Driving

Ever since I was a little girl, I have loved to hop in a car and ride around with someone to see what we can see. It started with my Dad. We would drive out all over the place and he would show me land his family used to farm, where the old shack his great-grandparents lived in used to stand, old ancient churches brimming over with history where my ancestors were buried. We would enjoy the scenery and see what we could find while he told me history lessons and stories of his childhood. It absolutely made our day when we discovered some new "out of the way" spot, maybe an old-fashioned general store selling homemade jellies or a man selling Tupelo honey and fresh peaches out of his pickup truck. Magical things happened on these trips, like finding giant turtles crossing the road, or spotting a bobcat crossing a field. I learned to enjoy the moment and stay alert for the magic happening around me.

I married a man who likes to "take a drive and see what we see", too. We have found ourselves smack in the middle of the most beautiful scenery this country has to offer, from one coast to the other. Once, we drove right over the tip of a peak in the Olympic Mountains and back down the other side when we set out exploring old logging roads. Now that was a white-knuckle experience, but I will never forget it! On that same trip we also explored tide pools full of sea urchins and other tiny creatures, observed the biggest slugs I've ever seen in a rainbow of colors in a northwest rain forest, and found ourselves at the western-most point of the United States staring out into a vast ocean that made us feel itty-bitty and down at neon orange starfish plastered to the walls of sea caves.

A few days ago, we had an opportunity to drive around a beautiful area in our state, the Hood Canal. The Hood Canal is a breathtaking place, where water and mountains combine with woods and wildlife and you literally never know what you will see. Things like this happen in the north end:

We camped on the shores once a few years ago and I found myself waist-deep gathering oysters by flashlight and watching giant Dungeness crabs scurry across the rocks.
On this trip, I glanced down once at the water and I saw this:

I did not take this picture, but this is precisely what I saw, and this bald eagle is actually sitting on the shores of Hood Canal, so this could very well be my eagle.

I was just settling down from the surprise and joy of seeing that beautiful bird down on the sand when my husband said "look, here's another one with his landing gear out." I looked up in the trees and this bird looked enormous! The sun was shining from above him so he was sillhouetted and he had his talons out in preparation for latching onto a pine branch. Have you ever seen any bird of prey with his talons out?

This is a beautiful picture, but it doesn't quite do justice to the power I felt emanating from the bald eagle I watched land in that tree!

As if all the bird watching wasn't enough for one day, we also passed a giant group of deer grazing along the side of the road on our way home. It was a special, magical day.