Fog & Dizzying Sun

On Sunday we started with fog in the morning. You can see how dry the winter has been by the very brown grass.

By the afternoon the clouds had mostly cleared, so I took these skywards shots when I took Socks for a walk in Fox Run Park.

Visit the awesome Skywatch Friday meme for more skywards photos.

I'm putting together a new meme which should be live this weekend, on Saturday or Sunday depending on where in the world you live. It's for all photos scanned, they can be old prints or slides, or even new scanned shots if you still shoot on film. It can be found at Sunday Scans - I'll try it for a few weeks, and if it gets some interest and doesn't take too much time to clear out abusive links, I'll keep it going indefinitely, every weekend.

Yet More Trees

For My World Tuesday this week, here are some shots of yet more trees from Fox Run Park today, where Socks and I went for a walk. It doesn't show up in the photos, but frost was melting from the tree tops; I was hoping to catch some of that but the light wasn't right. But I still liked the mottled sunlight on the forest floor.

Tetons

Here are some photos of the Grand Tetons, just south of the Yellowstone park. We made a day-trip through the park on our last day in the area, and I'd highly recommend it.

Photos don't do these impressive mountains justice, but these are my attempts to capture them on one day when the light wasn't very good, for Scenic Sunday. I'd love to go back and spend a week exploring and photographing them at sunrise.

Fox Run Lakes

I've had an overwhelming week, and all I managed to capture were a couple of poor sunrise photos; maybe I'll post them for a laugh as "outtakes" one day. So today I decided to head out into the cool evening, driving to the local park (a little over 1 mile away, about 2 km) shortly before sunset to give Socks a walk and to capture some more acceptable photos to post. So here are some brand-new reflective shots for Skywatch Friday.

These lakes are actually much smaller than they appear here, but the ultra-wide-angle lens exaggerates their size. I feel at least a little better now - Fox Run Park always refreshes me.

Pulpit Rock Plants

I enjoyed seeing a variety of plant life at Pulpit Rock. In places it was dry enough for wild cacti.

Other places it was wet enough for beautiful, overarching trees.

While at times scraggly pine trees were struggling to hold on wherever they could.

All this on a trail that's maybe a mile in length - variety is the word here. To see lots more variety, visit My World Tuesday.

Hoodoos and Views

Just a few miles down the interstate in northern Colorado Springs is the Pulpit Rock park - the main rock formation is clearly visible as you drive by. At the top are various spires which probably qualify as hoodoos.

Even the non-hoodoo rocks are interesting and varied.

And the views are great! The interstate is visible in this picture, starting in the middle-right of the photo and leading left and slightly up.

This makes a nice off-season hike - it's not very long, and because it's lower altitude it's often free of snow. And it's my Scenic Sunday post for the week.

Summer Lightning

I've had no time to take photos the last week, so here's an archived photo from a summer thunderstorm, captured in my yard. It's not the clearest lightning photo I've taken, but I like the way it captured two separate lightning strikes.

I was asked who made the antler arch from the previous post, and unfortunately I don't know. I do know that you can find more skies both dramatic and placid on the great Skywatch Friday meme.

Jackson, Wyoming

It's strange to be sitting here blogging and listening to music, knowing what's going on in Japan and Libya. But here I am...

After leaving Yellowstone and driving through the Grand Teton National park, we stayed the night in Jackson. It's a nice (and expensive) Western town, complete with covered wooden sidewalks in places, which I'm sure would be very nice in the winter.

The town is most famous for being near the Jackson Hole ski area, but we didn't make it there. However, we did see the famous arches made of elk antlers at the entrance to main town park. Don't worry - the antlers are all shed by the elk, so no elk were harmed in the making of these arches.

And that's a small peek at my part of the world - lots more peeks around the world can be found at My World Tuesday.

Yellowstone's Upper & Lower Falls

First, my thoughts are with the Japanese today after the terrible events there.

The Yellowstone River plunges over two major waterfalls that are accessible to the casual tourist - the Upper Falls and the Lower Falls. Here's one of the best views of the Lower Falls.

The above view is from the bottom of the Uncle Tom's Trail, which descends 328 steps down this steep, iron staircase.

Of course, once you're at the bottom you have to climb back up.

You can get right up to the top of the Upper Falls, right next to the river.

The power of the water as it goes over the falls is incredible.

This is a must-see part of Yellowstone, and it's my Scenic Sunday post for the week.

Today's Cold Sunrise

I thought I'd be posting some archived images today, but this morning we had a pretty dawn after the clouds and fog from the last couple of days lifted. So I went out in the cold before breakfast and took a couple of photos.

I'm certain there will be more early morning photos on Skywatch Friday.

Light Snow in the Park

On Saturday, Socks and I went for a walk in the local Fox Run Park after a couple of inches of snow.

It wasn't enough snow to make walking difficult (even for little Socks), but it certainly made the park pretty.

I was intrigued by the patterns of the snow on the pine needles in this sheltered hollow.

We may get more snow Monday night and Tuesday, but they're not really sure yet. To see warmer parts of the world, visit the enlightening My World Tuesday meme.

Soccer Gull

This was taken last fall at my granddaughters' soccer game. It looks like some kind of gull to me, but I'm not convinced since I live in Colorado.

Lots more furry and feathered friends can be found at the Camera Critters meme.

Thursday Morning Grey

As I've shown before, we sometimes get fogs settle in on our ridge. Last Thursday morning I woke up to find a fog thick enough that the house across the street wasn't even visible.

The previous photo is also interesting technically, because it's one of the few scenarios when the light fall-off that a wide angle lens has towards the corners is visible. This was taken using an ultra-wide-angle lens at 10mm on f/7.1, and the corners are visibly darker than the center. Normally there's enough variation in a photo that this effect won't be noticed, but with this total gray it can clearly be seen (sometimes it's also visible with a completely clear blue sky). But I don't think it hurts the shot.

When it's cold, these fogs freeze on everything, as this one did.

Both these photos are color, not B&W, but there was simply no color to be seen. I know I've posted photos like this before, but it is time for Skywatch Friday after all!