Well it didn't take too long for me to fall asleep last night. My body was really tired and walking with the brace on my leg and a camera pack made for a heavy load. Besides, I couldn't wait to get to sleep because I was hoping to trick Mother Nature and capture some more cool shots in the morning.
So, how does one trick Mother Nature? Well, I heard on the weather that it was going to rain today which meant great shades of green but I would also be wiping the camera lens a lot so that my shots would be clear. My thought was to get up before the rain, before the sky dulled some of the green color at the falls and before the other tourists would have even thought that going to these spots was a fun thing to do.
At 6:00 a.m. my alarm went off and I popped out of bed. I laid all my stuff out before I went to sleep so I would be ready to go if my instincts were correct. I threw on my dirty clothes from yesterday. I figured I would be crawling around on the ground again and scooting under trees and bushes so there was no sense in ruining clean clothes. I opened the drapes to see what the weather was like and...NO RAIN. I bolted out the door, jumped in my car and headed back to the first two waterfalls I saw yesterday. I liked the photos I took, but there were some areas that I never got to go to because of the rain. Today, nothing was going to stop me.
When I pulled up at Wahkeena Falls it was beautiful. The greens were jumping off the mountain, the water was crashing down into the basin and there wasn't another tourist in sight. Oh, and not a smidge of rain. I set up my camera on a tripod in a bunch of different places. One spot, I crawled under a fence so I could shoot between the trees. Another I hopped into the water so I could get an angle that the average person would never see. And last but not least, I trecked back up a 1/4 mile to the upper pool to take some shots opposite of where everyone would normally look. I was like a kid in a candy store. It was beautiful. The colors were popping the air was clean and I had this moment; this quiet beautiful moment all to myself. Wow! How lucky is that.
About an hour of being there, some tourists began to show up. Luckily I had done all of my climbing and jumping so when I saw them, I was just a dirty photographer making her way back to her car. Oh, and I had a big smile on my face. Do you know why? It was starting to rain. Yep. I tricked Mother Nature. Maybe she overslept today or maybe she felt I needed a break. Either way, it was a great start to my day.
I went back to the hotel and spent a lot of time cleaning up and packing. Then I headed out to Eugene. Traffic between Portland and Eugene was crazy. It seemed like every driver was on the road and it turned a 2 hour drive into a 2:30 ride. It was painful as I was fighting sleep and at the same time I couldn't wait to get there and give my daughter a hug.
I got to her apartment complex, met up with her roommates and we chatted up life in college. The time passed quickly and I was soon on my way to pick up Shannon from her job. As soon as I pulled up and saw her, I jumped out of the car and hugged the stuffing out of her. It felt so good to have her in my arms again. It seemed like years had gone by since I saw her. After our reunion, we went back to her apartment, picked up the roomies and I took everyone out to eat. We went to a great restaurant called "The Vintage". Their specialty is crepes so that was what I ordered. The food was outstanding, the company was so much fun and we capped off our dinner with Chocolate Fondu. It was the first time I ever had Fondu and boy was it good. I took the girls grocery shopping so they could fill their cabinets and lucky for Shannon all of her stuff was on my tab. Yeah for Moms. It was midnight before we hit the bed and I was completely exhausted. But, I would drive a million miles to spend some time with my daughter. It is times like these that make me realize just how much I really miss her in Chicago.
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