ambivalent images

Fall Foliage

Trees in fall on the street outside our house.

Smoked Silhouette

A cactus-like plant (the name of which I should know but don't) attempts to survive after being half-burned in the wildfire. Is this a form of yucca? I just don't know.

I liked the silhouette version above, but I included the different view at the right so you could also see a little more of what the plant actually looks like.

Wildfire Was Here

A hillside ravaged by a wildfire a few weeks ago just outside of Billings. This area has had a horrible fire season, but I'm sure the dry heat that stokes these fires has nothing to do with global warming since there's no such thing, right? Right?

Pinetop Detail

A closeup of the trunk of a pine tree near its top where it is still growing.

Hidden Falls

A waterfall near the bottom of the south (Cooke City) side of Beartooth Pass. This waterfall is right next to what used to be the highway. However, when the highway was last improved, a big new bridge was built that makes it difficult to see the falls from the road. There's still a pullout alongside the road to allow you to park and walk to the falls, and trust me, it's worth it.

Rock Tree

Tree growing out of rock atop Beartooth Pass. This is at the rest stop about 2/3 of the way up the pass...

Trunk on Trunk

A tree atop an old steamer trunk in the woods. There's no telling how long the steamer trunk has been there, but I would estimate 50 years or more. Just down the road from the cabin we visit near Red Lodge are the ruins of a couple of other buildings that used to be part of the ranch before they fell into disuse and basically fell down. This steamer trunk is near those ruins, so I assume it was connected to them in some way. Every time I see it I wonder what story it would tell if it could talk. Why would someone take such a nice trunk and just leave it out in the woods to be crushed by, well, a trunk?

Light-etched clouds

This was my attempt to capture the way the sun lit up the clouds over the mountains behind Red Lodge. I'm afraid I wasn't very successful; in real life that white line just above the trees looked like it was laser-etched.

Wild Rasberries

A wild rasberry in my mom's hand. At right is another berry on the vine. We saw a good number of these berries on our short hike in the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness above Red Lodge. We started out on the trail Lake Fork Trailhead and it was beautiful. We probably only walked about a mile in, but we'll definitely be going back for a bigger adventure—such as the hike to Black Canyon Lake. I've now been up in this area every weekend for three in a row so I might take a weekend off before heading back, but I do hope to do this hike before the snow flies this fall...

Mountain Dusk

The setting sun infuses the clouds with color over Red Lodge.

Bison Jam

Bison block the road in Yellowstone. They seem to be having some sort of important conversation there on the asphalt, don't you think?

We sat in this “jam” for at least 15 minutes before a few cars decided to ease around these animals. When cars began passing them (albeit very slowly), the bison decided they might as well give the road back to the four-wheeled beasts.

At right is a shot of more bison in the meadow beside the road. Lots of little ones were feeding and frolicking in the grass.

Yellowstone Rainbow

A rainbow shimmers in the mist of the Lower Falls in the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. This was also from Uncle Tom's Trail.

Lower Falls

The lower falls in the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. Awesome.

This was taken from the stairs on Uncle Tom's Trail.

Sky Lake

A small pond near the top of Beartooth Pass.

Beartooth Vista II

Another view from near the top of Beartooth Pass. This one is right near the top of the ski lift that looks entirely out of place when this area isn't covered in rocks. Apparently this steep slope is used as a late spring Olympic training ground and extreme tourist thrill, hence the ski lift up the nearly vertical rock face.

Beartooth Vista I

The view from near the top of Beartooth Pass. Here are some more interesting pics from the state. Obviously the views from the road are spectacular. To make it even better, try it on a motorcycle or a nice sporty convertible if at all possible. I haven't tried either myself, but I saw lots of people who were doing it and it looked like the perfect thing.

Pinecone Green

Really green pinecones on some kind of pine tree. I was once able to distinguish between several different kinds of pine trees based on things like cone shape; needle shape, size, and configuration (some trees have needles that grow in pairs, some in triples, some singly); height and fullness, etc. But I don't remember what's what anymore—lodgepole, spruce, ponderosa, pinion... um.... what else is there? I guess this will just have to be a pine tree for now...

Backyard Stream

The stream feeding the pond in the “backyard” of my Missoula apartment. The water level has dropped several inches from the time I first saw it to the last few days—a function of the fact that it was raining about every day in my first week or two here but it now hasn't rained for quite some time.

Falling Star Flower

A bloom on my sister's cool plant. I can't remember what kind of plan it is (perhaps she can remind me?), but it kind of looks like a falling star to me...

