I picked my current campground based on its pretty name: when I read it, I envisioned a land of fluffy white clouds, pristine blue sky, some sort of magical hopping from cloud to cloud over deep ravines, probably birds in pretty colors. You know, a sort of fantasy “Cloudland Canyon.” The anime version.

Duh.

A cloudy scenic overlook

I should have been picturing fog. Dense, heavy, impressive fog. Yep, that’s a scenic overlook and probably there’s sometimes something nice to look at out there. But today it was just clouds. A Land of Clouds.

Worst fog I’ve ever driven through, too. I spent a solid ten minutes in almost total white-out* debating whether it would be worse to be rear-ended because I was driving too slowly or rear-end someone because I was driving too fast. I was going at least twenty miles under the speed limit at the time, so I guess that sort of indicates which I chose. But I did think I might still be driving too fast.

  • I think white-out refers to blizzards, actually. Grey-out? What’s the word for when visibility is almost nil in fog?

I’m also not terribly enthusiastic about the ranger making sure to tell me where the safe places to take refuge from the weather are. I mean I guess it’s better to know that than not? Well, yeah, of course it is. I just hope it’s knowledge that I don’t need to have.

All that said, I am definitely looking forward to doing more exploring. Zelda and I took a quick walk after we got here, down to the main scenic overlook, and even though we couldn’t see a darn thing except for clouds, the walk was terrific.

path through the campground

Even though I know those stone steps are probably a sign that this was a Conservation Corps park, they make me think of fairy tales and monsters and shimmering borders between worlds. Magic!