Flying With the Geese

I had such a surreal experience yesterday, wish I had a real photo to show for it, but I was driving the car and couldn't record it, but really it was one of those experiences that just needs to be experienced without something between you and what is happening. (Photos are from images online)

I had a few extra minutes yesterday before a hair appointment with Shannon in Olalla and decided to drive past her house and down by the water for the view and to see if there are any geocaches around there other than the one I already found that I can come back and hunt for another day.

Al's store and Colvos Passage, looking towards the direction I came from

The rural road is densely treed on both sides as is so typical here, but then it becomes somewhat winding and goes down hill and and around a curve that opens up into a close view of the water on both sides. On the left is a quiet lagoon, on the right is the Colvos passage, a relatively narrow  and long section of the Puget Sound that connects the waters around Point Defiance and Tacoma's Commencement Bay and Seattle's Elliott Bay. The tide was coming in strong with the water visibly racing under the bridge that spans the passage between the Sound and Olalla bay and made me wish I was in a Kayak gliding through there on that tidal race.

View along the shore where I was driving 

But before I could see all that, through the thinning trees on my right, as I came around the last of the curve where the woods ended, I could see a flight of Canada geese flying over the water on the other side of the trees and heading the same direction I was.

Not my photo, but similar to what I saw through my car window

When I came out of the trees and started moving down along beside the water, I was elated to see the flock winging its way along just a few yards from me and at the same speed and at the same height as the windows of my car. We traveled that way briefly. It was a timeless, surreal moment of harmony, as if we were flying together until the road dropped me down below them a bit and they pulled ahead of me, angling over to fly across and above me as they headed towards their destination somewhere on the bay. I had never imagined having an experience like that! It reminded me of a couple of films I've seen where people use ultralites to fly with geese. It was that same sense of being in their group, gliding along with them on their flight. Magical.