A few weeks ago, Cobalt and I visited one of the ghost forests along the PNW coast. These forests were formed as a result of the great Cascadia earthquake on January 26, 1700 (super interesting story for how they figured out that date). During the quake, pieces of forests along the coast dropped away and the trees found their roots in salt marshes. These trees don’t like salty water, so they died, leaving behind eerie tree skeletons that remain to this day.
A ghost tree far below the rest of the forest, which stayed away from that pesky salt water.
I first found out about ghost forests from reading Sandi Doughton’s book “Full Rip 9.0” and I’ve been obsessed with them ever since. Unfortunately, the closest ghost forest to Cobalt and me requires a boat to get to it, so we haven’t visited that one yet. The easiest ghost forest to get to in the area is the Neskowin Ghost Forest because it’s just hanging out on Neskowin Beach on the coast of Oregon. Anyone who’s willing to cross a shallow creek can see those ghost trees. So when Cobalt and I decided to take a vacation to the Oregon coast, I made sure we paid them a visit.
Cobalt and I liked these two because they look kind of like ghosts!
This ghost forest is interesting because apparently the trees were completely buried until the epic 1997-1998 storm season exposed them. Now they host an assortment of mussels and barnacles, and sometimes even tide pools, so it’s double fun — see the ghost forest AND sea stars (can you find the sea star in the top photo?).
Cobalt and I got there just after low tide and spent the next hour or so meandering through the forest and searching for crabs (crab pictures coming soon). The weather was perfect: cool and misty, which made our ghost forest experience even more creepy. It was unfortunately pretty crowded, despite it being 8 a.m. on a Thursday. I guess everyone was excited about ghost forests and/or tide pools.
I think this one looks kind of like a moray eel. :)Cobalt and I liked this one because it looks like a face.
This was not the first ghost forest we’ve seen. We found our first one on accident. In 2019, Cobalt and I were exploring the area of Alaska near Anchorage and we drove past the Girdwood ghost forest. This ghost forest is much newer than the Neskowin ghost forest though, it was formed during an earthquake in 1964.
Cobalt was driving so I snapped this picture from the car. These trees look like skeletons to me, rising out of the marsh.
Hi everyone! How is July going for you so far? I hope good. I just got back from vacation, so I actually have photos to share for once. Waaaaat. I know, right? It’s been a while.
I think they split roughly into three posts, so let’s see if we can Get. This. Done.
Post number 1 (if you couldn’t tell from the featured photo): The strawberry supermoon! In case you were wondering, apparently the June full moon is named “strawberry” because it falls during strawberry season? Thanks space.com.
So up here in the PNW, we have a thing with clouds and fog. It’s not great for viewing celestial events (ex: we missed The Great Conjuction last year because of an epic rain/snow storm — cue Cobalt and me watching it on TV because we found an observatory live-streaming it. Oh what a time to be alive.). On the night of the supermoon, we had some low-hanging clouds, but it looked like the fog was going to hold off. So we headed outside. And waited.
And waited.
And waited.
And then Cobalt, who is great at finding things in the sky, said “I think that’s it over there.” There was a bright spot hidden behind the clouds. I played with my camera settings a little to see if we could pull out a moon.
DO YOU SEE IT?!?!
We found the moon! Now to wait for it to get out of the clouds…
Note: I am not very patient, so you get lots of moon-emerging pictures now. :) I mean, if you wanted the picture of the moon not in the clouds, just scroll to the top of this post. Done. OK… on to the emergence.
For some reason the moon looks like a giant Communion wafer to me… maybe it’s my Catholic upbringing…Still getting strong Communion wafer vibes with this one…At this point, the moon was more visible without crazy camera settings and Cobalt was getting excited too. I like that the top is so well defined.Oh you thought you were done with clouds? Hahahaha… :|OK clouds, now you’re just teasing me. Also this cloud makes the moon look like it has a mouth.
