a beautiful quiet place

on the way home from work today i was looking for some place to take pictures. and i so i headed to the airport. i was looking for a place to watch planes land. i thought i'd take some plane pictures. "planes are the whales of the sky." said bethany on the day we were walking in fraser view park. but then i found this road. this long quiet road that ran along the north side of the airport. i knew i was heading somewhere great when i passed some little farms with ponies and a big wooly dog and then i surprised a heron on the side of the road. i wanted to pull over and capture the heron digitally, but there was absolutely no shoulder on that part of the lonely long road. then i saw the ocean and the road curved and on one side was the ocean and on the other an arm of the river and the sun was starting to set and then i saw the owl. the OWL. oh my gosh! it was my first owl sighting. i watched it helplessly. it was white and skimming close the bog with it's long wings. i found a place to pull over, but i was too late--it was gone. but i began to explore and take pictures and then i found iona beach and took more pictures. the whole time it was quiet and peaceful and it felt so wilderness but you could see the city just in the distance against the snowy mountains. all i could hear was the wind and the birds. i spent an hour and half taking clicks and feeling incredulous and happy and filled up and excited.