Speaking of Sunriver

Two more landscapes from Eclipse Summer.

Saturday reflections

An appropriately bucolic scene for the end of summer.

This is an overlooked photo from 2017 in Sunriver, Oregon, when I went to see the eclipse. It was hard for mere landscapes to compete with the perhaps once in a lifetime experience of photographing the sun, and I never got around to processing this picture.

Saturday reflections

Summer as reflected in the window of a house in Sunriver.

Sunday bird blogging

Now that the weather is finally catching up to the calendar, here's a look back at summer, with a pretty duck in Sunriver.

I have a meeting with a contractor this afternoon about renovating my kitchen, and my stomach is already in knots remembering the drawn-out painful bathroom debacle of 2016. I just keep whispering to myself, It's worth it in the end. It's worth it in the end.

Sunday deer blogging

I forgot about this until I was going through pictures yesterday. 

The night before the eclipse, there was a wedding party at Sunriver having cocktails on a lawn by the river. This mama deer (the fawn was hiding in the tall grass behind her) stood watching them through the grasses for a few minutes before running away along the riverbank.

Sunday bird blogging

A pine siskin, hiding in the grass in Sunriver.

Sunday bird blogging

Ducks on the river yesterday morning.

I ended up skipping the welcome dinner and going to bed early, so yesterday morning I took a long walk before breakfast, when the mist was still clinging to the riverbanks, and the empty golf course was miles of fields and gentle hills.

It's lovely here. We had a lecture after breakfast, and after dinner a field trip to the Oregon Observatory where we got to peer at various celestial objects through large telescopes, but most of the day was free. I went for a swim, walked into the village for lunch at a Portuguese cafe, and spent the afternoon mostly reading on a lounge chair under an umbrella. The air smells of summer: tree bark baked in the sun mixed with pine needles and dusty roads and suntan lotion.

Saturday reflections

It's maybe cheating a little to call this a reflection shot, but too bad -- I'm on vacation.

This is the early evening view along the water in Sunriver, Oregon, yesterday evening. The journey here was mercifully hassle-free, except for the getting up at 4:30 in the morning part. The air was thick with wildfire smoke in the afternoon, but did clear, as you can see.