Two mountains

Journal clips from Wednesday, December 18th: I visited two beautiful, peaceful mountains in one day: the temple and Badger Mountain. Today was a study in contrasts, and the more I think about it, the more profound it seems: light vs. dark, sunshine vs. shadow, clear vs. fog, warm vs. cold, temple peace vs. Costco bustle.

Today was such a pleasant pocket tucked into the middle of a busy dark week. I dropped Amber off at a friend's house at 9am for our temple babysitting trade, and the next six hours were MINE, because our friends took Amber to preschool at 12:30 and I didn't have to be back to pick her up until 3pm. What a weekday treasure!


My first stop was the temple. While I drove the 40 minutes thataway, I listened to the Tabernacle Choir's performance with David Archuleta-- one of my favorite Christmas albums. Driving alone while listening to uplifting music is a soaring balm to my soul! And as always, going to the temple gave me an encouraging, peaceful reminder of God's love.

After the temple, I changed clothes in the car: it was time for a run! I drove the short distance from the temple to Badger Mountain (it looms/overlooks the temple). A dense gray fog/cloud had just moved off of Badger when I arrived, leaving a thick white frost on large patches of sage brush and grass on the upper elevations of the small bare mountain. It was gorgeous when the sun peeked out and made the frosty foliage sparkle. I ended up running 7 miles on my favorite Badger Mountain loop trail.

Next up was Costco. I got 3 hams and 4 bags of rolls for the funeral lunch I'm helping our relief society prep for this Saturday. I also got various re-stock items for us. We were dangerously low on chocolate chips. Not anymore! I grabbed a hot turkey sandwich on my way out of Costco for a late lunch. As I pushed my Costco cart through the bustling crowds, I did my best to hold onto the dual mountain serenity I had absorbed earlier. Then I drove back to Sunnyside and picked up Amber, who had a blast playing with her friend Katelyn and then going to her preschool class Christmas party. We were both filled and satisfied at the end of our day.

[end journal entry]

Temple selfie! 

 The beginning of Badger. Off to the left is temple's neighborhood, although from this viewpoint it's really hard to pick out the tiny temple among the many houses.

The Badger Mountain loop trail climbs up partway, then circles the long side of the oblong mountain before climbing up near the top and completing the circle up high. This is the bottom part of the loop, looking up at the still-receding misty cloud up top. 

I hung my phone in a large sage brush bush to take this picture, haha. It worked on my first try! This brown brushy area needs a human being in it for scale.  

 The trail, curving along down low.

 Random ice-coated grass.

 Backlit icy grass.

 And more icy grass. It was prettier in person.

 It's been so dark and cloudy/foggy for so long that I didn't even think to bring my sunglasses on this excursion. My regular glasses tend to fog up in a most obscuring way when I wear them out in the cold.

 The frost outlined every scrubby detail on the sagebrush. It was so pretty and lacy-white!

 The sun was melting the frost fast. I was lucky to see it when I did. That hill in the distance to the right is called Candy Mountain, if you can believe it, and that red swath at its base is an orchard of un-picked apples.

It was the best of both worlds up on Badger that day-- dry dirt trail with white wintry vistas.

I find fuzzy frost fascinating. Try saying that five times fast!

 Whenever I pause to really look at nature, I am always awed by the detail. It gives my soul an Anne Shirley-style thrill.

I could hardly handle the surfeit of sunshine after weeks in the dark. It was gloriously blinding.

 Trail up top. The landscape was like a graph of sun-strength, from fully thawed and melted frost to thick and white untouched frost in the shadows. I couldn't help but see symbolism in that simple stretch of grass: where am I on the spectrum--is my heart cold and frozen, half thawed, or warm and joyful, fully facing the Son?

 Glasses shadows on my eyes make weird pictures.

The whole area seemed a bit stunned at the sun's sudden appearance. When I drove back to Sunnyside, I left that sun behind me and re-entered our valley's thick dark cloud cover. It was an unexpected bonus to have so much sunshine-time on Badger.

Bring me that horizon! 

(The Columbia River is in the distance to the right of my right elbow.)

Rose got student of the month and Jeff went to see her get her award at the assembly on Wednesday afternoon. He checked Jay and Rose out of school half an hour early after the assembly. 

Wednesday night was Jay's last ever cub scout pack meeting. Hurrah! I about couldn't make myself go! I ended up slipping out after Jay got his awards to tend to some relief society business--we are DONE with cub scouts forever!!!!!