The Baboon Congress, Weather

Fog

62 Comments

Today’s post comes from Barbara in Robbinsdale
(Written 9/28/15, in the hills of Berkeley, CA)

When I first looked out here, I could see only the house across the street. Now I can see some rooftops, but beyond that is Fog, just a blur as the houses across the street seem to drop away down the hill.  I am house-sitting in the Berkeley hills for a friend of my sister while I visit Sue in the East Bay near San Francisco. It’s a chilly morning so I’m seated with a cup of tea, inside the sliding glass door. I hear crows and traffic, so I know there is life beyond what I can see. I hope I can find my camera.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Ah, now I can make out several large pine trees farther down the hill. I know that behind them are more houses and more trees, then smaller and smaller houses as the hills level off to the “Berkeley flats”, the franchise strips like San Pablo Ave, the freeways, and finally the Berkeley Marina and San Francisco Bay. Last night it seemed that millions of lights dotted this view – this morning, Fog.

I try and remember the Carl Sandburg poem we memorized in 8th grade:

“The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.”

My memory takes me back to another time: In the early 1970s I spent two years living in El Granada, a tiny coastal community 45 minutes south of San Francisco on Highway 1. I’d already spent two years in S.F., so I knew a bit about Fog. When I (and my dad) bought my VW, I made sure it was the new bright yellow that would show up in the Fog. Living on that coast, I would wake up many mornings to the foghorn – that low, haunting vibration that makes you want to burrow back under the covers. But the Fog would usually “burn off” by noon, often revealing a crisp sunny day.

When I moved back to the Midwest, I seldom encountered Fog. When I did it was usually an anxious time, me creeping along in the car because I couldn’t see what was ahead of me. I realized I missed the kind of Fog that comes in morning, then bows out and lets the sun through – missed the foghorn.

I suppose we could move to Duluth.

When have you had an encounter with Fog?

 

62 thoughts on “Fog”

  1. I lived on the North Shore for 50 years of my life, half of that 30 yards from the Lake.
    Funny. I just wrote a short short story about a girl who loves fog and mist.

    Liked by 5 people

    Reply

  3. Good morning. The first time I remember driving in heavy fog was on a trip I took with a high school friend. We drove through very thick fog on our way home from a place along the shore of Lake Superior where you can catch smelt by dipping them out of the lake with nets at a certain time of the year. We didn’t get any smelt and we managed to get home through fog so thick that the road was barely visible.

    Like

    Reply

  5. i am getting on a plane to la as we speak and have 3 hours 46 minures to respond.
    fog
    steve dorpinghaus
    wisconsin
    sailboat
    buffalo in yellowstone

    see you in a bit

    Like

    Reply

    1. When I was studying to be a taxidermist I had a disquieting encounter with frogs. I wanted to create a tableau with four frogs sitting at a table playing poker. The results I got were too gruesome to describe here.

      Like

      Reply

        1. I was an immature kid with no skills, no discipline and no money to buy all the taxidermy supplies that the school suggested I needed. It was a correspondence course. I read all 12 lessons, but didn’t complete any project except making a small possum into a sort of rug.

          Liked by 1 person

        2. Don’t know if anyone will see this – but Steve’s got a great chapter in his book about growing up – his initial dip into taxidermy!

          Like

  9. Having commuted to and from Duluth for 20+ years, I know fog. It was always a relief to finally get to the top of Thomson Hill and drive down under the fog. Then I could breathe again.

    But living in Port Angeles WA, I would watch the fog roll in off the water each morning then disappear at night. Nice view of the stars, but not much sun.

    At home in Mahtowa, love the fog in the morning and watch the world return as it “moves on.”

    Lovely post, BiR. Thanks.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  10. During my college years, I worked whatever shift was open at the same nursing Jacque did (but not in the same years).

    That found me often driving back to my parents’ house around 7am, westbound from LeMars for about 25 miles.

