Fields and Mountains

Not far from home, along the south shore of the Snohomish River is a field full of those plastic wrapped hay bales so common everywhere. I thought this made a nice panorama. Today, we are in between rainy days and we have a sky full of interesting clouds and expanses of blue, so it all worked reasonably well.

As you can see in the tall grass alongside the road, there is lots of the reddish color from the seed heads of the plants. This you see everywhere since there's been no roadside trimming for several months.

I also converted on the of the individual images from the pano into a monochrome just for giggles. I don't know that it is better, but it is at least interesting. In both images, there were four (ouch!) power lines running across the sky that I had to edit out. What a pain. 

I next went on a search for a good place to stop and make some photos of the Cascade mountains to the east of us. This is tricky. The first spot I found with a "clear" view would have produced an image of power lines than happened to have mountains somewhere back in the distance. There mush be 30 or more wires in that spot. I'll get a photo one day to show you.

But driving on down the road, I found a nice place to set up and make a few photos. I put together this panorama. This is looking roughly north east across the Snohomish river flood plain towards the mountains. Except for a few exceptions near Snohomish and a couple crazy houses that are built two storeys up in the air (cinder block foundations on steroids), the entire flood plain is given over to farming. This is what separates us from the craziness that is the Seattle sprawl. Behind me is Seattle Hill and by the time you've climbed this you are in the densely populated suburbs of Seattle until you reach the SeaTac Airport on the south side.

The image below is looking more nearly east toward Stevens Pass where you'll find a ski resort. It is last piece of civilization headed east until you reach Levenworth. Levenworth is the town on the east side of the Cascades that is decorated in the style of a Bavarian village. I posted a few photos last spring when I drove through on the way to the Grand Coulee Dam. We kept meaning to visit for a spell this spring and take in the sights and food, but the great isolation nipped that in the bud.