Tag Archives: cemetery

Staring Out of the Window at Southern California

Work took me down to Los Angeles a while back and I was on the right side of the plane as we took our usual route in that comes down the cost near Santa Barbara. It was still morning, so this side put me in the best spot to see the coastline below and I grabbed a few images. Once we turned into the downwind portion of the approach to LAX, I was now facing directly into the sun.

This did not make for ideal photo conditions both with the phone’s ability to handle it and the windows I was shooting through. However, still managed to get a few shots looking down at the airport and then the Coliseum before we turned on to final. Once on the approach, I was back on the right side of things. Perhaps not the most interesting subjects at this point but a cemetery certainly caught my attention.

Port Gamble Cemetery

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The highest point in Port Gamble is occupied by the town cemetery. I was perplexed as to why the place with the nicest views was given over to a graveyard. Apparently, this is deliberate. Not sure whether the best views as appreciated once underground but it is a nice spot to spend eternity. We wandered around looking at some of the graves with headstones covering a variety of styles and some being easily legible while others were heavily weathered. The texture on some of the stones appealed to me quite a bit and I spent some time looking at how to reflect that in an image.

Bruce and Brandon’s Last Resting Place

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I don’t want to look like I spend a lot of time visiting the graves of the famous but Seattle has a few on offer. Jimi was covered in this previous post and today’s is about a couple of other famous Seattle performers. Bruce Lee is buried in Lakeview Cemetery which is up on the hill between Lake Washington and Lake Union. Alongside him is buried his son Brandon. Brandon died during the filming of The Crow.

Their grave site brings a regular stream of visitors on a sunny day such as the one that took us there. The location is very pleasant with rolling hills and views to the water in both directions. We took a walk around a bit more of the cemetery and the following shots are of other locations we saw during our brief visit. It seems like somewhere that it will be worth spending longer to look around at a later date.

Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery

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One spot I had never been to while in San Diego was the Cabrillo National Monument up on the northwest end of the bay. The drive to the point takes you through a lot of older naval installations. It also takes you right through the Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery. On our way back from the headland, we stopped at the cemetery to take a look around. It sits on both sides of the road and extends a long way in each direction.

Military cemeteries, wherever they are, are always thought provoking places. The uniformity of the layout and the headstones combines with their scale to be quite overwhelming. While many of those buried there died in service, a lot of the headstones were far more recently dated as they were the resting places of veterans of long ago that had more recently died. Many of these also included the spouse of the person.

The location up on the ridge overlooking the water in both directions is a beautiful spot and, as last resting places go, I suspect it ranks pretty highly. We certainly weren’t alone in visiting the cemetery. If you find yourself in that area and have some time, I would recommend going.