    There was fog many of those mornings in the low parts of the roller coaster road that was highway 3. Loved being at the top looking down on the cloud and then plunging into it, always praying there were no deer in there. I fear the deer.

    No memorable encounters with frogs, but I have had several cats who could “creep in on little fog feet”. Princess Beatrice is one, and I have belled her because she is also a very shy kitty.

    Our orange tabby boy is more of the “teenage boy in a Victorian parlor” school of movement.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  11. Fog is so lovely to see and observe, but I despise driving in it. It makes me claustrophobic, especially heavy fog.

    Like

    Reply

  12. I used to fish Lake Superior in a small boat. It was usually reasonably safe, but there were days I didn’t belong on that lake in my boat. One day a friend and I thought we’d be safe fishing in a heavy fog if we kept close to shore. I wasn’t comfortable. We passed six or seven small islands close to shore. I stopped to study the map. There was only one small island along that stretch. I had passed it six times because I had been boating in circles without knowing it. We got off the water.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  13. I love fog, and always have. A low fog over a moor especially. In Danish there’s a name for the phenomenon: “mosekonen brygger.” The moorwoman brewing. The moorwoman is related to elves, the underground little people. It’s their dancing you can see when the fog is silently undulating just above the ground, but you have to watch carefully, they’re fleeting creatures.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  14. Fog set in on our coast of Lake Superior a few times when we were at the cabin. Cornucopia has a foghorn that blows periodically when the fog is dangerous. That horn always sounded feeble and lonely to me, appropriately modest for such a diminutive harbor. As romantic as it is to people who are safe, fog is a terrifying thing if you are on a boat, moving blindly toward a port where you hope to find a cup of coffee and security.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  15. In 1997 one foggy night we were driving in to Two Harbors from where we lived a half mile north of Betty’s Pies. Sandy was driving me in to pick up my car which had been given a new set of tires. It wasn’t that foggy really. Sandy was driving at about 35 mph. I told her she should not drive that slowly in the fog in case someone came up behind us. She said she was afraid to drive any faster because she could not see in the heavy fog. She was swerving some. But it was not that foggy. I asked if she could see the while line on the shoulder. She said only barely. Her night vision was gone from her mild diet-controlled diabetes. A surprise to me. She did not realize what was happening.
    So we pulled into Betty’s and I drove us back home. But Sandy worked from 7-9 three evenings a week a the library in town. I was then beginning to travel on my job. I could not drive her. That was how Sandy retired and we decided to move to Mankato. She was able to drive on the well-lit streets for another ten years, but after her strokes the doctor told her to quit driving, which she has.

    Like

    Reply

    2. Got me, Lisa, I have no idea why Una Paloma Blanca is paired with this video. I enjoyed the video though (with the sound muted). It’s from an area in the southwestern part of Jutland called the Wadden Sea and the town of Ribe, a lovely old town known for the fact that storks nest there and for its cathedral. The Wadden sea is great place for birding.

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

  17. I was fog-bound in the San Francisco airport, and when the fog lifted and the plane took off, we couldn’t land in San Diego since the plane was late and they don’t allow planes to land in San Diego after 10 or so at night, so we landed in LA and were bussed to San Diego.

    Like

    Reply

  18. Tangential question: there is a lovely song that has the lyric, “ships lie safe upon the harbor, but is thay what ships are for?”

    It’s bugging me I can’t place it.

    Like

    Reply

    1. I heard that, too. And now I want to play Poohsticks. Daughter is at a 3 day school camping trip so will have to wait for my favorite Poohsticks competitor to return. Alas.

      Liked by 3 people

      Reply

  20. Well, we still have fog and light rain. The low will be 34 tonight. No one is saying snow yet. We shall see what the morning brings. Husband is picking all the cabbages tonight just in case.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  22. Have been in a mental fog off and on all day.

    Frogs, well, Darling Daughter likes to catch the tiny ones and my prior hound once at one by accident (she was trying to lick it, I think, maybe to taste it – swallowed the critter whole…she seemed a bit surprised).

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.