Greatest Show on Earth

We’ve been back from vacation a exactly a week. And in that week, I’ve done lots of laundry.  So much laundry. Mountains of laundry. I weep from the amounts of laundry I have done. 

But do you care? No. Nor should you.  My laundry is my business, and I shouldn’t use this space to complain about it so much. So I will move on. 

But it really was a medal-worthy amount of laundry.

Ahem. 

Last post, I told you that I would write about the skies in Utah.  We were there to look at geological things (snort-snort, nerdy), but the skies are what captivated me.  They were beautiful and LARGE and filled with clouds of multiple shades that stretched themselves across the entire horizon.  I made a few enemies on Facebook when I commented that I didn’t understand why Montana was considered The Big Sky State. I mean, I’ve been to Montana, and though it was it was a while ago-like, when I was 10- I don’t remember their skies being all that great. As a ten year old, I’m sure, that I was, you know, an expert on the subject. 

(Do I need to clarify that that was sarcasm? I hope not.)

But getting back to the Utah skies, there was one night when the sky put on a fantastic show for us.  Truly... that’s exactly what it was- Mother Nature treating us to some jaw-dropping beauty.  It was the first time that I felt (and I’m going to go ahead and turn on the corn full blast here)…lucky that nature shared something so spectacular with me. 

It started around 8 o’clock. PG and I were doing dishes and we noticed that the light was strange….. so we walked out to the front of our campsite to look up and see what was going on in the sky.  We noticed a storm brewing over the bluffs.

It kept getting darker,

and darker.

Meanwhile, to my right, the sunset was making all the rocks glow red.

Then, all of a sudden, this vertical prism appeared.

And the light kept changing....

and changing. 

The rainbow disappeared and was replaced by rolls of thunder. 

Then the cloud burst, and you could see the rain fall off in the distance.

(I love that little piece of gold cloud on the left side.) 

It rained for a while with thunder and lightening. Matt, PG and I were all out on the road, taking pictures.  We competed for shots of lightening bolts. I missed it here.

And here.

But I got it here!

Here's one of Matt's shots. He hasn't edited it yet, but he let me use it anyway. I like how you can see the bolt of lightening travel all the way down through the clouds.  

Beautiful. Also, weird that we were standing 3 feet apart, yet our pictures look so different.

I had a friend who once, long ago, told me that she didn't understand why photography was considered an art when all you have to do is look through a camera and push a button.  I think the above examples clearly show the difference between someone who's just looking through a lens and pushing a button and one who knows about aperture, light, settings, lenses, and composition. 

Don't be a dummy. It's art, although I'd have to say that the best artist out there the night of that storm was the one who put on that beautiful display for us. 

It was something I'll never forget.