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In Glacier National Park, in Montana there are a lot of amazing places. This was a smaller waterfall on the Trail of Cedars. I had seen many images of this fall and many looked the same because there was only one place to see the fall, from a boardwalk bridge that crosses this stream on a trail. Hard to shoot with a tripod because the bridge shakes all the time. If you can get 30 seconds without a flood of people coming by it would be ok.
So that's the image and the location. But its the people I wanted to tell you about because I am not sure I can ever look at this image without thinking about the unique interaction I had in this location. I happened to be wearing a Star Wars shirt this day. No biggie. But it was enough for me to apparently snare the attenuation of a unique dude. I am standing there shooting and I approached by a dude. Not odd, I thought he was going to talk about photography, but no. It was my shirt that provided the fodder for the discussion that ensued. He asked if I liked Star Wars. Sure, I am American. It was then that I looked up and saw this fella. He was wearing a long sleeved, thick wool button shirt that looked like a jet black Sergent Pepper kind of shirt. His shorts were black, with fringes, yeah, that's the only way I can describe it, fringes. His hair looked like a young Weird Al fro. And then, the most important part, he had what appeared to be a lightsaber hanging form his belt. So he must be a kid, right. No, he was about 29. It got stranger. He asked if I studied the ways of the force. Uhhhh. How does one respond to something like that. I said, I study the ways of the Canon, gesturing to my camera. His face was ashen. You could tell he was not kidding. He then looked up to the trees and said "I am a Jedi. I like to come here because I can feel the force flowing in the trees here." "Oh yeah?" I said. Then he could apprently feel my longing to be like him, he looked into my eyes and said "I can give you some good hyperlinks to places on the web that can help you understand the ways of the force." You could REALLY tell he was very serious. He then looked at my kids and said, "ah, the padawans." Ok, I did not want Sergent Pepper-Jedi-Weird-Al anywhere near my kids. My son spotted the lightsaber. Oh crap, here we go. "Is that real?" asked my 9 year old. "Ok, we have to get going now, it was nice meeting a Jedi, but we have to run." How could I possibly end this interaction any other way, even at the risk of offending his religion, I had to say "May the Force be with you." You would think I just gave him a present. He lit up and beamed back, "and to you."
It talked all kinds I guess. In hind sight I should have chatted more with him.
Hard rock through the waves does rise
Past the colours that fill all eyes
A beautiful, wild, natural dream
Past the trees, along the stream
Under the never ending skies
Where a hard rock, grows and does rise
I would have liked to have had more "silk" to the water flow, but this was as slow as I could get the shutter speed.
Elementary school students painted these plywood salmon and attached them to school fences and other strategic fences around our town. It helps create awareness of the importance of preserving our salmon resource.