It just seems a lot more obvious up here in the desert.
Good thing too, given the insane times we’re living in on all levels. Seeing this at 6:00 AM can give you a shot of hope, and that full moon rising at 6:00 PM isn’t half bad either. It’s all that shit in between that’s gotten to be a bit much.
That really bright object shining through the plantation shutters in the upper right? That’s Venus.
Brilliant!
Stunning!
Filed under Astronomy, Forever Home, Photography, Sunsets
Mostly good things. But one “mixed blessing” that surprises me is the sunrises.
I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been awake for sunrise in the last forty years. Which is weird. When I was a kid I was always up early, mainly because as the oldest of eight kids it was one of the only times I had alone, when I could read without being bothered. Then there were years of morning paper routes, then some time at Annapolis, then working graveyard shift to get through college along with 8:00 AM classes.
Somewhere in the intervening 45 years after college, I decided that being up before the crack of nine is less than optimal. I almost never am in bed before 1:00 AM, but unless I have to be up to remain employed or get on a plane, getting up by sunrise is NOT on the menu.
Then we moved here, with big plantation shutters and a lovely view to the east and some spectacular desert sunrises, and I’m finding myself waking up to check out the sunrises. (Okay, I’m getting up to pee at 5:45, but I still look outside and see the sunrise.) Who knew? Granted, once the pretty colors go away I go back to sleep until 8:00 or so, but there’s definitely been a shift in my circadian rhythms.
This morning was stunning!
Filed under Forever Home, Photography, Sunsets
We again had a bit of weather pass through today. Nothing too violent or wet, although there were showers and some thunder heard.
By sunset it was broken clouds, with multiple layers at different altitudes, with holes here and there, so I could watch different layers fly by in different directions and speeds.
Best of all was the view where, while it was just past sunset here, off to the east probably 25-30 miles there were thunderheads towering up over the horizon, brightly lit in brilliant white.
Then in just a few minutes (4 minutes between pictures to be exact) that blinding white started to turn pink and orange. (No extra charge for the blurry hummingbird zipping by on the right – it was pissed that I was standing next to its favorite feeder.)
My vision of a boring, hot, windy, unchanging weather environment have (fortunately) been disproven by three fascinating rain storms in less than two months.
Variety *IS* the spice of life!
Filed under Forever Home, Photography, Sunsets, Weather
One small but non-trivial change in moving to the High Desert in general and to this house in particular is our morning wakeup routine. Our bedroom windows face east and we’ve gotten into the habit of leaving the plantation shutters open, so the Sun is shining in about 6:00 AM.
The iPhone can’t even come close to recording the pink and orange hues that greeted me this morning. Imagine the saturation and warmth turned up to 11! The Sun was still just below the horizon, but the sky made it look like we were inside of a ginormous neon tube. With the shutters, pergola, bird feeders, and high-tension power line towers in the distance all silhouetted against the glow, it was fantastic.
It makes it tough to sleep in, but we’re adjusting – and views like this make it worth it.
Filed under Forever Home, Photography, Sunsets
It was a nice day here (aside from the small brush fire that they stomped on pretty quickly with a half dozen aircraft and kept to about 33 acres) but out in the desert late in the day there were a couple of odd, big, convective cells building up.
This was off to the northeast, up toward Barstow. Probably at least 40 or 50 miles away, but the cloud tops at 15,000 to 20,000 are impressive.
When we got past sunset here but the cloud tops were still lit, it got better.
There was another big group of cells down toward Palm Springs.
This extremely large, round object was also seen coming up, moving in its orbit toward a full lunar eclipse on Sunday (which we won’t see at all here – enjoy it in Asia, India, Africa, and Australia!).
Once everything on the ground started turning pink, it had risen above the mountains, clouds, and haze to become a bright, white beacon.
Filed under Astronomy, Photography, Sunsets, Weather
Another atmospherically unstable day with a huge stream of monsoonal moisture coming up all the way from the Gulf of California to past Las Vegas. We didn’t get any rain here, but it was cool, breezy, and we could see the thunderheads building around us in every direction. A number of places like Palm Springs, Las Vegas, and Barstow had flash flood warnings out.
Comes sundown, and everything’s pink and orange and red and purple, different layers of clouds with different levels and color of illumination, being pushed by the wind in different directions. I’ve gotta find the tripods and unpack them, it would have been amazing as a time-lapse video.
I don’t want to be a one-trick pony on this site with only pictures of clouds and sunsets, but we don’t have that many birds or lizards or flowers yet, so if the Universe is going to lob up softballs with sights like this right outside my front door, I’m gonna swing for the fences! Needless to say, it’s a “busier than god” time at work, I’m still unpacking, I still haven’t caught up on sleep (by an order of magnitude) lost over the past eight weeks, so if I need something quick for the day and this is available…
Get real!
There’s a whole new world out there to explore, and I’m looking forward to getting out there and going hiking and up into the mountains and up toward Big Bear and Lake Arrowhead and looking for trains and a gazillion other new sights and experiences. And I promise, lots of pictures from all of those adventures! But for today, wallow in the stunning sunsets.
Filed under Forever Home, Photography, Sunsets, Weather
It’s late Sunday night, tomorrow is Monday and we start all over again.
The good news is that the cyclic nature of life means we get a chance every day to have thunderboomers like yesterday or sunsets like this.
And every day has the potential for joys, small and large. Today, I saw a sparrow discover the new birdseed feeder that I put up, the first that I know of to visit. It’s a start!
Filed under Birds, Forever Home, Photography, Sunsets
We went to try to solve our phone problem today – we’re all on AT&T and their coverage in this area sucks. So we’re going to switch carriers.
Sundown was nice, lots of contrails and “mare’s tail” clouds.
Gorgeous!
Filed under Forever Home, Photography, Sunsets
Last night and tonight will be the closest approach in this conjunction of Venus and Jupiter, and they’ll be slowly separating over the next month or more, but if you’re up before dawn and have a clear sky, look to the east!
At 05:25, my iPhone taking pictures through the kitchen window is having just as much trouble focusing as I was! I know how it felt!
With a little bit of effort, both I and the phone were able to focus, both in the optical and in the philosophical sense. The brighter, lower right one is Venus, the slightly dimmer, upper left one is Jupiter. With a pair of binoculars (or the time to actually put on pants and shoes, go outside, and set up a good camera and a tripod, assuming I could find one of the tripods in one of the PODS units out in the driveway) you could easily see several of the Galilean moons near Jupiter.
This was my favorite view. We have plantation shutters…
If you’re up, go look! Take binoculars! Put on pants!
Filed under Astronomy, Forever Home, Photography, Sunsets
Another change for the Forever Home from all of my previous houses is that we don’t have an individual mailbox at the street next to the driveway – there’s a set of mailboxes for the entire tract down on the corner. Since we’ve been in here almost three weeks now (WOW!) I figured I should probably see if we had any mail.
We did! A couple of very nice “Happy New House!” cards from some friends, lots of escrow closing and insurance documents, and a slew of “Dear New Homeowner” spam. (Which went straight into recycling – life’s too short!)
Since it got up to 102ºF here today (it’s a dry heat, really, not that uncomfortable) I went about a half hour after sunset when it was comfortable. With some smoke still in the area from a couple of brush fires, it was lovely.
Not saying that a few clouds couldn’t push this sort of lighting from “astonishing” up a notch or two to “extraordinary,” but I’m thinking I can get used to it as a baseline without ever taking it for granted.
Filed under Forever Home, Photography, Sunsets
We Love The Stars Too Fondly 