More photos from vacation!? Yes, -- what to do with them all? As I was taking pictures of the wildflowers, one of my sons asked me what I was planning to do with all these boring flower photos. Once upon a time, I thought I would make a collection of these photos from the places we've lived and make a plant identification book for familial use. Well, the kids are growing up too fast for that. Years and years ago, when the big kids were babies, I made a Mary Garden booklet for a friend's bridal shower present - gifted with a plant, of course. I had something of a Mary garden going when we lived in Chicagoland - but almost every plant has a Marian nickname if you look for it. I thought I might expand on that someday, too, but those files don't exist anymore, and the concept has been pretty well covered in a much more thorough and professional way by others.
Actually, in the moment of photo-taking, I didn't have any plan in mind, but was making a futile effort to try to preserve a moment, to capture the awe. I take all of these photos - landscape shots and close-ups and portraits and candids, trying to capture something of the beautiful view or amazing variety or someone's personality, but fail miserably at preserving either the vistas or the close views. It is awesome how spectacular some of these places in the world are, but looking at a photo isn't the same thing as being there, as so many people sharing the trail in the national parks are aware. It is a wonder that with the amount of foot traffic, so much is preserved.
What is fun about photos is using them to relive the moments. My photographic talents are limited. It is impossible, of course, to pin down the sublime (isn't there a Wordsworth poem about this? Or some Romantic poet?) but I keep hoping one day I'll capture a really great image - as I suppose many of the other tourists wielding cameras at the National Park hope to do. Or at least to create hard evidence that they were here, they checked off a bucket list item, they saw something other people have said - you must see this! (The other day, one of my daughter's friends posted on Instagram after a visit to the National Gallery something about how much she loved Jackson Pollock's art. Hmmm. She's in 8th grade. She isn't really that into art. I suspect she has been told that Jackson Pollock is amazing and he's famous. I'm sure people find his work attractive, but I wonder if his fanbase is somewhat created by promoters. Maybe I'm missing something in it. Art can be the source of the sublime as well as nature -- which is Wordsworth's point, right?)
But as you'll notice, these images not quite, or not anywhere close to a work of art - So if you don't care much for nature photography by amateurs you can click on by, but if you are planning a trip to the Rocky Mountains National Park, here are some scenes/flowers/animals you can anticipate seeing.
My husband wanted to compare Yosemite and RMNP - they are very similar, but I think there might be more places to hike at RMNP. I have head that Yosemite is jammed in the summer and at RMNP, you do not need to follow the crowd. I would love to grab a backpack and head off on the deer paths to the more remote places, but for now here are some standard sites - memorialized much better by others.
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| View from our lodge |
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| A bluebell variety |
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| Sedum - stonecrop |
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| ? |
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| A glacier |
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Mountain columbine. We used to suck nectar from the tiny bubbles at the end of the globe.
But people are suspicious if you put wild things in your mouth. First, it is a felony to pick things in the Nat'l Park.
Secondly, people think you are going to poison yourself. |
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| Look! A heard of elk! We saw several along the Trail Ridge Road drive |
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| Clouds breaking above Rainbow valley. |
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| The Loch - an alpine lake |
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| Mariposa Lily |
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| A clear view of Long's Peak, the 14000 footer we didn't hike because of rain. |
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| Can you see the moose in the bush? Time for a new lens. |
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| Attempts to capture a fabulous sunset in Utah |
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| Double rainbow |
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| Godlight - daylight's last glow. |
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| Lilacs are still blooming |
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| late fiddleheads at about 10000 ft. elevation |
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| Scarlet Penstemon? |
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| Tundra wildflowers |
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| Handy labels at the Nature Center on Trail Ridge Road. Rock campion all over. |
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| Western wallflower |
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Maybe orchid beardstongue?
http://wildflowersofcolorado.com/html/blue___purple_pg_5.html |
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| Tall chiming bells |
2 comments:
I love looking at your wildflowers and vistas! I don't think that one photo with a question mark looks much like penstemon - maybe it is rosy paintbrush? http://backpackingtherockies.com/rosy-paintbrush-rocky-mountain-wildflower/
I think you are right! I thought it looked similar to what we used to call Indian Paintbrush, but it didn't match the picture I found. We did see something that was like penstemon - tall with trumpety flowers - but not this one... needed a guidebook right there!
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