Day Tripping, Again

For those of you who want to help our brothers and sisters on the East Coast, please DO NOT take supplies to your local Red Cross. It puts an extra burden on them to sort, clean, pack, ship, and etc. Please, donate money. If you don't like the Red Cross, consider the Salvation Army (again, money) or the Unitarian Universalist Organization www.uua.org. 

Rainy Day is happy to announce that, so far, her Family of Choice who live in New Jersey is safe. She is very concerned about one of her SOCs who says she is not safe and has no where to go, but Rainy Day doesn't know what that means - is she without water/electricity (a given), or did her house blow down?

Yakima River at Roza's

On to a happier topic....

The other day, Rainy Day and two of her gal pals took a day trip up the Yakima River Canyon (for those of you who don't know where it is, it is BLM land between Yakima and Ellensburg, WA)

The idea of the trip was to photograph fall foliage in all its splendiferous colors. We left our homes under gray skies, and each secretly wondered if it would be worth the drive, but we figured to go ahead and try. A short way up the freeway, we hit fog. Lots and lots of fog. Thick, pea soup fog, then, a miracle happened and we drove through a cosmic door into great and glorious sunshine!

Seed Pods

We got to the canyon a little after ten, and much was still in shadow, but pulled off at the first two recreation sites. Rainy Day got a couple of pictures, and then we went to the Umtanum Recreational Site. There was a footbridge across the Yakima River, and a trail beyond that someone said went to a grove of aspen.

We crossed the bridge (bouncy, bouncy, bouncy!) and walked a way up the trail, then took the left fork and climbed a ways up the hill. Got some wonderful shots of the aspen and the river, came back down, and took the right fork, along the river, under the aspen.

Yakima River and Aspen

Rainy Day took many photos, only a few of which are here. Many more are on her Flickr site  and, of course, yet more are in her computer.

Speaking of computer, Rainy Day is about to go into a week-long anxiety attack. She received a letter from Apple stating her hard drive is being recalled and when she called the local Apple Store/Hospital, the assured her they could and would fix it, but it would take about a week.

Aspen Grove

So, if Rainy Day doesn't play as nice as she usually does, be patient. She will be trying to work on a wee, tiny, itty bitty (by comparison) laptop!

Self Portrait of Rainy Day and Gal Pals

AND DON'T FORGET TO VOTE! 

And vote for someone who supports FEMA!

Big Horn Sheep across the river

Part of the herd of Big Horn Sheep