Once the moon had emerged from the clouds, the adventure was sort of over for me. I mean, I took some photos of it obviously, but it just didn’t feel as epic. Plus it was late, so it was time to go to bed. I’ll leave you with one more fun photo: grass + moon!
Which one is the moon and which one is a streetlight AGHHHHH HOW WILL WE KNOW?! :)
Move over, aspens. There’s a new fall tree in town.
This weekend, Cobalt and I went on an epic hike in search of larches, trees I had never heard about until a few weeks ago. These needley trees look like your typical evergreens during the summer, but then in the fall the needles turn yellow and fall off, like your typical deciduous trees. So cool!
In addition, it’s been two years since Cobalt and I have lived in Colorado, and we missed our fall tradition of seeing the glorious aspens turn yellow against the bright blue Colorado sky.
So when we found out that the Pacific Northwest has larches, we knew we had to go find them.
It’s not exactly easy. Larches in the state of Washington live at high elevation (~5,000 ft) in the northern part of the Cascade mountain range. So we had about a three-hour drive to wiggle northeast to the Cascades and then up.
But it turned out to be a beautiful day for a drive. To get to the Cascades, we drove through tunnels of orange and yellow trees that were shrouded in fog. Perfect for people who love fall and Halloween. Then as we climbed into the mountains, the sun came out and we were surrounded by outstanding views of the craggy mountains in this mountain range. Seriously, it was jaw-dropping.
My co-worker had recommended that we do the Cutthroat Pass trail, because it would definitely get us high enough to see larches (the trailhead is about 4,000 feet), and it would possibly be less crowded than other popular hikes in the area. The weather was too perfect though, so I think half of the state of Washington had the same idea we did.
Anyway, the trail was great! It was coated in snow, which ranged from a little dusting at the beginning to more prominent snow as we climbed. But the sun was out, so we weren’t too cold. We had INCREDIBLE views of the surrounding mountains, and we started to see larches nestled on them as the trail went on. Then suddenly, at about 6,000 feet, we found ourselves surrounded by these beautiful turning-yellow trees…. and all the other humans who had come out to find them.
We found them!!!Cobalt admiring the view
Cobalt and I wandered around the larches for a while, taking pictures and getting to know them.
Getting up close and personal with a larch….
Their needles are thinner than those of other needled trees I’ve encountered, so they felt feathery and soft. Their softness and the way they were organized on the branches made the branches look like yellow pipe cleaners jutting out of the trunks. For some reason, the twisty nature of the larch branches made me think of skeletons. Not sure why.
Similar to other deciduous trees, each larch needle turns yellow in its own time. It makes for a gorgeous mix of yellow and green on any given tree.Looks spiky but soooo soft…
After meandering through larches and humans, we found a large rock in the sun and decided to stop for lunch. We enjoyed our excellent views of the larches and the light breeze that swept across the area while we munched on carrots and cheese.
Also part of the lunch view: This neat mushroom!
Then it was time to head back down. :(
These little puffs caught my eye as we headed back down. I like that you can see the larches in the background.
These trees are magical. I can’t wait to go back and visit them again next year — or maybe next week. I miss them already.
Helllooooo friends! I hope you have been enjoying spring (or autumn if I have any southern hemisphere friends). Cobalt and I have been having a good time getting to know our new city. There’s always something fun going on on the weekends. We participated in Independent Bookstore Day one weekend and Free Comic Book Day the next! But while we’ve been having tons of fun with all of that, we really wanted to get out and explore the wilderness too.
So last weekend we went on an adventure to a ghost town with our friend Titanium! This particular ghost town only existed in Washington for ~20 years! It sprung up with a coal mine in 1900 and then it slowly started dying 15 years later when the nearby trains switched away from coal. Then a fire wiped out most of what was left of the town. Yikes. Bad news. So don’t get too excited, the only town-y parts left are a few walls and a foundation here and there. But it was still cool to wander around and wonder what it would have been like to live there.
Also, it was really incredible to see how nature has slowly reclaimed all of the remaining human-made objects in the area. Moss is not deterred, folks. It will grow on anything it seems.
