Taking Ad-Vantage of the Situation

School started with an avalanche.  Yes, an avalanche of homework the likes you see rolling mercilessly down Mount Everest onto sad climbers who just wanted to see the sights from the top of the world.  So it would only make sense that with five new classes all requiring their own flavor of assignments, a couple of classmates and I would drive on a photo hunt in order to get images for our mutual, and not so mutual classes.

Derek (http://adventurebyderek.blogspot.com/), his dog Kody, Mike (http://www.bluesunsetdesign.com/) and I got shoehorned into my Mini and set off... at 5am.  Well, I set off at 5am to get Derek and Kody.

From there it was a short jaunt to the ferry and over to Seattle...

The ferry ride was alright, and since it was a Saturday, and very early at that, there were hardly any other riders on board.

We picked up Mike at his place right around 8:00am and traveled east.

It was a long trip, to say the least, but we did escape the rains that I heard came down on the western part of the state, pretty much all day.

Our first stop along the way was for brunch.  We detoured off of I-90 into Snoqualmie Pass where we fueled up (ourselves, not the Mini) for what we might face ahead.

Snoqualmie, WA 1/15/11.
Sony CyberShot - Auto settings.

Mike letting people know we were still alive...
Sony CyberShot-Auto settings

Kody - waiting to be let out..!
(©Mike Monaghan)

The Clown Car.
(©Mike Monaghan)

Kody had this way of wrapping himself around my legs...  lol
(©Mike Monaghan)

From Snoqualmie we ventured farther east -

Ponies grazing near Cle Elum, WA. Sony
CyberShot - Auto Settings.

Derek capturing the horses ninja style.
Sony CyberShot - Auto settings.

Derek is definitely not inhibited by his surroundings
(©Mike Monaghan)

Kody loves the cooler temps!!
(©Mike Monaghan)

Though I don't look happy, I was, honestly.  I do like this shot, though... lol
(©Mike Monaghan)

Once satisfied with what we could glean from the area as far as images, we moved on and made it as far out as Vantage, WA (hence the title of this post).  In Vantage there's a last vestige of a petrified forest that once took up the entire area.  Sadly, the remains of that forest are under locked boxes so those desiring to take a bit of ancient history back home with them don't obliterate what's left of the site.

Derek & Kody ascend the hill at Vantage / Ginko, WA.  The petrified forest
is here, though there isn't much of it left.  I'm sure this was a lush paradise a
few thousand years ago...
(©Mike Monaghan)

Mike bravely captures a dinosaur on film at the (closed) gem shop near the petrified forest @ Gignko, WA.
Sony CyberShot - Auto settings.

Me with a dramatic sky in Vantage / Ginko, WA.
(©Mike Monaghan)

Derek and I seemingly looking for "something."  Looks like Nowhere, doesn't it?
(©Mike Monaghan)

After we spent our photographic opportunities at the forest, we headed back towards the setting sun, and a spot that Derek wanted to shoot before the sun actually did set.  We arrived at the Snoqualmie Falls as we had decided from the onset of the trip.  Sadly, the rain had gotten to where we wanted to be and made what we wanted to do nearly impossible.  We got a few shots of the area, but not what we had hoped.  One of the passes that lead down to the river below the falls was blocked, seemingly for repairs unti the spring... of 2013...

This totally captured our dynamics - Kody's looking for a place to run, Drek is spying and plotting where and how he can traverse a flood swollen river beneath the Snoqualmie Falls, and Mike is *not* happy to be in the rain...
Sony CyberShot - Auto settings

The Snoqualmie Falls.  There was a report that downstream there
was flooding and some damage from the melting snows and heavy
rains lately.  Definitely not a good thing, though the falls are
a spectacular sight...
Sony CyberShot-Auto settings.

All in all, it seemed that Derek had a *very* good idea to travel east and away from the storm system that buffeted the coast and western regions all the rest of the weekend. Had it not been for his idea, we wouldn't have gotten much of anything done at all "in our neck of the woods."

The trip was a success on several levels; the execution of a tentative plan; the coordination of several people with diverse expectations, visions and schedules; the handling of less than optimum conditions for a long road trip; the meshing of different personalities and merging of ideas into a cohesive unit that made the most of a day.

We brought meaning to carpe diem.