This is Highway 104 in Port Gamble last week. A gale last Thursday night stripped trees I intended to photograph in Sequim on Friday. I’ll keep looking.
Category: Beyond the Olympic Peninsula
Dahlia dazzlement
In front of the Port Gamble Post Office is one of the most spectacular displays of dahlias I’ve ever seen. Gorgeous, healthy, and diverse specimens filled a small garden.
A postal employee told us that the Kitsap County Dahlia Society is responsible for the display and a fellow named Michael maintains it. They really know what they’re doing.
Each plant is labeled with its name so the truly smitten (moi!) can track down one (or a dozen) for home gardens. (We were told the Dahlia Society has a yearly sale.) This splendid garden is going to be cut down soon. I’m so pleased I happened on it before it disappeared for another year. It’s well worth a visit during the dahlia growing season.
Day trippin’
I took a day trip to Port Gamble yesterday. It’s a sweet little former logging town on the Kitsap Peninsula. This is the Port Gamble Post Office building. Notice the floral display in front of the building. It’s worth a closer look. Tomorrow I’ll move in for a better view.
Still summertime
Early autumn felt much more like summer as this fellow lounged on the deck of his boat in Poulsbo the other day.
No climbing
There are numerous signs around the Mono Lake tufa in California: “No climbing on tufa.”
I will not disparage photographers. Many of us know how to read and even follow directions. Not this guy.
Mono Lake tufa towers
Mono Lake in California has had many fluctuations in size. Drought conditions lower the water level. And for decades in the 20th century the City of Los Angeles diverted fresh water flows into the lake, which steadily reduced its size and lowered its shoreline. Mono’s exposed tufa towers show what happens under the lake’s alkaline waters.
The region of the Mono Lake is a large volcanic basin with three volcanic formations around the Mono waters. And the lake shoreline is peppered with fresh water springs. The springs, which contain calcium, bubble up through the lake’s waters which are carbonate rich. The combination forms whitish limestone deposits that over time become the tufa towers seen around the lake.
Los Angeles water diversions from Mono Lake were so great that the ecosystem of the lake was imperiled. A landmark court case was launched by the Mono Lake Committee and the Audubon Society against Los Angeles Water and Power. Conservationists prevailed to protect water levels and diversions have been reduced. The lake is still below historic levels and California’s years long drought has taken its toll. During windy dry periods alkaline dust storms can significantly degrade air quality.
Mono Lake, CA
One beautiful, otherworldly destination in California is Mono Lake. Our most recent visit presented us with a soft, pastel panorama.
Mono Lake is one of the oldest lakes in North America, its life estimated to be at least 760,000 years. It is fed by nearby Sierra Mountain streams but has no outlet. Streams carry minerals into the lake; evaporation reduces its fresh water content. As a result the lake has a salt concentration twice that of the ocean and no fish can live there.
Mono, however, supports life: trillions of brine shrimp and alkali flies sustain migratory birds that flock here. At various times of the year it is a birder’s paradise with nearly 100 species of birds residing here. Mono Lake is second in size only to Great Salt Lake as a California gull rookery. Anywhere from 44,000 to 65,000 gulls arrive each year to breed at Mono Lake.
Tomorrow I’ll give you a closer look at the tufa formations you see in the waters of this shot.