Enough chit chat! Let’s get to the pictures!
This was labeled as a Retaining Wall on the map from the hiking guide I borrowed from my coworker. It was about a mile from the townsite though…
The sun was highlighting these leaves in such a way that I saw this as an opportunity for a black and white photo. So here you go.
Pretty sure this abandoned car is not from the time of the ghost town. It looks like it’s been there a while though. It’s fun to look at people’s pictures of this car through the ages. It’s definitely becoming part of the forest as time progresses.
See what I mean about that moss? Slowly claiming the backseat as its own.
Even the railroad pieces are being twisted by nature…
Human-made or natural? It’s all starting to blend together!
Apparently someone still lives in this town… PS: Look how green this concrete foundation is. I didn’t do anything to the color in Lightroom. Further proof that nature is relentless.
Cobalt in what’s left of the schoolhouse. Look at the size of the trees in there!
Hi everyone! Guess what? Cobalt and I moved to the western side of Washington! I got a new job (more on that later), so we packed up all our stuff and drove it + a sad kitty over the Cascades.
We’re finally settling into our place here, so this weekend we decided it was time to go on an adventure. We ended up spending Earth Day at Wallace Falls State Park with our friends Titanium and Iron. It was a gorgeous day and we had ourselves a nice 4.5 mile hike to see some falls.
You guys. It was so beautiful. Everything was green and alive. And it smelled so. good. I also enjoyed feeling my hiking boots squish through the wet dirt as we climbed up and up and up to see the falls and then turned around and went back home.
I brought two cameras so that Titanium and I could play with cameras together. She had my zoom/macro lens and I had my trusty prime (no zoom) 50 mm lens. So even if we took similar shots, they probably look quite different. I can’t wait to see what Titanium captured on her camera!
It was great having another photographer to hike with because Cobalt and Iron went ahead and then Titanium and I took pictures of everything all the way up and all the way down. I was in the moment hunting for things that could be cool to photograph. Usually it’s just me being awkward wanting to photograph stuff but not wanting to slow Cobalt down.
Anyway, that’s enough chatter. Let’s look at some pictures. Oh yeah… one note: I’m still in my tiny-things phase.
So we’ll start with some big things.
This was at the beginning of the trail. Such poky mountains in the distance… I like the way the powerlines draw your eyes to the mountain.We hiked all the way up to this fall. There was another one even farther up but we were tiiiiiiiired.Titantium had my wide angle lens on my other camera, so here’s the bottom of the fall from the previous picture. It’s more fun this way anyway. :) I like the mist!
Now we’ll work our way toward smaller and smaller things…
I like that this root looks like a hand. This baby tree is quite literally holding on for dear life. It was cool because it was growing out of an old redwood stump.Same tree as above. Just different angle. I think this looks like a hand too, but reaching up to the sky!So many baby trees sprouting out of dead trees. It was kind of magical. Plus I was obsessed with all those little fern-y guys along the bottom.Ahhhh! So cute!
It’s starting to feel a lot like spring here! The birds are singing in the mornings, the sun is looking less winter-y and the trees are getting buds on them. Yesterday, Cobalt and I went for a walk and I didn’t have to wear a jacket! To show off the lovely spring weather we’re getting, I thought I would post some silly pictures of inanimate objects enjoying the sun. The picture up there shows off a horse I found on our walk. PS – If anyone is missing their plastic purple horse, I found it.
This past weekend, Cobalt and I were visiting our friends in Boulder. The weather was pretty much the same as in eastern Washington except slightly more dry. We celebrated the spring weather there by playing on slides with our 19-month-old friend, going on walks with our older friends, eating lots of tasty food, going to see an amazing play and taking my stuffed taco on a trip to Chautauqua. :D
I really wanted to eat something buttery, crunchy, and flaky. And yet, most croissants that I have found, while delicious, fall short of that description. So I decided to try to make my own!
