Weather

Just got back from round one of family reunions up in Idaho. We hit Bear Lake with the wife's family, then were up with my parents for a while before spending a weekend with my dad's extended family at the grandparents' cabin in Island Park, Idaho. A great time was had by most. What we loved most (next to being with family, packing and unpacking the car, and not getting enough sleep, of course) was the cool Idaho nights and the relative coolness of Idaho summer days. Really, when the alternative is 110+ Vegas days and 85+ nights, almost anything is preferable, but the Idaho weather was just gorgeous.

One night in Bear Lake (July 3rd?), we were outside around the campfire when a huge storm blew in. I think I always say this when it comes to rain, but I don't think I've seen it rain that hard--at least not in recent years. Every time I thought it was the hardest I'd ever seen it, the intensity would pick up and it would rain harder. I've seen good storms in Denmark, and since living in Vegas we've had some impressive monsoon season rains, but this storm had waves of thick sheets of rain. Best of all, the lightning storm passed by very close to us, and I was able to get some fun lightning shots--I didn't want to run out to the car to get the tripod, so most of them were hand-held (I think I counted about a one minute exposure on each, or until a lightning flash came up). I braced myself against the door of the cabin, under the only overhang I could find that would protect me from the sheets of rain. You can even see that I wasn't completely protected, as the rain spots in a couple of the shots will testify.












Then, after arriving home and experiencing what my car thermometer said was 120 degrees, we had some stormy afternoons, the only benefit of sitting around in the sweltering heat. We went to my brother-in-law's place to swim, and I looked up at the pool lights and the night sky, and wanted to take a picture. By the time I had gotten around to it, the winds had kicked up and cooled us off a little. By the time we got home, a storm was a-brewin', and I tried to get out to get some more lightning shots. It was different this time, since there were so many nighttime lights in Las Vegas--my exposures were only about 30 seconds, and then pushed down to 15 when I was trying to shoot with the Stratosphere in the background. I think lightning shots are my version of the fisher's story--you should have seen the ones I missed when I was pointed the wrong way just slightly, or I was reviewing the pictures for exposure or on the wrong side of the house. I am happy with what I got, but I wish I would've gotten those others.