Mountains

I have a thing for mountains. Pretty much any mountain will do. I've even grown to appreciate the more subdued, rolling mountains of the south since living in Virginia and North Carolina.

However, I do have a fairly strong bias toward the rugged, snow capped, kick ass mountains I grew up around. As a little girl visiting Tennessee, I made the comment that the Smokies weren't mountains, "those are just foothills!" I'm pretty much a mountain snob. Even now, sometimes when I'm driving and there are clouds on the horizon, I mistake them for mountains in the distance.

So, driving up to Sunrise on Mt. Rainier last week was like food for my soul. I got all giddy and lightheaded as we rounded a switchback and the beast was right in front of us, filling up the windshield. I think I took around 150 pictures of various angles of the mountain - with dried up wood, meadows of mountain wild flowers, Seth doing his Mr. Universe pose in front of it, holding the camera out to get me in front of it, the backsides of the my family as they hiked up the trail to it. I couldn't help it.

It makes me feel lucky to even be able to catch a glimpse of something this beautiful, much less hike on it.