Famous Beach

 

Recognize this beach? It’s kind of famous.

 

 

It’s also kind of dangerous. Several people have been swept away when the sea looked calm. So stay away from the water.

 

 

Less Traveled By

 

It’s actually the path not taken. I didn’t follow this divergent path because a carload of people were waiting for me. It was mighty tempting, though.

Unfamous Falls

 

I’m in Iceland right now, but this photo was taken on an earlier trip. Seljalandsfoss is one of the most famous waterfalls in Iceland, and deservedly so. Those majestic 63-meter falls are quite photogenic, with a trail that runs right behind the cascade. No wonder it swarms so thickly with tourists you can barely see the water.

But right around the corner is a second fall, Gljúfrabúi. Harder to say, easier to see. Hardly anyone knows it’s there. It has cut a channel back into the rock. Visitors follow the stream back to the hill, then walk through a rock channel into a cave. The waterfall has carved out a doughnut-hole in the roof. You can climb up on a big rock in the middle, look up at the open sky, and feel the fine shower of waterfall spray on your face.

Soft Sunset

I grew up on the desert, where urban pollution and barren earth combined to create some pretty epic sunsets. Colorful sunsets were among the very few things I missed about the Southwest when I moved to Seattle (Indian fry bread was another). Here, you could miss the sunset entirely behind the clouds.

But I’ve grown to love the gentle Northwest sunsets, all colorless light and shadow. This one was at Cama Beach.

Public Like a Frog

 

I’m nobody. Who are you?

Are you nobody, too?

Then there’s a pair of us. Don’t tell!

They’d banish us you know.

How dreary to be somebody,

How public, like a frog, to tell your name the livelong day

To an admiring bog.

To be fair, this frog was just minding his own business.