Going out in August late at night or insanely early in the morning trying to
take pictures of meteors has become a yearly thing for me. August 3 I stayed
out til 2 a.m. when I saw a news report about a geomagnetic storm that might
make the northern lights visible. Also, I needed to experiment with some camera
settings. I saw quite a few meteors.. probably one ever 5 minutes, though I
didn't catch any with the camera. Before I left I pointed the camera straight
up at the Milky Way visible behind the trees.
A week later I got up early and drove to Horsehead Lake looking for meteors. I
stuck around until sunrise and saw an awesome display of colorful clouds.
On August 11, Cliff, Graham and Caleb drove up to Shores Lake with me to watch
meteors. I caught one good fireball falling to the southeast. The Persied
meteor shower peaked the next night. Fisher joined Grant, Cliff and I on a trip
up to Mount Magazine to watch the show. We saw a lot of meteors but I didn't
get any interesting pictures. I still had star photography on the brain and
drove up to Big Piney Creek four nights later to make a star trail photo.
On the morning of August 21 I drove up Highway 7 north of Russellville hoping to
get a sunrise photo from one of the scenic overlooks. The weather forecast was
all wrong but I watched some amazing lightning striking the distant mountains
to the east. I got the camera set up but of course the lighting moved off. I
returned the next morning and enjoyed some pretty scenery at dawn. The air was
misty and gave the mountains a soft feel, and although the sky was overcast the
clouds turned pink around sunrise and gave the whole scene a cool blue cast.
As September gradually brought cooler temperatures, I ventured out more. I drove
up to Boxley on the morning of Friday the 10th before work. The elk were out
enjoying the foggy weather. That Sunday morning I drove up to Mount Magazine
hoping to get a photo of the sun rising behind Jones Mountain south of Mount
Nebo. I didn't realize that some unidentified mountains rising up from the
river valley would get in the way of the horizon.
Tuesday evening, September 14, I made an unplanned trip to Lee Creek Reservoir
to hike to the overlook on the Homestead Trail. Cliff asked if he could go,
then if he asked if a friend could go too. When we pulled in to the friend's
driveway, a pretty girl named Haley came out. My boy had a girlfriend! Clouds
on the horizon ruined the colorful sunset I was hoping for, but we still
enjoyed the view. It was getting fairly dark on the hike out, but I had a
couple of headlamps in the camera bag.
