Typist: Bethany
Cascadia has always inspired the panorama photographer in me. With my first camera, I remember carefully lining up series of photographs to stitch together into a panorama. I was lucky to have spectacular Pacific Northwest landscapes to photograph, with majestically jutting mountains and unique cloud formations making it a little easier to slide a camera across a scene. I loved shooting photos that would later recreate what was wider than even the eyes could see. Back then, panorama stitching was done with tape. Now, I can capture the head turning beauty of my surroundings with a lot less tape and a lot more technology.

Dogwood Photography Photo Challenge Week 8, Landscape: Wide Angle/Panorama
"This is a great opportunity to explore panorama stitching and create a wide sweeping landscape."

The panorama challenge this week made me nostalgic for those carefully lined up single shots I used to take, photographed on faith that they might be able to be stitched together after being developed. I even began to miss developing photos in a dark room! However, those old, film panoramas would never have been able to include dogs. Even with all the amazing technology of panorama stitching, the computer can't make my dogs hold their heads still as I pan the scene. It takes almost as many takes to get a computer stitched panorama of the dogs exploring Cascadia as I used to shoot to line up the mountains, clouds or shoreline on film. At least after several takes with the dogs, we get to move on. Remembering constantly changing rolls of film suddenly makes me a lot less nostalgic. That, and these tape free panoramas of gorgeous Cascadia.

Less tape? More fur? What do you like best about modern photography?

This post is a part of the Dogwood Photography 52 Week Photography Challenge. Please see more of our photo challenge posts here.

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Typist: Bethany
The dogs have seen all the road trip gear hauled out so many times, when the dog stuff is getting packed, they get excited. Really excited. So excited, in fact, that they seem disappointed when everything is in the car, ready to go, and we spend one more night at home. I hate packing the day before and having to wait until morning to leave too. I never sleep very well... I am just too eager to hit the road! So, are the dogs truly enthusiastic about traveling or are they just feeding off of my strong wanderlust emotions? When we arrive somewhere, anywhere, the car slows down, and I begin to delightedly look around, Wilhelm, Brychwyn, and Huxley do too. I can't wait to get out and explore! Either can the dogs. Maybe we are the luckiest foursome ever to have found others that share our exploring passion. Maybe my dogs love me so much that whatever makes me happy, makes them happy. Judging by how difficult it is to get the dogs to look away from me for a photo, I thought the latter was probably true. But after viewing the photographs I managed in this weeks Dogwood 52 photo challenge, maybe Huxley, Wilhelm, and Brychwyn just love to travel. 

Dogwood Photography Photo Challenge Week 7, Portrait: Faceless
"Tell someone's story without showing their face."

Capturing photographs of the dogs traveling exhilaration is easy. Sharing their love of travel in photos is one of the reasons we are the Cascadian Nomads! What was challenging for this weeks faceless portraits, is shooting the dogs from behind. Sure they love exploring where we are, but they are trained to turn towards me for photos. I had to be sneaky, and aware of moments that each dog was really enthralled with our wanderings. The most challenging part of all was that I am always invigorated by our journey's surroundings as well! So maybe Huxley, Wilhelm, Brychwyn and I have a passion for travel in common. Maybe because every aspect of traveling, from packing to unpacking, makes me happy, the dogs are happy about travel too. I am not sure I need to know why my dogs love to travel so much. I just care that we get to keep going places together for many years to come.

Does your dog do something just because you love it?
Do you do something just because your dog loves it?

This post is a part of the Dogwood Photography 52 Week Photography Challenge. Please see more of our photo challenge posts here.

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Typist: Bethany
The day that cleaning up my dogs poop almost killed me was one of those pet friendly adventure days of the highest highs and the lowest lows. Literally. I was high in the mountains of Cascadia and took a dozen or so rides on a ski lift. Then I was laid out in the parking lot on top of where I had just picked up after my dog. The parking lot that day was a thick sheet of ice dotted like Swiss cheese with potholes of slushy, smelly mud puddles. When we arrived at the ski resort, I quickly but carefully shuffled the dogs across the dangerous frozen muck so they could play in some of the lovely, freshly fallen snow the mountain had to offer. Cascade mountain peaks jutted into the sapphire blue sky 360 degrees around the dogs and I. The white, glittery trees weighted with snow sparkled like friendly ghosts in the late morning sunshine and the dogs blazed furry trails through snow drifts often higher than them. Well, especially higher than dachshund Wilhelm. Once all three dogs seemed content, we braved our way back across the dirty ice rink parking lot with a quick stop at the dumpster so I could dispose of the journey's full, blue plastic bags of dog poop. I settled the dogs safely in for a few hours of car rest while I did some downhill skiing.

