Yes, you could take the title of the image to mean the season, Fall; but you may notice that the F is not capitalized. Why?
I left from work this day to try to capture peak fall season.
Normally, I am the avid outdoorsman- boots, quick dry pants, the Columbia shirts; you know, a normal Oregonian. But on this day I found myself at the Bridge in my work cloths, a typical monkey-suit, which included the nice slick shoes. You can see where this is going.
I wanted to see all sides of the Bridge, so I went down the steeper banks on the far side you see there in the image. Well, it had been raining, as it always does, so the banks of the river on that side were just straight mud. Mud and slick shoes don't mix. I did not even see it happening. One moment I was standing, the next fraction of a second, I was laying supine in the cold un-welcoming mud. Head to toe on one side of my body was all mud.
I lay there for a moment trying to figure out what happened. Then came the classic look around. Did anyone see that? No. Good, at least there is that. So, I start to sit up and guess what? Every move I make, makes me slide. Into what you ask? Yes, every squirm brings me closer to the water in the river, and I am only about a foot away. In order to NOT go into the water, I had to roll uphill. Yup, more of my body in the mud. This is not happening I said to myself. Eventually the only way to actually get back on my feet was to do a full handplant in the mud to push myself up.
Grr.
Ok, you at least have to get an image, or the whole thing will really be for not. So I scramble back to the other side, crossing the wooden bridge with a kind-of zombie like limp, covered in mud. Rar.
The other side of the river far more stable. I could not actually get into shooting though. I was covered in mud which kind of robs you of focus. Well, there is this river right in front of me. Seems clean. I did not go in, but I did try to splash myself so some of the mud would go away. That sort of worked, but now I was wet from head to toe. Ok, just focus on getting an image, the sun is gong down after all, and it will be even colder soon.
I get down to business. Got the shot you see here. Shortly after this image though, it was getting dark. I was cold, but I had a big warm American Chevy Tahoe waiting for me. Ahhhh.
I pack up the gear, get up to the truck and reach for my keys. My keys. Uhhhhh, where the heck are my keys? I am turning everything inside out. Dude. No keys. I slowly turn around, in the dark and gaze at the 20 places my keys might be. In the mud? In the river? On the banks where I got the image? In the wood bridge? This bridge is not exactly in an urban place. There is no around for miles.
So the search begins, in the dark, totally freezing. After about 2 hours, I called it. Those keys are gone.
I text my wife, thank God I have a signal and battery power. She is stuck at work till 10pm. Its 8pm, and she is about 2 hours from where I am. Hum. My son is home, and is 1 week from getting his driver's license, but he can't drive yet. So, I call a friend who is about an hour from me. I ask her to go get the spare keys from my Son, (opposite direction from her house and the Bridge, of course) and have her drive them to me. Help is on the way. But I am cold.
1, 2, 3, 4...I start doing jumping jacks and jogging in circles around my car in my wet, muddy work cloths.
Anyway, not much of a story after that. I can tell you though, I had to get a new key fob. I got a red one, so I can see it next time.
Let me know what you think of the image. I don't care if you like it actually, when you have that hard a time getting an image, you love it no matter what it looks like. Or you hate it. Forever.
So the title is not reflecting on the season Fall, but the horrible night I had because of the fall. This is the Larwood Bridge, BYW. In Linn County Oregon.
