At 12:23 PM 10/1/2009, you wrote:
It is rainy today and temps have cooled here in SW WA. I've heard the snow level dropped down to where St. Helen and Hood do have snow, but one cannot see through the clouds. It's in the 50's, but mornings have been down into the 40's. Weather is still trying to make up its' mind - sunny one minute, rainy the next. Although we are very happy to see rain - we have not been able to even light the fire pit on the patio for months, never mind burning anything. Trees have just barely started to show color, which is very late. Our train scheduled this weekend for the fall leaf viewing ride but they are pretty much still green. Very late fall. Hopefully winter will be as hot (relatively speaking) as summer was. We broke a lot of high temp records.
I still haven't figgered out what season it is...or will be tomorrow. The weather wasn't too bad today...low 60s and sunny, very little wind.
You have very pretty mts. in your area, Ray. We drove through some of them driving out here. There's a cut-off on the east side of town that goes NW from I 80 (or possibly I 70 even, we dipped pretty far south to avoid a blizzard) to something heading north, and it was snowy going through that canyon.
Hmmm...there are several routes eastbound. I-80 goes thru Parley's canyon (named for Parley P Pratt, an early Mormon settler who was stabbed to death after converting several young people to Mormonism in Arkansas; he made his money hauling liquor over the mountains...or so says a local legend.) If you go north from SLC on US 89 or 91, you can end up going thru Weber or Ogden canyons, Weber canyon is now I-84 which joins I-80 at Echo Junction. All of those routes are pretty craggy....and Weber canyon has a scenic spot known as "Devil's Slide" which really puts the crag in craggy.
I was raised in Ogden and my father took me fishing in Weber canyon from time to time well before I-84 existed. I liked that because occasionally I'd see a pair of Mallet articulated locomotives pulling a 100+ car freight train eastward toward Green River Wyoming, a major Union Pacific switching point. I didn't realize at the time that I was witnessing the end of an era. They were 4-8-8-4 Big Boys or 4-6-6-4 Challengers. Shortly after that time frame (early 50s) all the steam locos were replaced with diesels.
Your mountains are considerable more vertical, and 'craggy' than the Cascades.
If ya go south on I-15 or along US 89 you'll eventually come to US 6 which goes to the town of Price, after going thru Helper. That town got its name because it's where they'd use (and maybe still do) the helper locomotives to get the coal trains through the mountains and over Soldier Summit. The photo is one I shot at the top of Price canyon. Yes, every place a river or road goes through around here is "something" canyon. Following that road southeast will take ya to I-70, and if ya go east enough, you'll end up in Denver after ya cross Vail pass which is a wee bit high at around 11k feet.
I've never been thru the Cascades. The Northwest is one area of the country I've never visited...unless ya count Baker City, Oregon...as I understand it, that's more like a suburb of Boise, Id than the rest of Oregon.
rush is on around here to get ready for winter and finish up summer projects. Never heard that about sunflowers. I always find those local lore things fascinating.
Yup. Some places the watch woolly bear caterpillars, or the pelts on animals...here it's sunflowers...or at least that's what I've always heard about and used.
And, I too, look forward to getting back to indoor things.
Yup. Like putting one of my printers back together. It looks like an explosion in a printer factory around here. And I've got a whole buncha railroad-oriented photos (many in monochrome) that I need to frame and hang in an upstairs bedroom.
Ray
MaryHere's a shot of the mountains looking down my street (Taylorsville, Ut.) The snow level is around 5000 feet, give or take a few. (I'm at 4200.) The photo shows a hazy condition, which is exactly what we got. And the deciduous trees are still very green. All we need is a cold, wet front to move from the northwest to the southeast across the Great Salt Lake and it's lake effect time. Just what we need. But it's happened before, and much earlier than this. The temperature was 36F when I shot the photo, around 8 am Thursday. (Where did the week go?) World Finals on the salt is a week away. Supposedly the storm that dumped this on us (and is still piddling here and there) missed the salt flats. At least that's what the SCTA Prez sed. But there's another storm coming in Saturday nite and continuing thru Tuesday. I've made plans (and motel reservations) for WF on Wednesday the 6th thru the 10th. It's gonna be interesting. I'm predicting a long, cold and snowy winter based on the number and height of sunflowers over the past few months. There's a bumper crop of very tall plants and has been since late July. According to some Indian folklore, the more/bigger the sunflowers are, the harsher the winter. Can't say as I like it, but it'll give me time to get back into music again. Usually we have a lousy spring and a very nice long autumn. This year spring was non-existent. We went from late winter right into summer. That happened some time in June. One day it was 40-ish and raining, the next it was sunny and around 90. Last week I was sweating my butt of on the salt with temps in the high 80s and low 90s and yesterday when I went out to get some photos printed, it was in the 30s and the wind was bitterly cold...and there were some snow grains/pellets (graupel as my friend Jim calls it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graupel ) falling, mixed with rain. I don't like this at all. But then again, I've missed the music. RayRules: Please play nicely with others. -List members page (text & pic links): http://www.myelcamino.net/eclist.htm -List members page (all pics): http://www.myelcamino.net/ec_list.htm
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