Ahhh, getaways.  When you’re retired, you can schedule a getaway whenever you want, since every day is a weekend.  However, I just had to do this one first, as a response to Tina’s photo.  Hers was the outside, and mine is the inside of the Denver airport.  In 2015, we went to a Hillsdale College function in Colorado Springs.  We made the mistake of lingering a bit too long in the drive-thru line at Chick-Fil-A, and we missed our late-afternoon plane!  So we were stuck in the airport all night, and I had the chance to do some photography since I couldn’t sleep.

I always try to look up wherever I go.  There are often interesting things to be found if you take your eyes away from your phone!

Just today, we took a very long day-trip, to visit Mount St. Helens, the site of a big volcanic eruption in 1980.  I remember where I was and what I was doing that Sunday morning, and looking out the window and seeing the cloud of volcanic ash in the sky (I was in South Seattle at the home of a coworker, discussing work).  Hubby has been in Seattle since later that year, and I was born and raised in Seattle, and neither of us had been down to see the volcano.

This is a view of the Lower Toutle River Valley, and even 40 years later you can see the devastation on both sides of the river.  On the day of the eruption, the river was filled from bank to bank with mud, rock, and downed trees.  The opposite bank is privately-owned forest land that has regenerated.

This is the volcano today, from the Johnston Ridge visitor center.  What a reminder of the sheer power of Nature.  But we also understood that, what Nature destroys, she also rebuilds.  Trees started growing back very shortly after the eruption.  This photo shows what remains of a tree, surrounded by flowers.  Rejuvenation!  And it was weird, seeing driftwood, at 3,000 feet above sea level!

We also like to get away to the ocean, which isn’t far from our home.  We love the Olympic Peninsula, and I already did a post on our Dungeness trip.  However, in my mind, I made a connection between something I saw at Dungeness, and something I saw on a previous getaway to the Peninsula.  Here’s Dungeness.

I thought that driftwood log with the rocks on top, resembled an old man in a cape, contemplating the waves.

A few miles northeast of Dungeness is the town of Port Townsend, and in 2019 I took a short vacation there by myself.  I walked down to the waterfront, and saw that some enterprising people had taken some liberties with the rocks along the shore.

See the resemblance?  People just can’t help themselves, and when they see suitably-shaped rocks, they just pile them up.  These look like little people, watching the sailboat.

I give thanks every day that we are mobile, and can get away from the humdrum of town whenever we want to.

Here’s the Link to the Original Post.