Camano Fog

I was working on a blog post about 8:20 this morning and I got a phone call:

Tom - If you have any reason to be on the north end of Camano Island this morning, you ought to take the camera. It is clear and still and beautiful! It's the perfect time to get some pictures.

Me - How do you know?

Tom - I can see it from my office window. It is a gorgeous morning and the sun is at just the right place for some great pictures of Mt Baker.

Me - I'm on it! Thanks for telling me.

From Tom's office window he can scan the Cascade mountain range clear into Canada. If he could see Mt Baker from south Everett, surely I could from Camano Island.

I got ready, grabbed the camera and headed out the door. The sun, which had been shining nicely at home just blocks away was now obscured by fog. Then I remembered my trip onto the island for a 10:00 appointment a couple of days earlier. Stanwood had been sunny and bright, but the bridge to Camano looked like it had been swallowed up in a swirl of silver soup.

Ever the optimist, I drove onto the island and looked for the right turn that has, in the past, taken me to a great view of Mt Baker. I found the road, but I could not find the mountain through the fog.

This was not the kind of fog that settles down near the ground with hills and mountains rising up and the sky blue above it all. I saw that kind of fog the other day in the Skagit Valley along I5. It looked something like this:

This was the kind of fog that socks you in and makes it hard to see if there is oncoming traffic! As some parts of Camano are elevated a bit, I reasoned, maybe there would still be a few photo ops. So, I headed toward Arrowhead where I went south for several miles then turned east on Shumway. Here is what I saw:

You can't always have full sunshine. Sometimes there is fog, sometimes rain. You do best to be satisfied with what you get, and to be happy when you come across places where the sun occasionally shines through.

Still, the next time there is a promising day, I'm going to be sure Tom takes the camera to work and gets the perfect shot of Mt Baker with the sun rising in the east and glinting off the snow, just at the perfect angle!