Now croissants are crazy flaky because they’re made out of puff pastry, which is basically flour and a LOT of butter folded over and over and over onto itself to make those layers we so appreciate. You can buy puff pastry at the store but I wanted to make my own. It takes a while because you have to keep the butter cold. So a typical recipe has you do a fold, then put the dough in the fridge for 30 min to an hour to chill the butter before you fold it again. It’s a lot of waiting. I decided the weekend would be the best time to try it.
Cobalt and I have Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything book so I decided to start there. I spent Saturday evening rolling and folding the dough, as per Bittman’s suggestions. Then I put it in the fridge overnight so I could make toasty croissants for Sunday morning brunch.
On Sunday, I rolled out and shaped the croissants. They looked good. Check it out.
Then I popped them in the oven. After about 25 minutes, they looked golden brown and pretty.
Though they looked pretty, they felt kind of weird. They were heavier than I thought a croissant should be. Could be okay still though. It came down to a taste test.
The inside was a disaster. They were still raw in there! I wonder if I made them too big. But also, they didn’t really taste great.
I went on a mission for a new croissant recipe. And I found this one by The Great British Bake Off’s judge Paul Hollywood.
So I went to the store and gathered some more supplies (these things need a lot of butter). And then I started on the recipe.
Hollywood’s recipe has yeast in it, which I took to be a good sign. Croissants that have risen maybe wouldn’t be as dense as the Bittman ones were.
This recipe was a little more complicated than the Bittman one. First of all, the ingredients were listed in grams instead of our American cups and teaspoons. But that’s okay! I have a kitchen scale. I pretended I was back in the lab: I tared the scale and then weighed out the exact amounts of my ingredients.
The recipe also called for “caster sugar,” which is apparently superfine sugar. Our store had sugar and powdered sugar (which is superfine sugar with cornstarch in it), so I had to make my own caster sugar. I took regular sugar and put it in the food processor. Voila. Superfine!
Then all of Hollywood’s measurements were in centimeters instead of inches. I’m not great at guestimating centimeters, so I borrowed my measuring tape from my sewing kit.
Finally, I had some drama getting the butter the way Hollywood described it. But at last I got the dough to its stopping point and let it rest overnight in the fridge.
On Monday morning, I rolled out the dough and shaped the croissants. Not bad!
You can already see the layers!
These ones were smaller than the Bittman ones but they also had a two-hour rise before I baked them. They puffed up!
And then they puffed up even more even more in the oven. Oh man. They looked and smelled so good. Plus they were light and super flaky!
Okay so they probably won’t win any beauty contest awards (Sorry Paul Hollywood!) but they’re still AMAZING.
Time for a taste test. Looks like Cobalt likes them! Yummmmm….
I really like making puff pastry dough (minus adding the butter to the Hollywood recipe, which made me infuriated). There’s something so relaxing about rolling out and folding this dough. Especially with the Hollywood recipe because it smelled so good. :D
I’m definitely going to have to try this one again. I have to figure out how to perfect that butter part! Also maybe I should mix up the recipe a little. Maybe make some pain au chocolat (chocolate croissants)? Yes please!
I hope you all are enjoying the new lunar year! Year of the Dog! Did anyone make/eat dumplings? :)
Who wants to see a giant waterfall that has no water in it? Oo oo sign Cobalt and Potassium up! That’s right, we drove two hours away to see the grave of an ancient waterfall!
This week’s post is a continuation of Cobalt’s and my exploration of how floods from thousands of years ago carved out the landscape of eastern Washington state. A few weeks ago, we went to see Palouse Falls, and then the next weekend we headed farther north to see its cousin, Dry Falls.
During the end of the last ice age, Dry Falls was apparently the largest waterfall in the world at 3.5 miles wide and 400 feet tall! That’s like five times the width of all three falls that make up Niagara Falls. And the tallest of the Niagara Falls is less than 200 feet. So… Dry Falls was friggin’ HUGE. Tons of water surged over these now-dry cliffs as it made its way toward the sea. And now it’s all gone. The only thing that remains are the cliffs themselves and those ponds, called “plunge pools,” where the cascading water carved out the rock below. But it must have been quite a sight!
