August/September 26 Things Challenge

I am kinda' slow getting started, but here are 2 more for the challenge. "Gate" I found in a corner of the Bellevue Botanical Gardens"

And with this one, I had to stop and back up on a country road, to make sure I saw what I thought I saw. Yep, but just barely! So, I am using it for "Hidden":

MOUNT RAINIER - WATERFALLS 'n WILDFLOWERS

So, our day at The Mountain was exciting from the ground, up. The summit, at over 14, 400' was not visible, but we got a pretty good view:
All colors are straight out of the camera; no enhancing. What a brilliant day, eh?

Box Canyon Falls pass through a crack in the rocks for hundreds of feet. This view is from 180' above:
"Indian Paintbrush" - probably the first wildflower every Washington school child learns to identify. It grows in sub-alpine territory, and the lower slopes of The Mountain are covered with bright pin-pricks of red-orange:
Like this:
Water was not roiling out of The Mountain as in springtime, but there is still plenty of rushing water:

DAY ON MOUNT RAINIER - COLORS!

As we drove entirely around The Mountain, vibrant colors shouted out from every direction. Summer colors - not Autumn! These photos are straight out of the camera, without color enhancement...this is exactly how these places looked. This little peacock-blue lake is called Shadow Lake:

And this verdant sloped is like a hundred others:
The greens just popped, except for this poor little mud-colored lake. But look - it's shaped like a heart!
I had to bring our car to a screeching halt - seeing these layers of blue. I wasn't sure how long the atmosphere would allow this to show:

GOIN' ROUND THE MOUNTAIN - VISTAS

Two days ago, D and I spent the entire day driving completely around Mt. Rainier. The weather was perfect for us, but the Mt. "came out" only some of the time. Here it is, with a cloud cap:

On the west side, we could see the glaciers :
From "Paradise", this is the view toward the west; Pinnacle Peak (only 6, 370') in the Tatoosh Range:
The famous Reflection Lake, but there was a breeze, so The Mt. did not show in the water:
Wildflowers were everywhere! This is just a sample of what was all around:
These photos are all straight out of the camera; no color-enhancement. It was the perfect day!

World Peas

Someone in the TwoPeas group has put forth a fun new list for challenges to photograph. It is called "Peas on Earth". Since the membership is world-wide, it has been fun to see postings from almost every continent. Now we get the chance to see defining subjects! The list will go until December. The first week's challenge is: "Where on earth are you?"

The above is my first for this week, simply defining my State, but at the same time, showing one of our state's foremost industries, fishing.

MACRO MONDAY

The color seems really bright in this, but it is straight out of the camera. My last shot from Gold Beach:

The Newest, bluest eye: agapanthus aperture

While on a drive yesterday, I passed a very long hedge of agapanthus. By great luck, the individual plants were in different stages of bloom, offering perfect models for photography.
I thought of each bulb or emerging blossom as an eye, and thus the name, "agapanthus aperture".