Disaster & Delight

This will be no deep post. It is more confessional in nature, a cautionary tale to illustrate how the English language and convoluted reasoning can trip you up.

Yesterday Husband and I were driving 4 hours back from Idaho, where I went for a speaking appointment this weekend. We took some backroads and got gorgeous pictures of Anthony Lake (over a mile high in the mountains behind Baker City, Oregon; you see a photo of it from the internet here), and of the beautiful area surrounding the tiny town of Sunnyville near LaGrande, Oregon. I got pictures of craggy mountain peaks with snow on them, of wild little shooting stars near the lake, of tiny yellow buttercups nestled into pinkish heather. I got pictures of an old fading 120-year old red schoolhouse in the evening light near Sunnyville, and of the rays of sunlight streaming down over Mt. Emily from behind dark clouds (You see an internet picture of Mt. Emily below; it looks more like the edge of a butte.). I got pictures of bucolic farmsteads in the rolling foothills of the Blue Mountains. I got pictures of the sunlight backlighting the shooting water irrigating the wheatfields near Sunnyville. It was all in what we refer to as "sweet light."

My blog would have glowed.

Now for some background: My father has this way of wiping things clean. He'll be working on his computer, and suddenly all the data is gone. He tends to reformat, erase, and discombobulate whatever electronic device he tinkers with...mostly because he gets too aggressive and thoughtless in his tinkering, to my way of thinking. I have taken pride in not having picked up on this gene, as I tend to have golden fingers with picking up whatever latest technology I want to learn. I also have never wiped out a hard drive or crashed a computer, Mac or PC. Cameras do well with me, too.

Until yesterday, that is. My camera needed the date and time formatted, having lost it when the batteries ran out a week or so ago. So as Husband drove us up into the Blue Mountains on our way home, I started working on my camera. I got the date and time fixed. Then I was looking for a way to tone down the size of the photos it takes, since it's a 9-megapixel camera, a bit over-powerful for my needs. I came to a tab on the screen called "Format." I clicked on that. It said "Erase pictures?"

Hmm. I thought quickly. I don't want to erase my pictures. The options are "OK" and "Cancel." I don't want to cancel out the pictures I've taken; I've not downloaded them yet. So I clicked on OK, because, in my train of thought, I was OK with the current setting and wanted it to stay as it was.

For Pete's sake! I believe my father's genes are starting to reveal themselves. He agreed with that fact when we had breakfast with them this morning for Fathers' Day.

And so I give you two publication-worthy pictures I got yesterday after managing to wipe out all the previously-taken gorgeous photographs.

Here's a portion of the herd of 30 elk we encountered on the road while crossing the Blues. I wish I could also give you the sound effects of their funny squeals and squeaks.
And finally you see the sunset that glowed in the west as we descended from the mountains into our valley. [Click on them for larger views.]
From now on, I shall be much more careful when tinkering with the formatting of anything, anything at all. I promise.