30 Sept 2015

Urban Inspection 4: Night Disturbance


On a whim, I decided it was time to take some more night photos of Tacoma. It turned out to be a fortunate decision.


You may have noticed this is heavily back-dated. I should have posted this back in September, but I've been quite sick this week.


One of the old brick alleys of Tacoma. I understand that the old brick can be nice, but this is so uneven that not only is it intolerable for auto traffic, but it's even difficult to walk on.


I always thought graffiti looks better than mismatched grey paint, but I also understand all the complicated reasons behind it.


Most of the streets, like this one, are pretty empty after midnight.



Downtown Tacoma is quite a center of public art.


We witnessed a driver knocking over a recycling bin, although I didn't quite get a photo of the act itself.


We heard police sirens and they stopped right in front of the bar ahead of us.


We were presented with this bizarrely delightful scene.


The lady with this wonderfully swooshy garment stopped by us to make this comment, which seems to explain everything about the situation:



Finally, as we made our way home, we saw Caution the Cat who works in the Office of Consumption. There used to be a small wooden plaque with words explaining his situation, but they went missing at some point along with the clock hands.

25 Sept 2015

Less-travelled roads to heaven (part 2)


The Seven Devils mountain range, from where the technical top of the canyon is measured. We call it the Seven Satans because alliteration.


Never fear—this is not missing the first 2 pages. Those were part 1. Note the change from "hell" to "heaven". I really do love Moscow that much. Partly because it's great, but partly because of an irrational emotional bond with it which I have no desire to shake.



The "alien landing pad" of Hells Canyon.


The clouds cast lovely shadows.


Nearing sunset at the reservoir of Brownlee Dam.


White Bird



US-95 by White Bird



Sculpture at the Nez Perce County Courthouse (at Lewiston)


US-95 going north to Moscow. We went up this incline to the Palouse country using the modern 4 lane highway.


Moscow countryside (I regret not bringing my camera on the walk around downtown!)


Looking from the top down at Lewiston and the old two-lane road, which we took down the inline.



Grain storage along US-12


Overlooking the Snake River near Starbuck (no association with Starbucks!)


A railroad bridge over the Snake River.


Palouse Falls


This is a rough outline of our complete road trip. I pretty much ignored everything between Weiser and Cascade, yes. It's just that dull in comparison to what surrounds it!

23 Sept 2015

Less-travelled roads to hell (part 1)


Memorializing our previous failure of getting stuck on Hat Point Road.




View of the Wallowa Mountains from Joseph, OR



The pastoral Wallowa valley




The road to Hells Canyon



Hat Point Road




Just around this turn, the road passed on a very narrow strip of land with a steep fall on either side.


Imnaha River Valley from the Granny viewpoint.



Hat Point viewpoint shrouded in clouds.


Panorama of the view.


These trees would normally be evergreen, but the area suffered a bad fire in the late 1980s.



Imanha River


Upper Imnaha Road—Part 2, starting with once we left this road, is soon to come.