Snapping what passes by

At one point we were 25 miles from the US-Mexico border in the Sonoran Desert of California. We enjoyed unseasonably hot February weather. Visiting the glorious protected park lands had been a wonderful way to spend the last few months, but a glance at our calendar told us that the time had come to stop watching the birds and migrate with them, heading north.

On our second day of driving, we drove up into mountains and then down again. One beautiful landscape after another came into view, but each landscape disappeared in an instant as we cruised at 65 miles per hour.   Joe drove on. Finally, Beth picked up her camera and started snapping what she saw passing by.

Flowering almond trees almost appeared to be powdered by snow. The smog in the atmosphere enhanced the look.

As Beth snapped, snapped, snapped images of the almond trees from our speeding car, the unexpected happened. Who knew the delivery of portable toilets would be so perfectly framed in one of the photos?

Right next to a California vineyard arose a field of oil wells.

After our months in the desert, this landscape looked lush and intensely green.

One photograph had strong lines: crisscross patterns in the hills, vertical fence posts, horizontal phone lines.

Don’t we know the road we travelers take always continues on? If we look carefully we can follow it a very long way before it’s no longer clear to us.

Like most birds, we are travelers. We migrate with faith in what the road ahead offers us, but we’re not in a hurry. The landscape photographs taken in the span of an hour’s drive confirm that there is virtue in taking the alternate route to enjoy a new view.

 

February 2016