We found a new (to us) swimming hole over near Stevenson, Washington, at Home Valley Park. It's been a fun retreat whenever the heat has risen, and we had fun introducing Cassie and Nick to the place. It's somewhat secluded and not too very popular, so we haven't had too much interruption while we've been there. The girls, especially, love playing along the river shore there for hours at a time.
I also got around to taking a picture of one of Eden's very favorite traffic signs that happens to be along the way. There are actually 3 or 4 of them in a row, and the curves in the road that they warn about are really not too severe, but the signs never fail to put a smile on her face. They're just so very comical, and any truck that found itself at such an angle would be in some pretty deep trouble... it's just something else.
Pat had a block party/barbecue mid-month that was a lot of fun (and tasty). It gave us a nice chance to hang out with the family, and especially to see Sean's son Nicolas. A cute kid that's not self conscious in front of the camera is a lot of fun to play with. Libby's cat Lucy is also especially photogenic, as she's proven before.
While I was waiting for my Canon Powershot 110IS to be repaired, I actually came across a wonderful deal on a fairly modern digital SLR, the Canon Rebel XS. My grandparents had actually given me a sizable amount of money recently, which let me take advantage of this. It's been a lot of fun to play with, but unfortunately after a week or so, the shutter started locking up every few shots, which is impressively annoying when you're sure you've locked down the perfect shot. So, to put it shortly, I bloody well love Canon cameras, but I've got to be a bit more picky about how sketchy my suppliers are. The good news is that the 110IS (which is an impressively capable camera for it's size) came back not too long after the SLR was returned, and a new copy of the SLR should arrive next week.
On the 23rd, I went down to my parents in an effort to trim a few hours from my upcoming trip to OIT. The weather was nice, and I didn't have any real commitments that day, so I spent most of it meandering around as much as I liked, turning on a whim and just occasionally making sure that the GPS showed me trending south. It was a nice way to spend the day, and it even finished with a nice pasta salad outside with the family, just watching the birds play around the feeders.
Unfortunately, the next day was not quite so kind. I left at 2:30am in order to make the event opening at 7am, and bumped into a curious stray dog along the way that found his breakfast in a trash bag along the road. For a while it looked like I was going to have enough time to try and take a few sunrise shots, but it was not to be. Turns out it's a lot harder to figure out exactly when the sun is going to actually pop over the horizon than I thought it was going to be, and I ended up without a clear east view when it finally happened. It was just as well though, as I made it to the parking lot at 6:56am. Bottom line, it was worth it, as I got a lot of things handled, but it cost. Final count, 12 hours on the road, 520 miles driven, and 7.5 hours at the event for the day. As a kind of bonus, I think I came across the only mountain with snow on it in July. Given the temperature spikes we've been having, that was interesting as well.
I spent the following weekend at market with Eden, which is a change from our usual routine. With the heat setting in, it was nice to be able to give her a few breaks along the way. It's always remarkable, to me, to see Eden interacting with her vendor friends - they're an incredibly tight knit and supportive group, not to mention some very talented people. Beyond all that, the various buskers are always worth shooting, as many of them have great energy while they're performing.
This past weekend was utterly amazing. We spent it camping with friends down at Cape Lookout, by Tillamook, for our friend Vash's 35th birthday. Temperatures in Vancouver and Portland had been topping 100 degrees all week, but at the coast we stayed in the comfortable 70 degree range, thanks to a permanent layer of mist that simply rose to just above the treetops during the day and came down to ground level at dark. It was great to watch it move in towards the end of the night. As Eden pointed out, it was exactly like the "Nothing" from the Never-Ending story, just eating away at the edges of our little contained world there. I had a lot of fun just hiking around in the morning to try to get some wildlife pictures before everyone else got to the trails.
Of course, given Vash's Circled by Hounds affiliations, we couldn't get together without having the group play a few rousing tunes. Beyond the wonderful music, they're all a lot of fun to play with, photographically. Vash is a tricky one to get, as he very obviously gets absorbed by the music, making it a bit hard to catch him looking up, but it's worth it if you can manage the timing. Kathryn and Matthew, on the other hand, are hard to catch a bad photo with. They're so incredibly expressive, and obviously very in love with one another as well. It's kind of funny when they're actually playing, as they're very much in one another's personal space, making fiddle playing an exercise in constant anticipation, just waiting for the bow to finally collide. I haven't seen it happen yet, but I can't imagine it hasn't.All in all, it's been a great month, and I can't wait to see what August will bring.
Picdump 2009-08-07 [Show image locations on map] [Fullscreen slideshow]
Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.
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