WESTSIDE WILD WOODS~Vader-WA

Today dawned with the promise of a beautiful day out-of-doors … so Holland took me to a place he has spent a majority of his time in the PNW, enjoying.

I always enjoy Nature Days :-)

I always enjoy making memories that include people I love.

Olequa-WA from Woodland-WA; 41 min (37.3 mi) via I-5 N and Westside Hwy

A new road = a new experience; I like that ;-)

The warmth of sunshine, the contented buzz and chatter of forest life; the smell of sun-kissed evergreens, drying grasses, flowers, and earthy scented dust motes.

I love being in the forest, even if the forest steals my breath every now and then :-)

Wild Daisies, Foxglove, and St. John’s Wort.

Up & up Betsy climbed as we moved further into the wild woods …

The ghostly 'Blue Moon' in today's beautiful blue sky, appeared to look transparent - it wasn't, but it did appear to look so.

The moon is an illuminating symbol of nighttime, so seeing it in the daytime sky is interesting - and weird, because the moon doesn’t create its own light; so, if we see it in the daytime, it can only be visible because light from the Sun is reflecting off of its surface as long as it’s in the right part of the sky.

This afternoon, the moon was in the right part of the sky ;-)

As well as seeing the moon … we also saw the Toutle Valley, Mt. Rainier, and Mt. St. Helens; off in varying distances.

We also saw deer tracks - and a mystery scratch mark.

Wild daisies, & fields of foxgloves, were everywhere: I like to see them both gently swaying in the gentle warm breeze.

The warm sunshine on our skin felt wonderful.

We could see Headquarters area - and Silver Lake, in Toutle-WA

Mt. Rainier in all his splendor.

Yesterday's rainfall created a tracks template - a set of overlapping mama white-tail deer hooves, & at least 1 fawn ;-)

Baby deer tracks; a newborn, possibly a month old.

Off to the left was a strange scratch mark …

A field of wild daisies looks like summer snowfall …

Mt. St. Helens shedding her gleaming winter mantle; on the way back down the incline.

A cool truck, back in Woodland-WA

The day started and ended on a perfect note :-)

This is a good Shabbat.