Our Last Day in the Mountains

We woke up early again for our last full day in the mountains.  Back to Skyline Drive and the cell tower to try for a little bit different view for our sunrise pictures.  We were sure hoping for another show like our first morning there.  It was pretty, but not as "fire-y" as the first morning.

As we were driving back to the campsite for breakfast I saw a deer along the side of the road.  Pepaw stopped the car for me to take a picture, but the silly deer wouldn't strike a pose for me!  He kept moving down the mountain, I kept taking pictures and Pepaw would move the car to try to help me set up the next shot.  Of course I didn't get a really good picture - but I did get this REALLY artsy shot...I decided I kinda liked the thing...accidental or not!

After breakfast (sure missed those scouts and the REAL breakfast burritos!) we were anxiously looking forward to going to the Davis Mountain Preserve - a little different view of the mountains, so off we went. 

We stopped at a small scenic overlook/picnic areal for a few pictures.

 View of the valley and rock formations

 Our Small visitor

The mountains on the other side of the valley

We were a little disappointed at the preserve.  Between the fires last summer and the drought of the last couple years it was pretty brown.  You could tell that when the conditions were right it would have been a beautiful place for pictures with Aspen, Juniper, and Ponderosa Pines, but as it was...not so much!

We headed back to camp to rest a bit - but ended up back on top of Skyline Drive again because we noticed some really GREAT cloud formations and couldn't resist going up to take a look!

Now I've told you before, I'm not one for the purely scenic shot - I like the plants and trees so much...I'm going to let this Yucca show you how the storm built up while we were there.  Utterly COOL!

We were actually so engrossed in getting our pictures that we missed part of the growing storm.  I happened to look up and see lightening across a valley to our right...I wasn't too worried - it was far away - until I looked up and noticed that there were new grey clouds right over my head AND it began to start to rain a few drops!  I covered my camera with my jacket and headed toward the car looking for Pepaw as I went...saw him heading toward the car too with his camera covered and pulling out the trashbags.

We got the cameras and tripods covered with the trashbags and stood next to the car as the rain came faster and faster.  All of a sudden I felt a HARD drop - looked out at the parking lot and saw...HAIL!  The sun was at our backs...and hail was in our shadows!  Amazing.

As the shower passed by and the rain stopped we were able to get back to taking pictures of the clouds again.

Of course we HAD to stay to see the sun set on our final full day in the park!

I'll try to show you the effect of the sun setting on those beautiful clouds...although my pictures don't really do it justice!

So you can see how as the sun got lower it turned from gold to pink, and the clouds did too!

My final shot of the day - had to go back to my plants...



What an amazing, heart pounding, thouroghly outstanding end to our fabulous Spring Break in the mountains!