Well, the first part of our roadtrip is over, and the photos are on-line. There are some pretty nice shots of the scenery in Washington and Oregon, I think. My favorite is the “head picture” for the set: A shot of Mt. Hood from the eastern side, taken through the windshield of my car. If you don’t look at any of the rest of them, do look at that one…I’m very proud of it!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/32756104@N03/sets/72157621421433126/
Redwolf
Yes indeed, a very nice picture. Interesting how the crash barriers and the white line draw the eye up to the mountain, and what a mountain it is.
Nothing like that around these parts.
What kind of mileage did ye cover?
Slan,
D.
A little less than 2000 miles, all together.
You know, I was almost 18 years old before I realized that the Cascade volcanos (such as Hood and Shasta) aren’t typical of mountains everywhere. I remember visiting relatives back east, being shown the highest point in Pennsylvania, and thinking “that’s not a mountain…that’s a speed bump!” 
Seriously, though, for most of my life the word “mountain” meant something that was about 10,000 feet high, cone-shaped, and snow-capped! (I did make an exception for Mt. Spokane…I guess because, during the winter at least, it kind of fit the bill).
Redwolf
I went on my personal road trip last year, made it to Mt Shasta but unfortunately, it was not visible due to the thick cloud cover. My favorite picture that I have ever taken was of the Piatra Craiului mountains in Romania. Unfortunately, you never do get a sense of size and scale in a picture.
Maybe it was closed for repairs. Sometimes they move it back to the factory for routine maintenance - snowcap replacement, lava tube cleaning, that sort of thing.
Well, you know what the deal is with Mount Rainer, don’t you? Why half the time you can’t see it, and often when you do see it it somewhere other than you expected? Seems Seattle and Tacoma never could agree on whose mountain it was, so Boeing put it on rollers, and now it’s forever getting tugged hither and yon. 
Redwolf
Beautiful! Looks cold there, though!
That’s one reason I like to take photos of mountains from the road. With the road and cars in front of it, you can get something of a feel for the size of the mountain.
The most frustrating thing for me to photograph is redwood trees. You can put a person next to one, which helps a little with scale, but since you can’t get the entire tree into the photo, you don’t get a feel for the sheer immensity of the thing.
Redwolf
I like the pictures and you are right, that one of the road and the mountain is special. 
Where were you that the land was so brown?
And those houses stacked up the hill 
Well…we like to say it’s GOLDEN. 
I was in eastern Washington and Oregon. Most folks think of those states as being rainy and green, but a good two-thirds of each (the part east of the Cascades) is high desert. I think it’s gorgeous, but then, it’s what I grew up with. When the wind is blowing the wheat fields into molten waves, there’s no place on earth more beautiful.
As for the houses on the hill, that’s a cliffside in Roads End, Oregon, just outside of Lincoln City, on the coast. Those houses have a fantastic view of the Pacific Ocean.
Redwolf
Hmmm…good question. You never know in that part of the country. It could also be an unusually symetrical bug spatter.
Redwolf
It could be an errant pixel as I heard the graphics aren’t that great in that part of the country.
Ah well…you know how it goes. The rich part of the state always gets all the pixels!
Redwolf
That is a good pic. I’d be proud, too.
