scenes from escaping

i find it necessary to explore portland. the reasons are simple: i do not know it & i don't like that. my sanity alone is enough of a motivating factor to leave. books on/of God, theological conversations, worship & church can all help to convey how big this created world is, how full of grace and beauty it is & how wonderfully artistic God's speaking of creation out of nothing actually is. nothing quite helps like seeing how ridiculous God really is. i've been blessed enough to see a decent sampling of the world, some very pretty places. i'll say this for portland: it measures up fairly easily.

once you find your way outside of the city, there are places that can swallow you. they'll sneak up on you & you'll be grateful they did because you wouldn't find them otherwise. a week or so ago, a friend & i went on a drive down the columbia river valley. we went to check out a couple scenic overlooks. one of them was the vista house.

that same trip, an intentional wrong turn & 14 miles between amazing old trees took us up to larch mountain. this day was blustery and terribly wet. the cold wind blew significantly cold precipitation into our faces as we laughed and hiked to what was to be a panoramic view of no less than 5 mountains on a clear day. obviously, it was not a clear day. when we summited, if you will, shepard's peak we found ourselves delightfully miserable & content with our surroundings. we were floating on a mountain in the clouds and fog. the view was like looking at grey-painted walls. it is a good memory of being so happy to be in miserable weather.

but we decided to come back when it cleared up someday. yesterday after class, we made the trip again & reality filled in the imaginary vistas we had created. i'm not sure which trip was better. there was something nice about being the only fools to accidentally stumble upon a mountain in the bitterness of a cold & rainy day when there was nothing to see but clouds- we did get to float as we shivered. here are some pictures i took with my phone, when we could see from a couple different escapes:

vista house

point of view

some place near the vista house, of
which i cannot remember the name

a random pond by trout creek camp

shepard's peak at larch mountain

what i think is mount hood

another view from shepard's peak at larch mnt

one of the things i love most about being here is the availability to escape. it doesn't take long to find your way to some place outrageously beautiful.