Hello! It is just over one week until I begin this summer's adventures. The countdown has begun!
Many people read through my Facebook page that my backup drive crashed and deleted four years of national park photography. I was tremendously upset when this occurred--all the experiences and adventures, the hikes and early mornings, the wildlife and seasons, and photos of summer friends all wiped clean. They say it's no use crying over spilt milk, but whoever coined that phrase certainly didn't have a backup drive.
Two weekends ago, I had the opportunity to camp on the Olympic Coast in Washington. Though it was a time to enjoy the present, it offered the opportunity to begin rebuilding my photo collection. Within two and a half days, I had visited the Elwah Valley, Crescent Lake, the Hoh Rain Forest, and four separate beaches within this national park. The camera shutter was rapidly capturing each prospect and angle--each photo and location a reminder of my full summer there and subsequent visits.
Everything was different. Instead of summer sun, I worked amidst sporadic rain showers. My photos of Aldwell Lake are irreplaceable as the lake has been drained as part of the Elwah River Restoration Project, removing two dams from the river. Hurricane Ridge and the Sol Duc Valley were inaccessible due to snow, and drift logs on Kalaloch beach were repositioned from years of tide surges and storms.
It's not like I've lost photos before. I can remember when my camera broke in the midst of capturing a Monument Valley thunderstorm at sunset. The vibrant pinks, fuchsia, and purples were set against the deep red sandstone of the Mittens, and I sat and watched with a broken camera in-hand. I once accidentally reformatted my camera card in the midst of a backcountry hike in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, erasing over 300 photos from the previous day of hiking. And there were all of the beautiful vistas and moments only captured to memory because I forgot to bring my camera along (or lost my camera). Now another story is added to my journey of lost photos and photo blunders.
What I have learned through these years of lost photos and blunders is that each photo is a gift, a memento. They never replace the original experience. In returning to Olympic National Park with the purpose of restoring my photo stock, I had to recognize that this was God's gift of a new experience; otherwise I would miss the blessing of the moment while pining for a memory that can never be replicated. As I went about the park, God met me there--clouds would part in majestic sunbeams, or soft cloud cover would help with one of my high-contrast photos.
God's story is never ending. While we get to reminisce previous chapters, we still get to participate in what He writing now.
Photos from Olympic National Park are available in the "Photos of the Week" tab in the right column.
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