October, 2017
West Beach sunset.
You absolutely must NOT open these photos (below) on a cell phone or other small device. They are just too awesome to be limited to a small screen. If that’s all you have at home, then go to your public library and use one of their computers to open this blog.
I wish I could set the photos up as a slideshow so you could scroll through larger versions of the photos, but I don’t find a way to do that in WordPress. Please click on each photo to enlarge it. If you want a copy of any of the original even larger photos, let me know.
Before we get to the sunset photos, however, earlier this afternoon I drove into the town of Oak Harbor (no photos taken) where I went to high school. I wanted to see my old high school buildings and some other familiar places. Well, golly gee, the high school buildings had been torn down and the land was now a city park, and most of the other old haunts of mine had also been torn down.
Still, I drove around a bit and enjoyed seeing lots of familiar things. AND, on my way out of town (after getting groceries and gasoline), I drove to the west side of the island and found a very nice privately-owned RV campground that overlooks the Strait of Juan de Fuca … what a gorgeous view. That RV park is now on my list for a future camping trip.
But let’s get back to this sunset! Oh, it was glorious and you will love it. Every evening this week either before or after dinner, I walked or drove from my little campsite out to West Beach to enjoy the beach and the evening light. Because there hadn’t been any clouds all week, there also hadn’t been much of a sunset. But this evening …. wow.
When I saw the sky start to turn golden, I walked back to the truck to get my tripod. And when I saw the deep orange reflection in the side of the truck, I knew I had to get back to the beach pronto for photos!
From this moment (first photo below), until the sun disappeared, was about 12 minutes. I took almost 80 photos, but have included only my favorite ten here. Please do enlarge them if you can.
While I was taking photos, I often found myself standing and gazing in awe having forgotten all about the camera.
There were lots of people on the beach. No one said a word.
Back at my campsite there was still just enough of that golden light to bless my little trailer.
“thank you” aren’t spoken very often. In other cultures, particularly some cultures in the USA however, saying thank you comes so easily and can mean so little, can even mean “ok, I’m done with our visit/transaction and you can leave now”.
I try to be mindful of gratitude, real gratitude. On this evening, feeling so deeply grateful came so easily.