It was a glorious day for skiing! I was so happy on the slopes but eventually it was time for lunch and to give the dogs another chance to also enjoy the mid-winter snow. I dined with the dogs and had my fill of ski replacing calories before leashing them up to again brave the harder than concrete, more slippery than an oil slick parking lot. We warily made it safe and sound to the glistening, deeply drifted fresh snow trails where Wilhelm, Brychwyn, and Huxley could safely sniff, romp, and wrestle. Once all three dogs had long tongues dangling joyfully from their heavy fog producing mouths in the cold mountain air, and my hardy lunch felt like it had done enough digesting for me to comfortably get more fantastically smooth ski runs in, the dogs and I turned back towards the dangerous drudgery that was the parking lot. The dumpster and the car were within view as we carefully crossed the slippery void when little dachshund Wilhelm began his "I have to poop" sniffing circles at the end of his leash. As Wilhelm squatted, I removed the glove from my right hand, tucked it firmly under my left arm, and ripped a poop bag from my roll.

My next, obvious move began the chain of events that lead to my near death dog poop scooping experience. It began with my hand going right through the bottom of the poop bag. Now, I had other poop bags with me, but really? This never happens! And my hand was already cold. I looked at the tiny pile of miniature dachshund poop and decided to fold the dog poop delicately into the torn bag and place it carefully, contamination free, into my left glove. I glanced towards the near-by dumpster. It was less than one hundred yards away. I could make it! I was wrong. The last thing I remember seeing was that precariously not-contained-in-a-tightly-tied-bag in my gloved hand. My next step was a doozy.

I was not going to let an iced over parking lot and the sound of broken bones echoing through my head stop me from properly disposing of this poop! What seemed like twenty hours and four hundred miles of walking later, but was in actuality was only a few minutes and a dozen steps, I confronted the dumpster. Still afraid to move what I thought was my broken left arm, I gently pried the formed blue plastic crumpled poop bag from my left glove with my still bare right hand. I vaguely remember asking the dogs not to get to near the stinky dumpster as I cracked it open and disposed of Wilhelm's poop. Turning my gaze on my next goal, the car, is an injured shock blur but I do remember exclaiming, "See! I'm okay!" to the dogs, of course. After all, the poop had been scooped and properly disposed of. What is more okay than that? Walking back to the car as if across shards of glass with bare feet, I wiggled my left hand, moved my left arm slowly and discovered that it was fine. Upon getting the dogs back into the car and sitting gently with them under the open back hatch, I braved moving my arm enough to decide that my shoulder may be injured but it was not broken either. Struggling to breath while examining my left arm movement, I remembered that same feeling from another fall I had a few years ago. A fall that, among other things, caused a few cracked ribs. Ah-ha! Honestly relieved that my arm, wrist, and shoulder seemed fine, but beginning to worry about the life threatening complexities of broken ribs, I remembered, at least I had scooped that poop. It was too bad that the days skiing was obviously done. The highest of highs was behind me except for a decent back to Seattle's sea level. But the lowest lows of the day had been worth it. These mountains are too beautiful to have left dog poop laying around!

My broken and separated, front and back, ribs from my fall that day are healing slowly, but I am impatient about these kinds of things. Thank you to my family, friends, readers, and followers who have wished me well and helped me care for five pets while recovering. I am truly thankful to "the poop grip," as it has come to be known, for preventing me from breaking my wrist, arm, or shoulder! I have discovered yet another reason that constantly cleaning up after my dogs, no matter what, without fail, is always the right thing to do.

Have you ever risked your life to do the right thing, cleaning up dog poop or otherwise?

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Typist: Bethany
Travelers can check and recheck attraction hours, research every possible route, call several times to make sure pets are allowed, and prepare for every possible touring scenario. But all travelers know that despite massive preparations, something is bound to go wrong. It has been my experience that when travel plans sour, we end up enjoying the sweetest traveling moments.

Jason and I have been taking the pets on a February road trip to the Columbia River delta for years. This year, the pet friendly motel we always stay in changed owners and was no longer as pet friendly, the craft beer festival we always attend sold out before we got our tickets, and the forecast during our trip was for days and days of huge winds and inches of rain. I wasn't going to let a lack of somewhere to stay, something to do and a risk of an entire trip of soaking wet dogs stop me from getting some much needed time away. So despite soured plans, we ended up in a fantastic hotel, with an amazing view of the stormy weather, and Jason and I enjoyed beer tasting at some craft breweries we had never been to before. It doesn't get any sweeter than that!

Dogwood Photography Photo Challenge Week 6, Artistic: Candy
"Your artistic interpretation this week should be inspired by something sweet. A great chance to play with macro photography."

This post is a part of the Dogwood Photography 52 Week Photography Challenge. Please see more of our photo challenge posts here.

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