color, and something that was relatively simple.

I did attempt a big, vast vista on bigger paper. It took three days, and I'm still not done.

The changing light throughout the day, as well as from the ever-changing clouds, made this something of a challenge, but I learned to use binoculars to help understand the relationships between mountain faces.

Also, the changing light of the day showed different aspects of the scene throughout the day. For instance, what looked like forest at one point, actually was a burned-out area that I had only assumed was forest!

St Mary's Lake & Glacier NP, colored pencil (still need to finish the sky)

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That's one thing that I like about drawing: it encourages me to really LOOK and SEE and disassociate my mind, which is constantly making assumptions about what it is that I think I'm seeing.

A lesson for life.

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Aspen leaves, colored pencil

Retreating from the Big Picture and wanting to do something easier again, I did these aspen leaves.

The trees are just leafing out, so they still have a light baby green newness, with just a tinge of red, not the rich mature green of summer. There are no bug holes or dust, just fresh new leaves.

I wish I could have gotten them in the sun... but... there was no sun at the time.

It was a good exercise, however, and I realize I need practice in foreshortening — another place where my mind tells me one thing, but putting it on paper requires seeing and drawing what is THERE... not what your mind tries to convince you what's there.