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.
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.
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!
Whenever we’d hit the tule fog out in the Central Valley, we usually referred to the whiteout conditions as zero visibility. Boring!
It was pretty close to zero visibility but I wouldn’t call it boring — a winding, hilly road, lined with trees. It was definitely white knuckle driving!
I want more pictures 😉 My kind of stories feature juat that dualism.
I will post some! 🙂
I have had that experience in fog before. Now that you’ve settled in though I hope you and Zelda have fun exploring.
It’s a super gray day today, too, and one of the hikes has a lot of metal stairs that Z wants nothing to do with. Alas! But I expect we’ll have fun, anyway. Great walk this morning!
That looks like one cool park!! Will have to look it up… Thanks for sharing.
It’s very nice! I’ll post some more pictures soon.
I think fog like that creates such a cool feeling. It’s sort of cool not being able to see too far in front of where you are because everything is a surprise as you walk along.
Your second picture reminded me so much of some of the places I’ve been in Oklahoma that I also just had to check out Cloudland Canyon on Google. Some of the pictures are gorgeous!!
I would believe it — it’s a very lovely park! I haven’t been able to go on the good hikes, because the stairs don’t agree with the dog and I’m not willing to leave her behind, but what we’ve seen of it is really nice. I’m glad I came.