I yell, you yell, we all yell for yell-ow

A couple Sundays ago Sam and I drove up Big Cottonwood Canyon and over Guardsman Pass into Midway. We've never been all the way up and over that way before, and it was so beautiful! We left the kids home this time, too, which is perhaps why it lingers in my memory as such a very peaceful afternoon. :)

You know me (or do you?)—I can't resist the gold-yellow of those aspen trees. It's my very favorite color in the world, even when that yellow is rushing by past my car window, a blur of glitter and sunshine (my desire to pull over and wander around and take photos often exceeds the driver's desire for slowing down and annoying other cars, or parking in precarious places to allow said wandering)—or maybe especially then. It feels like falling into a yellow lake.

Mid-afternoon seems like the best time to get that strong tree-light. The sunlight through the leaves makes everything behind it more vibrant.

And I'm always struck by how the contrast against the dark pines makes the yellows glow even brighter!

So much yellow! For some reason when I write that, I hear Ryan Williams singing "And it was all ye-ell-ooo-ooh" in a wavery falsetto. He used to drive Rachael and me home from school and we'd beg him to sing along to anything, anything on the radio. It brought us great joy.

One of my favorite places to be is behind a lattice of trees, looking through to the more distant colors beyond. It feels like being in a cathedral, watching the sun pour through the stained glass.

Or like being in a Japanese tea house, where the light becomes diffused and warm and golden as it passes through the rice-paper screens.

This little patch of trees spilled down the hillside, getting yellower as it fell. I couldn't quite see the bottom from this vantage point, but I imagined it being the brightest yellow of all, like all the color was slowly dripping down and pooling at the bottom in a puddle of gold.