A Peak Time For Watching The Sky Go By

Tue., June 8, 1999

By Paul Turner srpaulturner@gmail.com

Cloud-watching season was in full swing Sunday up on Mount Spokane.

There were shredded cotton- white formations, bruised muscular walls of rainmakers and lots of variations in between.

Sometimes, if you really want to see something, it helps to get close. And being up on the mountain felt like having a box seat for the atmosphere’s late morning show. You hardly had to look up.

There were rumpled carpets of vapor, bee-stung backsides in the sky, marshmallow clusters and countless other shapes that toyed with the imagination.

There was a chef’s hat, a dragon, a race car, an aircraft carrier and Robert E. Lee’s profile.

Down below, Jonathan Feste was taking a walk. “This is one very beautiful place,” said the recent graduate of Gonzaga University Law School.

He said he had just felt like taking a jaunt. Soon he would be turning his attention to preparing for the bar exam. But Sunday morning, he was out feeling the slightly thinner air blow in his face as birds provided color commentary on the iffy weather.

Over by the Selkirk Lodge, 1-1/2-year-old Sebastian Greer was trying to grab some snow. But the leftover winter white stuff was crusty and hard to work with.

Still, the warmly-dressed lad looked right at home engaging in alpine sports. And he had an intuitive sense that it’s a good idea to be careful around the media.

When his mom announced that he might be in the paper, Sebastian said, “Uh oh.”

Dustin James and Eveline van Rijn rode up the mountain on a motorcycle.

James, 25, lives in Holland. Van Rijn is his upstairs neighbor in Rotterdam. He was here to visit his parents, who live in Spokane. And she wanted to see America.

They planned to check out a shopping mall later.

The pair posed for a snapshot standing before the bike, which belongs to James’ dad. They had a mountainy backdrop.

“Look tough,” said James.

CLICK.

“Cool,” said van Rijn, her Dutch accent lending the word a surprising charm.

Bicycle riders and hikers came and went. Visiting parents were told which direction to look to see Idaho. A small plane contributed a discordant man-made sound.

And the clouds continued to put on a show.

Up above the summit was a formation that looked like James Earl Jones. Not far away, there was a puffy tiger, a child’s wagon, a starkly topless mermaid and a hockey helmet.

Maybe you had to be there.

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