THE  TOP  PRIZE FOR THE VENTURE GALLERIES TRAVEL PHOTOGRAPHY CONTEST IN THE SEASCAPE CATEGORY GOES TO BETTYE GILBERT.

In June, she was traveling the California shoreline.

In June, she came around a bend, and there it was: a lone salt-pruned cypress standing on a bluff that overlooked the rocky and turbulent coastline of the Pacific Ocean.

The cypress has become the trademark of a seventeen-mile scenic drive that wraps itself around Pacific Grove and Pebble Beach, California.

Near Carmel.

Not far from Monterey.

The cypress rises out of rock with no earth to hold its roots

The cypress has borne the brunt of angry winds coming off the Pacific tides for at least two centuries, maybe more.

It stands as a lonely sentinel of the sea.

Prominent.

And stubborn.

Defiant.

And sturdy.

Robust.

And strong.

As Bettye Gilbert points out, you may drive the loop and wander from Sunset Drive to Spanish Bay, you may stroll along the ocean or picnic beneath the trees, and you may wind past the golf courses of Spyglass Hill, Cypress Point, and Pebble Beach, but when you leave, the single memory you take with you is the image of the lone cypress keeping watch above the sea.

THE WINNER OF THE CITYSCAPE TRAVEL PHOTOGRAPHY AWARD WILL BE ANNOUNCED ON FRIDAY.