I took this picture from the visitor center, which sits at the top of Dry Falls. The whole time we were up there, I was itching to get down to the bottom. I wanted to be surrounded by these huge cliffs and imagine what it would have been like to be completely underwater.
It turns out that there’s a trail that takes you to the edge of that plunge pool on the left in that picture, and it wasn’t too cold out. So Cobalt, our friend K and I had a wonderful walk across the floor of the former riverbed. It also turns out that it’s really hard to photograph just how crazy and awe-inspiring it felt to be surrounded by walls of rock that used to be a waterfall. But I’ll try:
The trail had stunning views like this one. I felt so small next to this crazy rock tower.I really liked the details of the walls themselves. There were so many colors and layers. So green!A plunge pool up close.At the edge of the last plunge pool with the cliff in the distance. Remember, there was water cascading down it!
Utter craziness, I say. Stay tuned for more fun with ice age floods as Cobalt’s and my exploring continues. Are you from the area? Where should we go next? We’re always on the lookout for our next adventure. :)
What happens when you’re super excited about something, and then it doesn’t happen? That energy has to go somewhere, right? Last week, I decided to put my disappointment about missing the lunar eclipse into taking crazy double exposure photos of Tarantula and the moon. It was possibly more challenging than photographing the eclipse itself, AND it made me giggle, which cheered me up.
It all started last Tuesday evening, when I was nerding out about the Super Blue Blood Moon! I love taking pictures of the moon (as y’all know), and lunar eclipses (the “blood moon” part) are especially fun to photograph. Unlike a solar eclipse, you don’t need crazy equipment to keep your eyes and your camera safe. You just point the camera at the moon and click click click click. Yayyyy. Cool moon pictures.
The total eclipse was supposed to start at… 4:50 am on Wednesday morning here in Washington state. My friend K and I planned to get up at 4 am and meet up so we could witness/photograph the wonder together. Great plan!
4 am is quite a bit earlier than I am used to getting up, though, so I decided to pack my camera stuff the night before. That way, I could roll out of bed, grab my fancy new camera bag, and go see the moon!
I was getting everything ready when I looked up and saw the super moon watching me through the window. It was pretty neat. Some trick of the light made a mini reflection of the super moon right underneath the moon itself. I liked it because it was still a pretty detailed reflection. So I took a few photos. But not too many because I thought I would have way cooler ones in the morning.
I love my little blurry mini moon. It almost looks like the mini moon IS the moon and then there’s some crazy bright planet/star lurking behind it!
BUT when I woke up at 4 am, it was CLOUDY. Cobalt, nice husband that he is, even went on a mini walk outside to see if our apartment was blocking the moon. He came back with sad news. No eclipse for me.
I was so grumpy on Wednesday. People were posting such cool photos online. Blood moon over an observatory, blood moon over the ocean, blood moon, blood moon, blood moon! It seemed like everyone saw it! And yet, I had nothing. It’s not like I slept through my alarm, or I forgot to charge my camera battery. It’s just that sometimes, these things happen. It was out of my control.
On Wednesday night, when the moon rose, I glared at it. It was still kind of cloudy, but you could see the moon. It was taunting me. Oh now you decide to show up, moon.
A part of me suggested that maybe I take some full moon pictures anyway. My camera was already prepped for moon photos. So I grudgingly set everything up and took a few photos of the moon from our deck.
Dang. That’s a sweet moon.
Tarantula watched me from the back door. That’s when I got the idea. What if… I took a picture of the moon and then, using the multiple exposure mode on my camera, took a picture of Tarantula so that it looked like she was watching it?
Crazy challenge accepted! Finally all my grumpiness had somewhere to go: This photo was going to require some serious planning.
The way the multiple exposure mode works is that it takes two (or more, depending on what you tell it) consecutive photos and smashes them together into one photo. So I had to take two perfect photos back to back. Which was hard because the moon and the inside of my house are lit quite differently. Also Tarantula is quite a bit closer to my camera than the moon is. ALSO… I had to remember where I framed the moon in the photo and then somehow get my cat to look in that general direction.