Milkweed Flower

A large milkweed “bloom” from my mom's yard. Yes, it's a weed, but it's kind of pretty, too, don't you think?

Dear Deer

A deer outside my window yesterday morning. Silly animals, aren't they?

Tigerlilly

One of the flowers in my dad's front yard. These things are very common in these parts.

Makoshika

A bit of the badlands in Makoshika State Park just outside of Glendive, MT. “Makoshika” is the Lakota Sioux word for “badlands.”

The Top?

The top of Mt. Sentinel from the point where I turned around. I'm pretty sure this was the real top and not a false summit b/c I could see a windsock there amid the trees. You can't see it in the picture, but trust me, it was there.

Sentinel Lupine

Lupine blooms on Mt. Sentinel w/Missoula in the background. At right is another lupine-like flower from the same hike, but can lupine be yellow? Maybe, but this yellow plant is probably Common Toadflax. Despite its humble name, it apparently has many medicinal qualities. “The plant is especially valued for its strongly laxative and diuretic activities.” Good to know.

M-Trail

Looking East over the shoulder of Mt. Sentinel from the level of the “M” itself. Click the thumbnail at right for a zoomed view of I-90 and the canyon leading into Missoula as seen from the same point.

The “M” Trail continues up to the top of Mt. Sentinel from the “M” itself; the hike gets progressively more challenging above the “M” to the point where near the top it's very slow going. The trail also gives you lots of false summits so you'll think you've reached the top at least half a dozen times before you do. I didn't actually make it to the top so I'll have to try again soon...

Clark's Fork Pileup

Driftwood piled at a bend in the Clark Fork River near downtown Missoula.

Missoula Sunset Reflection

The view from my window a few evenings ago. I don't know what that body of water is but I've seen fly fishers pull little fish out of it, whatever that means. I don't think I've ever seen any of those fishers actually keep one of those fish. But the view from my window in this student housing room is not bad—especially when the sunset is so bright. I took this picture about a dozen times hoping that I would be able to capture some of the color in the sky, but for some reason the sky always came out overexposed and washed out and all the color is in the reflection. I bet there would have been a way to get both, but I'd need to be a smarter photographer to do that.

The thumbnail picture at right shows the view from the front window of my apartment. Those clouds have been pretty common since I've been here. I think it's rained every day. Missoula sits in a deep valley so I imagine it gets weather like this quite a bit. All that rain makes everything very green. Did I mention it's a beautiful place?

Aspen Trunk

Looking up the trunk of one of the aspen trees in my mom's front yard. Aspen are pretty trees that do not grow in the Eastern U.S. They are also unusual in that each group of trees shares a root system, so that you might have 100 trees on a hillside and if you dug down you'd find they were all connected to the same roots.

Rocks and Walls

A rock wall and archway over a small creek on the fringes of Rock Creek Park. L. and I discovered this last week on a walk between Massachusetts and Connecticut down in one of the nooks and crannies that border Rock Creek Park. This creek runs under and along side a narrow, winding road that leads to big, quiet houses that enjoy lots of shade. These homes are just minutes from downtown D.C., yet they're so quiet and tucked out of the way that they could be miles away in mountains or something. Pretty cool.

Late Tulips

Bright pink tulips are still blooming brightly in some yards and gardens.

Daisy Daisy

Bright orange daisy's newly planted in a neighbor's yard. These were put in the ground in full bloom by a landscaping company just before the neighbor put his house on the market. They look terrific and have lasted a couple of weeks. I don't know if they helped sell the house, but I've definitely enjoyed seeing them.

Eazy Breezy

A spring sky over D.C. a few days ago in the late afternoon. To me it suggests a sense of freedom and ease, which is what I feel today after turning in my last academic papers ever. Law school is so close to over for me it's not even funny. Yay!

Moon through trees

Last week's full moon hangs low over a string of rowhouses in Adams Morgan. I just don't have the lens to capture stuff like this (and I couln't find a good view where I didn't have to compete w/a streetlight), but this moon was incredibly cool b/c of the lines of clouds surrounding it for the few minutes I was taking pics. By the time I got a clearer shot (no trees, no streetlights), the clouds had evaporated and it wasn't even worth it anymore.

Toothy Tulips

A bed of tulips with sharp, spiky petals. I'd never seen a tulip like this before, but here was a whole little garden of them so it must be some special breed.

Exploded Tulip

A tulip in final stages of bloom. There are still many tulips around that look fresh and fine, but there are just about as many that have opened wide in their last gasps before releasing their petals back into the earth.

Overcast Monument

The Washington Monument before a darkening spring sky.

