Natural Beauty

Liberty Lake County Park, Thanksgiving 2012

There is so much beauty in this world. When I was young and lived in Tucson, I loved the desert. The sunrises and sunsets were amazing, with vivid reds and purples. The hues of the sky as the sun was disappearing were almost unbelievable. The desert floor in the spring with bloom of flowers was like an explosion of color on a usually neutral landscape.

Then we moved to Western Washington and I got to appreciate a different type of natural beauty. We lived close to the ocean so we enjoyed the patterns the wind made in the sand dunes. The annual rainfall, while challenging to deal with for someone who worships the sun, did bring such unreal shades of green to the area that it did often appear that I lived in a very real "emerald" city.

College life was in Utah surrounded by the Wasatch front. The mountains towering over the BYU campus were awe-inspiring. Hiking up Provo Canyon during the fall when the aspen leaves were golden yellow was a soothing experience. Escaping to another small canyon on the way to Spanish Fork allowed for some wonderful star-gazing. So many stars!

Now in my grown-up life I live in the Inland Northwest. We are surrounded by mountains, but only a short drive from rolling hills filled with wheat fields. I love where I live. The view out my back door offers vivid sunsets, geese flying in formation, girl-crazy drake mallards chasing the female, families of quail, an occassional moose, deer munching on the grass, and so many other things. I do my best to capture some of these images in photos, with varying degrees of success.

The older I get the more I appreciate the natural beauty of the world around me. I am "glad that I live in the beautiful world, Heavenly Father created for me."

Sunset as seen from my backporch, October 2012