It took two different lenses (take picture of moon, switch lens to portrait lens, adjust settings, take picture of cat) and a lot of trial and error.
This was my first attempt. Moon looks good, but T’s not really looking in the right direction. Also I didn’t really like the closet in the background behind her.Cobalt was on cat-attention duty. He tried: saying KITTY!, snapping his fingers, and getting out her favorite butterfly toy to get her to look where I wanted her to look. This picture happened because she leapt out of the frame for the butterfly. I was going to redo the whole series anyway, so I just snapped a quick second picture of her and the camera smashed the two together. I think it looks like a record cover. What would the title be?
I’m still sad that I didn’t get to see the eclipse. But at least I got to have fun with my camera, which is one of the things I was looking forward to. I’ve been trying to take pictures that tell a story. Sure, a photo of the eclipse would have told a “Potassium got up super early so she could see this sweet lunar phenomenon” story. But these photos tell a pretty neat story too. I mean, how often do cats get to look at a moon in their own living rooms?
Now it’s your turn! Did you see the eclipse? What’s something that’s disappointed you lately? How did you handle your feelings?
Helloooo! How is it the last week of January?! How did this happen? So confusing.
Today I am gonna talk about Cobalt’s and my weekend adventure to Palouse Falls. So this is crazy: in the middle of eastern Washington farms, there are these amazingly epic falls. These falls were formed by ice age floods that carved out the landscape across eastern Washington thousands of years ago. Apparently these falls are the only ice-age-flood-formed waterfalls that flow all year round! So pretty. So intense.
So anyway, this past weekend Cobalt and I went to Palouse Falls after our friend L showed us pictures. The falls are spectacular and super easy to see, even if you don’t like hiking. From the parking area, there’s a viewpoint that looks out over them. But Cobalt and I wanted to explore a little more. So we followed a series of trails that led us back behind the falls and down to the river.
From there, we were surrounded by towering cliffs, rushing water, and soft moss and other friendly plants. Then we left the slippery, mossy rocks behind and got back on a trail surrounded by green and yellow grasses blowing gently in the wind. Creeping along the cliff wall, we followed the river back around to the waterfall. Then we rounded the corner of the cliff and stepped out next to the top of the waterfall. Huge gusts of wind blew mist up in our faces where it coated our glasses. Cobalt and I grinned at each other and then picked our way to the waterfall and then the surrounding areas. It was incredible! From the top of the falls, we could see how the floods had carved out a canyon below the waterfall. Here are some pictures.
Such interesting patterns in these cliffs…These rocks stood right next to the top of the waterfall. I loved them because they were so tall but sooooo skinny. I couldn’t figure out the best way to show them off. But then I saw Cobalt standing there watching the river, and I was inspired!
Eventually, we had to go back to the car. So we picked our way back over the trail on the other side of the waterfall. On the way back, I got distracted by the green plants. They were so green and so detailed. I wished I had a macro lens for my DSLR so I could take some crazy up-close and pictures to show off just how intricate each plant was. But alas, all I had was my portrait lens and my iPhone. The portrait lens wouldn’t let me get as close to the plants as I wanted, so it was up to the iPhone camera! It did a pretty good job I think. I really like the spiky patterns in these plants. I find them mesmerizing. I also like that the bigger leaves look like hearts.
<3
It was so fascinating to see such bright green plants here in eastern Washington. I’m used to seeing them in wet western Washington, but not so much here. We live in what’s called a “Shrub steppe,” which is sort of a desert but with small bushes and shrubs (think: tumbleweeds) everywhere. No small green guys. So it made me happy to see them again.
All in all, it was a good day full of adventure and marveling at this crazy earth we live on. So beautiful.
PS: I took the top picture with my DSLR, not my iPhone.
PPS: It’s scarily warm here for this time of year. :-/
Potassium Photography 