Even the parking lots look different

I was looking through my iPhoto albums this morning for inspiration and realized that on this day a couple of years ago I was traveling through the Cascade Mountains by train.  The view out the window was absorbing, because, once beyond the bounds of a familiar region, everything was subtly different: the fields, the land, the towns, the buildings.  Even this parking lot is different in subtle ways from what you would see in the Midwest.  The sun-bleached patterns and shadows on the corrugated sides of the building are like something out of a painting by Hockney.  And check out that red curb.

I wish I could have gotten a better picture of this pear house, which has an air of pride and mystery.  I like the suggestion of battlements along the roof-line.  If you tried to storm it, would you be pelted with a certain fruit?

My sister-in-law, a Seattleite who skis, spends a lot of time in towns like these.  The train ran through places like Leavenworth and Wenatchee, open mountain towns folded, accordion-like, into the slopes.

I loved looking at the fruit orchards . . .

and the old farmsteads nestled up against the steep rise of evergreens.