~:: MAF Retreat – Snow in Them Hills ::~

I shot these on the drive up there.  A dusting of snow.

If you squint, you can see the little dots of actual falling snow against the dark wood of the lodge.

Cori, tuning up.

David (who is an actual court judge) is the AV guy.

Guy and a ram.  Or big horned sheep.  A bronze horned thing, anyway.

Someone needs to explain to the fake Christmas tree guys that THIS is what flocked trees actually look like.

Lowering clouds.  The sit on the tops of the mountains and drift down, first in gray scarves, then in ghostly chunks, then they bring the whole sky down on your head.

Self-portrait title: Me shooting Gary through the Window.  Except you can’t actually see me.  Well, not well.  I look like part of his sleeve.

Many of you will not be entertained by the people shots because you don’t know these guys.  But I will tell you that you WISH you knew these guys.   This is an enclave of dear, bright, wonderful folks.

 The light gave me absolute fits.  Storm light outside that bends the natural light to the blue side.  Incandescence inside, which leaps to yellow and almost orange – back lighting – all mixed up everywhere, depending on where you are in the rooms that are half window and half cave.  And I’m not like some people with their 1.2 lenses and their 16 megapixals.

This tree was so cool – at every knot it has stars.

“Coooommmmme iiiiinnnnnnn,” Cass beckons.

I wanted to get a good shot of Jim, but he moves around too fast and (refer to comment above about the light), so I got the snow instead.  Coming down like gangbusters behind him.  Red leaves and falling snow.

Discussion groups in the cabins.  Ours had no carbon monoxide.  YAY!! And we were brilliant, of course.   That night, instead of sleeping over as we always do, we drove back down the mountain to make sure the dogs were okay.  Next morning, I drove up by myself (G had work).  The clouds were so low over the mountains, I was afraid the road would be swallowed in fog.  But inside the canyon, the clouds retreated a little, allowing me to see as I drove.

There is a little horse pasture tucked into the shoulder of one mountain.  I realized that I was all alone on the road and I could stop anywhere I wanted to.  So I stopped right here and tried to capture the feeling of this incredible world I was driving through.  Then I started off again, slower this time, because I like the idea of stopping a lot.

Then lo and behold, out of the mist – DEER!!  I never see deer.  This is the way seeing deer always goes for me:

Person in the car with me: “Whoa – did you see that?”

Me: “No!!  What?  Where?”

Person: “There.  Right there.”

Me: “There? No?  Over there?  What? Where?”

Person: “It was a deer, a magical, gorgeous, innocent deer – huge, the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, and it was jumping over that small, brilliantly red-leaved tree right up that clearing – like it was flying.  Really.  It was amazing.  Didn’t you see it?”

Me: grrrrrrrrrr

 But that morning.  I DID see deer.  Two of them.  With white tails.  And I stopped.  Stopped before they could get nervous and take flight.

And crept closer.  This is SUV stalking.  Strangely enough, they didn’t find me frightening.  But then, as you see, they weren’t looking straight at me.

Hmmm.  Walking on a bit.  I am shooting through the windshield, hoping it would be clean enough.

Then I came up right beside them – and pulled down the window.  I say “pulled,” not “rolled,” because there was no rolling to it.  Pulled the little switch that started the scary motor that lowered the window.  The deer got twitchy at the sound of it, but didn’t, marvelously, bound off.  So cool.

More of friends.

G’s brother, the singer-man.

Our dancers.

Mike, who is not one of our dancers.  Dancing.

And that is what we did with our weekend.