Diane Again: Camping: It's All About The Sunsets

With all due respect, I have to do some bragging for America's West Coast. The world is full of beautiful sights and scenes, but I cannot imagine a more glorious vision than the sun slowly sinking down over the mighty Pacific Ocean. Only here, on the western edge of the American continent, is that experience possible; I consider myself hugely privileged to feast my eyes on this sight every year from the pristine wilderness of Kalaloch's beach.

During my annual camping trips to Kalaloch (read more about them here, here, and here), I make it a point to catch every day's sunset, whether I am down on the beach or watching from one of the viewpoints in the campground, on the bluff just above. No two evenings are ever exactly the same, and I have a boundless curiosity about what each one may bring.

On the first evening of this summer's trip, as the sun dropped low in the sky, colors reflected off the ocean, sand, and even the moisture in the air. A bank of low clouds moved in on the horizon, and sat upon the distant waters. As the sun fell behind the line of the clouds, its light continued to illuminate their rippled edges.

The atmospheric conditions for the second evening's sunset were similar; the sky was clear except for a low bank of clouds on the horizon. Instead of heading down to the beach, as I had the night before, I walked to one of the viewpoints in the campground and took some shots from up above.

The third day was full of surprises. It started off clear and sunny, but over the course of the afternoon, the clouds gathered and quickly blanketed us in. This was my sorry view of the sunset. Even Ranger looks a little bummed about it, doesn't he?

And the evening of the fourth day? Well, I'm sorry to say that things went from bad to worse. The overcast skies evolved into a full-on maritime fogging-in, complete with big fat drops of water falling from the skies. We Pacific Northwesterners don't like to call that rain; we just think of it as "dripping."

Sad as I was to miss out on the sunsets during the last two nights of my stay, I can't complain. Not only did I experience quite a bit of sunset glory at the front end of my trip, I also have some fantastic memories and satisfying photos of evening skies from previous trips.

On that last night, as I scootered around camp in the fog, visions of this sunset from my 2011 trip filled my mind: