Prez Day Pics

Today I made my first excursion of any mentionable length since being hit with the abdominal pain in October. One reason was because it is one of those typical sunny 60 F February days that I'm so used to here in the Northwest. I spent yesterday (weather similar to today) pretty much messing around on Google Earth and reading. Ididn't want to do that again. Also, I was blowing my nose a whole bunch yesterday and thought that maybe fresher air would clear my sinuses. My plan for this morning was to go somewhere south of Mt St Helens and take some photos. I made it all the way to Cougar, WA. I couldn't believe how much snow there was in town there and in the hills.

Cougar, Washington

I knew that there was a whole bunch of low elevation snow throughout January, but it amazed me to see this much snow lying about under 600 ft in elevation.

But on to Mt St Helens:

Unfortunately, all the other photos I took didn't turn out as well as I had hoped, especially of Yale Lake and the Lewis River. Yale Lake had a hue of green that just didn't translate in the photo and the Lewis River had a nice blue to it, again not picked up very well in the photo. This last pic did turn out the way I wanted it.

Other miscellaneous items to mention: First, today was the first time I got gas since December 11th. Second, when I drove up to Washington a little after 10 am traffic wasn't bad. Returning I-5 North was very slow from the Interstate Bridge all the way back to I-405 (5 miles!) at 1 pm on a somewhat-observed holiday. I feel sorry for all you Vancouver commuters.

So, since I did alright today (except that when I scrambled back up from the shore of Yale Lake back to the road my stomach hurt--not the side pain, more like I went beyond nausea) I should really begin making an effort to write a resume so I can apply for some job back at OHSU.