Growing up you learned the capitols of all the states and about the crops they grew and the things they manufactured, so you developed a picture in your head of what the terrain of each state would be like.
Driving east on US 20 towards Burns, Oregon Denny and I were reminded of driving east on I-10 in Texas going towards hill country;all you see are sage and rocky ground and hills with cedar trees here and there. Now if you had asked me to describe Oregon before I traveled here the last couple of weeks, I would have said craggy cliffs along the ocean and lush forests inland all the way to the Idaho border. Shows what I know, huh? What I haven't figured out is how it can be 90 degrees here at 4100 feet elevation, when brochures tell you that sometimes the roads around here are closed until June/July because of snow. That is just too weird for me. If it looks like a desert and feels like a desert how can there be that much snow that late in the season?
While Oregon and Washington have surprised us with the variations in terrain and climate they are both beautiful in their own way. Actually, you can find beauty wherever you go if you let go of your preconceived notions of what is "beautiful". I remember thinking how barren Arizona seemed our first winter there until I started watching the play of light on the Superstition Mountains and saw the desert bloom in the spring. It has its own austere beauty which I finally came to appreciate and of course the sunsets there are absolutely drop-dead gorgeous.
So on Monday we'll be heading into Idaho which is another new state for us. Let's see, Idaho is mountains and forests and lakes and potatoes, right?
No comments:
Post a Comment