Yin and Yang

Every once in a while the ordinary becomes extraordinary, seemingly without anything to precipitate it. And that's how it was last Sunday. A very ordinary day with some chores and errands was half way done. Summer clothing and shoes was put away, and winter items put in their place. A nice bright sun was shining, chasing away the overcast feeling of the day before, and a very strong wind was literally blowing the leaves out of the trees.

We decided to run some errands and at the same time grab a "treat" coffee (ie: Starbucks). Usually this can be done very close to home, but for some reason the photographer decided to take the back roads west, and drive to the Kanata Centrum instead.

On Eagelson Road we crossed the Jock river, and all of a sudden he hit the brakes,  decided to turn back, and stop on the southern bank of the river. There is a small gravel patch to park, but it is not even an official boat launch or anything like that, and I had never seen it before.

Down on the edge of the water the most amazing view greets us. The Jock river, rippled up by the strong wind, and a dark slate blue as only autumn light can make it is offset by the most beautiful golden yellow and fading green colours. Sunk in the landscape in the distance is a farm, which in this splendor takes on the very image of wholesome agriculture. Over all this there is this gorgeous blue sky.

We follow a muddy path to see where it goes, and come to a flooded patch.The water is swirling over the road in multiple directions, as if it cannot quite figure out which way to go. The wind is strong enough to push me back a step on a few occasions.

Pretty shots taken, we get back in the car. "Wow that was something" is the general sentiment expressed. We continue to weave our way left - right - left - right to Kanata. We come to an intersection under construction, and a new road has been connected. We decide to take to road and see where it goes. In the process we attempt to locate a specific wooded country road, and discover that it has been mostly clear cut this summer and a subdivision has sprung op. Bummer! The road no longer connects where we expect to and we eventually end up on Old Carp road.

Here we get surprise number two of the day. The light, and the tall mature trees, all uniformly in orange leaf, give the impression of being in some kind of cathedral like passage. The scene is the complete opposite of the earlier open fields on the water. Here you have an enclosed and almost ethereal feeling of a woodland in which a sprite or fairy could peek from behind a tree at any moment.

Many three point turns and a bunch of shots later, we leave the area behind with "what would it be like to live on this road" sentiments floating through our head. In the end the coffee ended up forgotten, because the pleasure of a treat coffee had been completely eclipsed by the find of two such opposite things, both representing the extraordinary in the ordinary. All of this within the technical limits of the city of Ottawa, and both places we had been to before on many occasions.  On Sunday they were somehow very different.