Overcast Blooms

Cherry trees in bloom beneath a foreboding spring sky. This was this morning when I really thought we were going to get soaked. Not a drop of rain fell; instead, the sky just got really cool!

Please see my Flickr for the rest of the best of the Cherry Blossom views.

Blossoms on Bark

Cherry blossoms sprouting directly from the trunk of a tree at the Tidal Basin. I took this yesterday and the cherry trees are currently in about peak bud so if you're around today or this weekend and can make it down, I highly recommend it.

Do Not Cut the Roses

A rose bush sans bush and roses. This spiky branch was in a flower bed along with many other similar branches sticking up into the cool spring air. The flower bed was infested with signs asking people to refrain from cutting the roses (click thumbnail at right to see one of the signs). I just found the scene amusing because at this point I couldn't imagine why anyone would want to cut these roses, and also because they look like they've already been cut to within an inch of their lives. I'm sure those signs make a lot more sense in the summer when the roses are in bloom.

Cherry Blossomlets

Delicate unopened blossoms on a cherry tree at the Tidal Basin. The National Cherry Blossom Festival officially started yesterday, but the trees are still a few days away from peak bloom. I took the above picture earlier today, along with the smaller one at right showing one of the blossoms fully opened (click to enlarge). It's too bad the peak blooming isn't going to be on a weekend, but I'm thinking that next Saturday might actually not be too bad to see the blossoms because most of them still have quite a way to go before they're fully open. But who knows? Maybe once they get to this point they go the rest of the way pretty fast.

I'll be heading back down once or twice more this week to try to capture the full monty and will post more if I do. For now, I've posted a few more photos on Flickr.

Ambivalent Images Turns Two

The Snowy Range in southern Wyoming. My sister took this picture during a hike we took with my mom in about July or August, 2003, the summer I first moved to DC and the summer before I started law school.

As of today, ambivalent images has existed for exactly two years. I chose this photo to mark the day for a couple of reasons. First, my sister just sent it to me to remind me how beautiful Wyoming is. After two years of taking pictures mostly in and around D.C., I appreciate Wyoming's particular beauty all the more.

But the other reason this is a good 2-year-anniversary photo is that I hope it foreshadows a year of similarly spectacular views. For the last few days I was seriously considering calling an end to this little experiment. After posting one photo every day for 730 days, the whole thing can easily begin to lose its charm. And yet, the very monotony of it, the habit, is what makes it worth doing. And as L. reminded me, the coming year is going to to bring all kinds of change and I'm definitely going to be taking photos of all that, so why not continue posting them?

So, continue I will. At least for now. I'm not sure if I can make it another complete year; once I start working a “real” job I have no idea if I'll have anything to shoot or any time to post. Time will tell.

For now, it's fun for me to look back on the last two years via the photos I've posted here, and I hope you have enjoyed one or all of them and will enjoy more in the future. As I said at this time last year, I'm very thankful to everyone who has visited the site and especially to those who return regularly and who comment now and then. Your comments make the whole thing worthwhile, so keep them coming whenever the urge strikes!

Rock Creek in Snow

Rock Creek last Sunday after our one big snowfalll of the season. Just four days later, about 99% of this snow is now gone.

Moon Over Rock Creek

A full moon shines at dusk over Rock Creek Park. This was last month's full moon; I'm a little behind. I noticed last night's moon was quite bright and waxing toward full, I think. The weather around here has been so like spring lately I don't know what I'm going to do when it turns cold and icy again.

Rock Creek Parkway at Dusk

Looking down the bridge railing toward the Duke Ellington Bridge along Rock Creek Parkway. I thought this was kind of a neat shot the way all the curves are intersecting and whatnot, but I couldn't decide which one I liked better—this one or the vertical at right—so you get both. The park is now covered in a thin layer of snow, most of which will probably be gone by tomorrow, I'm guessing.

Park Leaves

Brown leaves in the grass with colorful trees in the background. This is a late fall picture where the colors have gone from reds and yellows and golds to browns and tans and burnt oranges. I took this on 11/19/05. The cold has now come so the leaves are going to be gone from these trees any day now, I'd guess.

Anyhoo, Happy Turkey everyone! I'm off for a few days of vacation and I don't know if I'll be able to update, so if not, have a good holiday!

Orange Berries

Bright orange berries for fall. Whatever plant this is, it's all over the place and the bright bunches of orange fruit are very nice about now.

