Today, after breakfast, I sat down and wrote about 1,500 words (I really wanted to get the manuscript up over 39,000, and I just managed it). Then I read for a bit, and around lunch hopped into the car to go check out Big Valley.
I’d never been to Big Valley before, I don’t think; the place didn’t seem familiar, and I think I’d remember the very steep[1]Like, “This road is closed when it’s wet” steep. incline down into the valley. It was a lovely little place. The stream running through it reminded me of Skeins Crossing near Ochre River, because the water was cold and clear and all the creekside stones were broken shale, dark grey.
As I was processing the Big Valley photos, my friends Karen and Ed stopped by to say “hi”. After they left, I wrote another 1,000 words in the pre-supper writing stint.
Around sunset the skies cleared, just like the weather app predicted, and so I bundled my gear into the car and headed out for Spruces, near Wasagaming. On the way out I noticed a lovely post-sunset glow, reflected in a pond, so I stopped for some photos.
At Spruces, the galaxy made its slow way across the lake. I’ve got a timelapse video but that’ll have to wait till I’m home to upload. For now, enjoy a couple of photos.
I pointed my camera north for another half-hour, and collected some star trails.
Then I went back to the cabin and fell into bed about 1:30am.
Sample
In her dream the sky was blue with perfect white puffy clouds. The sun lit everything with a warmth beyond that it carried in springtime. This was the perfect season, she thought, her favourite time of any year. Early summer, when the days were warm but not sweltering, and the evenings were cool but not cold.
Her father sat next to her, so she knew for sure this had to be a dream. But it was her father as she’d only ever seen him in photos: younger, his hair still mostly dark, only just starting to go salt-and-pepper. He wore a thin beard, something he’d never done in her memory of him. Even in the home the nurses and orderlies had kept him clean-shaven.
When he looked down from the sky and caught her watching him, she was startled to see his eyes weren’t the dark brown she expected but the blue, instead, that her mother’s eyes had been. She blinked.
“Mom?” he said, his voice hesitant, like he didn’t want the answer. Or he did, but he was afraid what it might be.
“No,” she said, “you’ve got it backwards, I think.”
Interested in prints of my photos? Let me know, and we can work something out.
Footnotes
| ↑1 | Like, “This road is closed when it’s wet” steep. |
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