Rain and things

I am very sorry that it has been so long since my last post. I had every intention to send out a nice long bit of reading material before school started for me, but, nay, I did not.
Please forgive me. Now my thoughts are all jumbled and I am not sure what I wanted to share with you.
I will just have to peruse my photos that I took, thinking specifically of you, and talk about each one...that is, if I have any...
So I guess for starters what I have pictures of is the first rain. You remember how this summer there was not an ounce of rain to be had here? I believe we had a few sprinkles, but nothing even remotely substantial. It was around the end of September when we got "The Rain". This is what one of my friends calls the first rain in Missouri during the fall. What it signifies is the sudden shift in temperature, from pleasantly warm to pleasantly cool (my friend would consider that 'cool' to be very cold and unpleasant). Here it seems a little more significant because there has been no rain, so when it does finally rain, you KNOW that this is IT.
So, it rains, and it's pretty amazing after a summer of no rain, blue skies and very few clouds (some of which I held onto in my memories so as not to get too depressed) that it should downpour in such a way. But note the pictures I have posted. Look carefully and you will see the rain. When it did rain, it was bright and light with none of the baggage of dark heavy rain clouds.
Do you notice this? Is it in the least bit interesting?

Ah well, that's what I've got.

All right, I have found some lovely pictures of the last hike we took this summer (gosh, that was at the end of August--I suddenly have a strong urge to get the hell out and do something before I rip my hair out). We walked a 5 mile loop on one of the Capes. Cape Lookout. The hike was all right. It's a popular hike, which surprises me because it is 5 miles. I saw a lot of people who didn't look up for the walk and weren't prepared even with a bottle of water. Anyway, this cape goes out about 1 mile into the ocean. Elevation is around 1700 feet, give or take. At the end of the cape, actually, it wasn't that amazing, because we were lower (about 800 feet) then when we started and the views all around us were what made it so amazing. BUT I guess once you are a mile out into the ocean, there isn't much to look at except the ocean...
The first view is of Cape Meares, one of the three along this stretch of coast. I took it when we first set off...
The next is a shot of a view from the trees. Look carefully, I give you my word that what you see beyond those trees is NOT sky, it's all land and water.











The next is a picture of the land behind us as we went further out. It was pretty fantastic and a couple of us had to be careful with the whole vertigo thing going on.

















The beautiful blues...













Oh, and this last one...my attempt at keeping myself true to my blog name...there are birds way way down...Brown Pelicans. It was cool knowing that they were flying pretty high above the water and we were so much higher than they.









All right, I have tempted myself enough. I have to do some school work and then this afternoon we are heading off to the coast. Maybe someday soon, I will post some paintings I have done. Have I said that before?
love to all and all to love---I mean that YOU!