Leafy Gutter

The most colorful leaves I've seen this fall. I'd say the foliage has been pretty sad this season, but then I've been kind of too busy to pay very close attention, too. I remember running on Sunday in the marathon and thinking at one point what a gorgeous view we had of the foliage. I believe that was around mile 15 or 16 as we rounded the Tidal Basin and headed for Haines Point. That was probably about the peak of the race for me in terms of everything seeming great—the crowd was cheering, the view was awesome, and I felt pretty good. The rest of the race (10 more miles!) was good, too, but I'd say that's where the challenge really began.

Raindrops On Clover

What more can I say? Fall rains will turn to snows soon, I suppose, but D.C. is currently enjoying some absolutely gorgeous sunny and crisp fall days. I wish the weather was always like this!

Red Leaves

A fallen leaf with some residual raindrops. The tree from which the leaf fell (at right) is turning color from the tips of the branches toward the center. I don't recall seeing something quite like this before where most of the tree is still green except for the ends of a few branches. The dry, hot weather of the late summer apparently made for a bad fall foliage season around here so that leaves are either changing color very late or not at all; many are just falling on the ground green and turning a dull brown as they whither. I know this isn't happening everywhere and I hope to get out this weekend to see if I can see anything in northern Virginia or western Maryland.

Calvert Clouds

Clouds moving over the Duke Ellington Bridge on Calvert St. NW. Somehow it seems the sky around here is usually more monochromatic than this—it's either a dull gray or a light blue. Here we had a day where the sky was doing all kinds of things and it reminded me of growing up on the high semi-desert of Wyoming where the sky can show you a million colors a day.

Thistle Blooms

Spiky purple blossoms look almost pretty even though most people would consider them weeds.

Hiking the AT

A sign at Sky Meadows State Park lets you know you're hiking along the Appalachian Trail—you can tell by the distance you can travel and still be on the trail!

Small Fruits

Red fruits hang heavy on a tree at Sky Meadows State Park. Shockingly, I do not know what kind of fruit this is, but it looks pretty good. Just ignore the bug-eaten leaves and look at the nice red berries, or crab-apples, or whatever they are. Yeah.

Tree Silhouettes

Trees stand out against the summer sky at the aptly named Sky Meadows State Park in Virginia. We were there a couple of weekends ago and did a loop trail that was about 3-4 miles and took a couple of hours. Very pretty, easy walking, not far from the city, and easy to reach. I bet it's going to be beautiful there in the next few weeks as the leaves begin/continue to change.

I Am Talking to This Flower

A bright orange late-summer posie in our landlord's garden. My mom calls all flowers “posies” unless she knows their real name, so since I don't know the name of this flower, it's a posie.

Tiny Little Flowers

Tiny little flowers with big beautiful color. Times like this I wish I had a macro lens ten times more powerful.

Docking w/this Flower

A bug comes in for a landing on a big flat flower as another hangs out.

Bzzzz Bee

A bee stays busy in this flowerbed.

Going to Seed

A flower loses its petals in the later summer heat.

Late Cicadas

Dead cicadas on the back of a truck. Are they dead or just having sex? I was really shocked the other day when I was walking down the sidewalk and I heard this smack! as these guys hit the back of a truck. It seems they'd just fallen out of a tree and then they just sat there. Did the fall kill them? And why are they here? Wasn't last year supposed to be the big cicada year? What a bummer that would be -- you wait in the ground for 10 years or whatever for the big year when you're supposed to come out and then you pop out and realize that all your friends came out and died last year and you're a year late so you're basically all alone. Sad.

;-)

June Bloom II

Yes, I know it's July, but I took this in June, so here you go. I'm thinking of doing a brief series of flowers, or bumper stickers, or Sisu pictures for the next week. We'll be traveling so it will be hard to post w/much regularity. We'll see.

June Bloom

A flower in our landlord's front yard. The hot and humid weather apparently doesn't bother these flowers; they've been going crazy for several days now. Justin Hankins has some awesome flower photos up, although I'm not sure where they were taken. I often think of the beauty I hope to have around me when I move away from this swamp, but I might miss brilliant colors like this (and this!) in heat of summer.

Still, other parts of the country have beauty you just don't often see around here. For example, sunsets like this are common in the west/northwest. Meadows with aspen trees like this are also very nice and more common out west (although some of those flowers look like the picture taken above locally, don't they?).

Broken Roots

The exposed roots from a tree that recently fell over in a nearby park. What fell over was actually one half of a set of twin trees growing from the same root base. The one half fell over inexplicably (there may have been a storm that night but nothing super dramatic, as I recall), so they decided to cut down the other half. Now all that's left is the stump, which for a while sported a sign asking you to call a number if you had questions about the tree. What questions could a person have? What answers would you get if you called the number? “Yeah, it fell down.”