Looking back, looking up

It was long ago. Long, long ago. Our car had a wide ledge behind the back seat, with the rear window slanting down over it. It was my bed when we were travelling. I lay there watching the tops of the trees slide by, watching the night settle in, turning the greens into blacks against a blue-black sky.

Looking back. Campbell River, 76 km.The overpass is a logging road.

 
Dad slept during the mornings, then drove through the afternoon and night. We averaged, back then, about 300 miles a day, crossing and re-crossing the continent on two-lane highways. My brothers slept on the back seat, Mom nodded off in front. I watched the sky and the tree line.

Bridge over a creek

A few years later, Dad drove a '34 Dodge. The back-seat ledge was too small, and I was too big by then, anyhow. I sat behind Dad, leaning forward against his seat, (no seat belts in those days!) watching the road while he drove. In the blue distance, a glow in the sky meant we would be passing a town, a moving light was a car coming our way. There weren't many of those.

The trees lose their upper greenery in the winter storms.

Down the west coast, the skyline featured hills clad with evergreens. Then there were the flats through Arizona and New Mexico; here I watched the heat shimmers over the road, and the scrub bushes sprinkled across the dry land. Cotton fields down the Mississippi, urban sprawl up the east coast. I missed my treetops.

Sky and spikes over Rooney Lake (down in the valley)

I grew up, drove my own cars, watched the skyline up and down the continent; rocky hills in Mexico, green jungles in Guatemala, towering mountains in Oregon, beckoning glaciers in the north country; here the glow on the horizon at night was the northern lights.

Dropping into the Woss valley. The town is surrounded by tall peaks, 1600 m (5250 feet) and higher. I don't know which ones these are.

Time runs on. I'm back more or less where I started. And I drive with one eye on the treetops and the mountains ahead. They draw me on, around the next bend, over the next hill, deep into the valleys; I want to stop to look, to delight in the view, but the road holds me in a hypnotic grip.

Snags, tall trees, and a logging truck warning.

I drove to Woss for coffee and a sandwich a couple of days ago. Three hundred kilometres round-trip. An expensive sandwich. The ever-changing skyline made it worth my while. Nearing Woss, I stopped several times to take its photo.

Down, down, down. The valley is deep.

As long as the hills stay green, I can drive forever.

Criss-cross skies. Contrails and blowing clouds.

A Skywatch post.