In case of drought, just add water

Last night after a fantastic and belated Birthday party for my friend Leah, Cliff Colon and I talked ourselves into going on yet another trip (See July 1, 2000) to take as many pictures of he and his sax as we deemed possible (or until I ran out of batteries). So as both of our significant others left for their respective homes we arose from slumber (with prompting from a cell phone call) around 7:30am to head out on our journey.

Once nine o'clock rolled around Cliff was at my house and we headed up Highway 7 toward the site of today's shoot. We made a brief stop on the edge of town to Marcus Vann's house. I think it was the pounding on his bedroom window that must've woke him up but he was soon convinced to grab his axe(s) and stuff into Cliff's CRX for the trip.

The site of today's shoot was that of an extremely alien and barren landscape that has taken mere months to emerge in this portion of the Northwest. That place is Alder Lake near the Mt. Rainier National Forest. I thought of this site for two reasons: 1) because it's a normally beautiful spot (See Valentine's 1999 photo at Alder Lake) and 2) recently Gov. Gary Locke was photographed there giving notice to the people of Washington that a water crisis will likely loom over our heads this summer.

There was no doubt that this was not the Alder Lake I first visited on Valentine's Day in 1999 with my then-new sweetheart Sarah. This season's lack of precipitation has left tens of vertical feet of Alder Lake's shoreline high and dry, revealing huge stumps and even some pieces from the city of Alder's past. What better a place to take cool pictures of two of the hippest jazz musicians in the Puget Sound?

So I took pictures.

We drove back to civilization after a filling lunch at an Elbe, WA burger stand. It's easy for life to carry on without allowing for time to spend with friends that no longer share classes or dorms with you. Today was one of those catch-up days in these friendships. It's almost a way to let them know, "Hey man, I still think the world of you," even if you can't do it on a regular basis.

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