This week’s photo challenge is Forces of Nature.

Hurricanes! Snowstorms! Lightning! Me, sneezing! Richard Simmons!

There are so many directions one could go, but I’ll choose to go this way (all of the photos in this post were taken at Sugarloaf Ridge State Park in Kenwood, CA):

I have a soft spot in my heart for fog. I grew up in it. Coastal fog, that is. It’s not as thick and terrifying as CA’s Central Valley Tule fog.

Coastal fog is wistful, gentle, mysterious, and romantic. The kind that Mr. Darcy walks through to get to you – if you’re into that kind of thing, which I’m totally not. If he tried walking through Tule fog, you’d never see him again because it would eat him alive and spit out his bones, spelling out the words “Darcy Sucks” just to get inside your head.

I currently live about an hour from the coast, but that lovely fog finds its way in, rolls around and then generally burns off several hours later. Recently, I went for a hike and the morning started out pretty foggy (see above). Then…

Something weird happens when I go hiking. I don’t know when to stop and turn back. I started to climb higher and higher, my badonkadonk getting grumpier and grumpier. But I couldn’t stop. It was the force, ya know? I had to keep going. I had to get there, wherever there was.

Turns out this is where there was:

The force of nature, y’all.

Listen to its call.

Keep close to nature’s heart…
and break clear away,
once in awhile,
and climb a mountain or
spend a week in the woods.
Wash your spirit clean.
~ John Muir