Desert Beauty

On this Memorial Day, I am sifting through our photos from the desert, feeling so thankful for those who fought to keep our country safe. Today's peace and beauty is thanks to them.

It sometimes seems simply unbelievable to me that we have such abundant public lands where we can camp, hike, and ride bikes in solitude. Most of all, we can enjoy the gorgeous world around us.

We didn't arrive at our first campsite for our desert trip until after midnight. The moon, at about half full, was just setting into some low clouds on the western horizon. Despite the late hour, I pulled out my camera to try to capture the beauty.

After the moonlight had totally disappeared, the Milky Way glowed. Here was one end of it.

And here was the other end of it. I need to get a super-duper wide angle lens (like 8mm) so that I can shoot wide panoramas that can show the whole Milky Way in one frame. I guess that I could also learn to stitch together multiple frames but I don't have much patience for futzing with photos on my computer.

Needless to say, I was already grinning when I finally climbed into bed, despite how tired we all were after the long drive. We slept in the next morning, loving that wonderful feeling of multiple weeks of vacation ahead of us. As soon as we went outside in the morning, we knew it was going to be a special visit. More desert flowers were blooming than any other time I can remember. Endless cacti sported brilliant flowers.

Many other flowers were blooming too but I'll save them for a future post.

The sun was shining but it wasn't hot. Shyla and I had a blast playing in the desert rocks.

And we all watched the sun set at the end of the day in almost the same spot as where the moon had set the previous night.

Mother Earth is more beautiful than I ever imagined when I was growing up in a more urban setting. I'm glad that we found our way westward, landing in such an incredible part of the country that suits us so perfectly.

Short Days in the Desert

On the first day of our trip, we drove most of the day and arrived in our campsite late at night. Before we went to sleep, I admired the wide open sky, the bright moonlight, and the stars. I quickly set up my tripod and camera, programmed the camera to take photos for the next several hours, and went to sleep.

For such a fast set-up, I was very happy with the outcome! This is a series of exposures spanning 3 hours. It's easy to see how people who lived a long time ago didn't know whether the universe was spinning around the Earth or vice versa.

We woke up the next morning to see that we had the area to ourselves. We were beyond thrilled. We've been visiting this spot for many years but it's been "discovered" recently. It seems like the cold short days of autumn are the quietest ones there!

It was about 17°F when we woke up so we stayed snuggled in the sleeping bags for a long time until the sun warmed our campsite a little. This was our view as the sun rose.

When we finally got moving, it was time to break out the dog boots. That is not Shyla's favorite part of the desert. I might try, yet again, to find a kind that she likes better.

When she got moving, she tended to forget about her boots and have fun!

We knew that the area had received a decent amount of rain over the year. Yet, I was still very surprised to find desert "pot holes" filled with water deeply enough that Shyla could swim in them! Actually, if I'd been on my toes, I would've stopped her. These pot holes have delicate organisms in them that lie dormant for long periods of time waiting for water so that they can live. It's bad to mess with the pot hole water because it hurts those organisms - and, thus, I usually keep Shyla out of it.

This time, before I was aware of what was happening, Shyla actually broke a thin layer of ice to go for a swim in a pot hole. It was her one and only swim during our trip. I was on my toes after that!

She shook and then ran to me, her "desert swimming" fun over.

As we descended toward camp, I looked up behind us. The butte where we'd been playing had cool wavy clouds above it.

Alas, we didn't plan that first day very well. It was almost time for sunset by the time we'd biked and then had lunch. There were still stars to be watched...

...but we learned to make better use of the short daylight hours for the rest of the trip.

Wordless Wednesday - Desert Edition

Shyla among the red rock towers at sunset

Shooting Star at K's Rock - A Sign from the Heavens?

Our Getaway

We made a get-away last week to the Utah desert, wanting to feel warm sun on our faces and dirt under our feet for a brief time before a long winter.

I adore the sight of red rock and a deep blue sky.

I love the sight of my sweet chocolate Shyla's fur in the desert sunset light with a backdrop of red rock.

And I love the twinkle in R's eyes when he's so very happy!

We departed early on our trip due to a big winter storm system that might have made traveling over the Divide to get to Utah very treacherous. We didn't arrive at our campsite until around midnight. The trip left me exhausted and left my spine in agony.

But, when we stepped out of the LabMobile, and I saw the gazillion stars twinkling in the dark sky, I was suddenly possessed with energy that even overrode my spine pain. The sight of so many twinkling stars in the dark desert sky was inspiring!

I made a short time lapse video of the stars spinning around the North Star over the course of about 5 hours (while we slept). Over that time, my camera took 77 exposures of 4 minutes each, and then I used software to stack them together into a video and a final photo. You can watch it here or at Youtube.

Here was the final photo after five hours. There were so many stars spinning in the sky over our heads that the dark sky was barely visible!

I'm afraid that I won't be able to refrain from telling you about our trip in upcoming posts!

Friday Skyday

We were beyond thrilled when we arrived at our new campsite outside Crested Butte to find clear skies! Based on our web research, Crested Butte looked like an island of drier weather in the midst of our rainy state - so we immediately made a beeline for it.

Our campsite had incredible wildflowers all around it with sunshine making them glow.

It also had a pond about 50 yards away! R perfected his takeoff technique over the coming days. Lift off...

... and flight!

Shyla was watching his technique, and we saw her take flight for the first time in her young life. After leaping and flying for her first time, Shyla decided that she loved it, and we saw her do this many times in the following days. The "butt up in the air" pose was Shyla's unique twist to the Lab diving technique.

On that first evening, the sunset was beautiful - even more than usual because we hadn't seen sunshine in days.

The few clouds in the sky dissipated after the sun went down. The stars twinkled overhead with the bright moon up just after sunset. It was so bright that it was tough to see shooting stars, although there is one short one toward the upper right of the photo. This photo was taken with the camera pointed to the east while the moon was still up.

Then, after the moon set, I programmed the camera to take photos while we slept. The camera took many 4 minute exposures (with 5 seconds breaks between them) over the course of two and a half hours. You can see how many more stars were visible without the moon in this photo than when the moon was out (above). The North Star is at the center of all those circles.

While my camera was making star photos, we drifted off to sleep, eagerly anticipating riding/running on the many gorgeous trails near us the next morning. It was amazing how sun and clear skies lifted our spirits!

Sky Sunday

The sky's beauty truly shines in the desert. Here was the moon setting over a sculpted rocky cliff.

And Shyla standing in the desert with the red cliffs and blue sky behind her.

Millions and millions of stars shined each night. The Milky Way...

A Shooting Star over a cliff...

One night, the clouds rolled in while my camera was busy taking star photos as I slept. A rumble of thunder and flashes of lightning awakened me. I rushed out to save my camera from the rain that was about to fall, and I discovered that my camera had captured the cliff at the instant of a flash of lightning. It turned the cloudy sky purple.

What an incredibly beautiful world we live in!