After our final grades were filed, Peter and I took “un breve vacatione,” as the Italian movie is called. On Friday, we had a picnic at Fern Ridge. We sat at a picnic table at water’s edge and looked out over the reeds to the distant hills as the wind-driven waves slapped in. The clouds scudded by and covered the sun until the bright disc of the sun shown through like a Polarized fried egg in the sky.
Saturday, we went to Cultus Lake and had a five hour, against the 12 mph hour wind paddle. We had planned on a picnic, but the mosquitoes near the shore kept us out on the breezy water. We had dinner safely inside the lodge restaurant and rented a cabin with a fireplace. At midnight, the smoke alarm woke us out of a “dead” sleep, telling us a back draft down the open chnimney had filled the room with dangerous levels of smoke.
All in all, we were happy the next day to move on to Crane Prairie Rez , which was mirror-calm and bird-rich. The herons gronked in and out of their heronry, cormorants looked out from their apartment buildings in the Drowned Forest with mild interest as we paddled by, and three bald eagles fought each other in the sky right over our head.
We picnicked on a point under a huge old Ponderosa Pine, and for some reason, there were no mosquitoes. We DID see a black and white spotted lizard and two green and white striped garter snakes and enormous breeder trouts in the crystal clear waters of Quinn Creek.
Oh dear, I am really jealous. I love Crane Prarie and it is in top form now with all those birds. Skillful use of limited palette on both images. I love lots of dazzling color but limited palette does strengthen and unify an image. The vertical format works well for this image. I can tell that you had a wonderful day. Tonight I am just getting around to framing a small watercolor of Crane Prarie, underwater logs, just beneath our canoe. Green strangeness.