I`ve been seeing a lot of nice sunsets lately and the other day I even caught a few nice rimlit clouds at sunset….
…our new Elmont Road Bridge over I-44….
…and the last one is filtered….
…yes I occasionally use a filter for my sunsets and fall foliage and waterfalls…basic filters, nothing real creative tho….dont like glare too much….
One can always tell when we are in the fall season or the springtime…get some great clouds and sunsets both times of the year…last two weeks have been really interesting……I caught this sunrise one morning as I got back into town….
and then the sunsets the last month or two have been really nice…God has a huge canvas and is clearly a Master Artist in my book….
and right down the street from me last week…our new Elmont Road Bridge over I-44….
and sometimes weather does play a part as seen in this July 2010 Sunset on Main Street….
and some of our churches make great foregrounds for sunsets of beautiful color…
as does our Sonic back in September….
…and the new fire station five back in July, again weather related…
and the other day I found this well defined tree to silhouette against a nice sunset color filled sky….
Well I had a chance to drive down to the Hot Springs area and do some more quartz collecting last weekend, was contacted by members of the MAGS Rock Club in Memphis who wanted some advice on where to collect quartz in the Mt Ida and Hot Springs area…some members wanted to go to a quartz mine and the diamond mine too…while I dont care to sit out in the open dirt field and bake while hunting for elusive diamonds in the rough, I do enjoy going to quartz mines where you can normally find a truck load to take home…which I consider to be a sure thing, as opposed to an iffy thing in relation to diamond hunting, but to each their own I suppose.
I contacted Jimmy E, a buddy of mine from Minnesota and asked if he wanted to go, when I found out later that MAGS intended to go to the diamond mine one day and a quartz mine the next, and he said sure, he would love to drive down before winter set in and he couldnt go for awhile…so I gave MAGS my recommendations and Jimmy and I decided to go to Bear Mountain Mine south of Mt Ida and Miller Mountain Coleman Mine as well.
We decided to stay at Mountain Harbor Resort on Lake Ouachita ten miles east of Mt Ida, this is where I normally go and stay at for my fall vacation, very pretty place to stay and dog friendly as well. They have cabins and rooms and studios to stay in, campgrounds for RV`s and all sizes of camping, rent houseboats and party barges and fishing boats as well, even have their own Subway restaurant on their main dock. They also have their own Fire Department and just last year took delivery on a retired Coast Guard Cutter that was retrofitted as a fire boat and boy does it look impressive out there on the lake.
and here it is at sunset Friday night last week…
We had great weather while there, we drove down on Thursday and discovered summer was still lingering there, first three days were mid 90`s and humid, and then a cool front went thru on Saturday evening and the bottom dropped out on Sunday, dropping the temps to the lower 50`s when we woke up to head home. We went to Bear Mtn Mine to find quartz crystals….
The rest of the story on the quartz crystal hunting is on my rockhunting site, http://www.jwjrocks.com
Jimmy started for home Saturday afternoon and I stayed an extra night to visit with friends and photograph a model as well as a stunning sunset Saturday night on the lake.
..this is what it looked like when I first saw it…
..then it became this…..while to the south the clouds looked like ….
…this…..and then it kept getting deeper and deeper….like the next one shows….
and looking the other way we saw this one below early on….
A very nice end to a nice weekend in Arkansas….more on what we found later…
Thursday evening after I finished running at Station Five on the treadmill, I looked up as I left to see clouds forming what looked like a nice sunset shaping up…so I drove over and picked up my camera and came back in time to capture a very nice sunset with Station 5 as the foreground…another beauty….
Docia and I drove down to Marion, Kentucky last weekend for the rock and gem show Saturday and Sunday, which was our first show this year and attempt at selling some of our druse quartz and poker chip calcite crystals. I also wanted another chance to get down in the pit of the Eureka Mine and dig for some more beautiful fluorite.
Docia and Floyd arrived early afternoon Friday and got checked into the Relax Inn at Kuttawa so Floyd could get a good nap in…he had driven home from New Orleans all night Thursday night from his workplace there…I called Docia on the way down and told her I would prob arrive about 3 pm and we could go over to the museum and check in with Tina on what was happening for the weekend, and see where we could set up our booth outside…we wanted plenty of good natural light hiitting our druse specimens. I then called Tina to make sure she would be there when we arrived.
Docia and I got to the museum about 3:30 and met with Tina and decided we would set up our booth near the front door of the County Museum where the vendors were going to be set up for the show. We picked a nice shady spot along the sidewalk and then took a quick tour of the museum, so that Docia could see what world class specimens looked like behind glass.
We took off and headed for the steakhouse at Oasis Bar and Grill and had the prime rib, which was the special Friday night. We both like prime rib and were not disappointed at all. It was great !
Next morning we met at the museum and set up our booth at the front of the building, where the sidewalk corners as you walk between the County Museum and the Clement Museum…I had brought along a canopy to set up for shade, but we got lucky and had two excellent shade trees there all day long, one on each side of the sidewalk….so we were fortunate to be in the shade all weekend long.
this is Foh`s Hall, which is now the County Museum, but has also served as a hospital and the school, in the early days of Marion, and then a community center as well. The theatre area was the main hall where vendors set up inside in the air conditioning…we chose natural air conditioning and natural lighting.
this worked well as we caught most folks walking up from the parking lot to the front of the show building or coming from the museum and walking to the show building, and walking back as well most of the time.
there was actually supposed to be another vendor outside with us, but they got cold feet and moved theirs inside, thinking it might rain the first day there. As it was, the weather was quite nice both days, cooler with less humidity on Sunday. Crowds were a little light this year, though, for both the digs and the show. Most of the time when I wanted to shoot this next photo, there were several people at our booths but I couldn`t shoot then…
Saturday night, Docia and I took Floyd out to the steakhouse and we had great steaks once again. Afterwards, I drove over to the lakeside, and shot a beautiful sunset from the Kuttawa City Park, which is located right on the water…was even fortunate to get a nice red and white speedboat zipping across the water against the fluffy pink and white clouds…
and the sky even without the boat was quite nice to shoot above the water….
and as the speedboat drew closer to my position, it scared up some white birds just ahead of it…
after shooting this one, I drove over to the city park and shot this next one with an even deeper color to the sky and water…
absolutely beautifullllll……
Well the next day we arrived at the museum way early…the rest of the vendors decided to sleep in and weren`t going to arrive til 11 am, so I took advantage of the lull and decided to go do some digging. Docia and Floyd decided to stay at the booth just in case and I took off for the Eureka after signing in. Now, I didn`t take my camera into the pit with me, but I can tell you that I filled two bags full of some nice small clusters and a few medium sized ones…also helped a little girl with her merit badge for 4H, she was working on a mineral project, needed to gather eleven minerals and so a few of us there helped her find some nice stuff to take home with her.
I hit a nice pocket above the vein near where I was digging back in April with members of the Memphis Club and after three hours, I drove over to the Hickory Cane Mine tailings to check it out before heading back to the vendor show…
and even more tailings….
As I was out rockhunting late in May 2010, the sun disappeared behind some clouds and I looked up to see this nice fluffy cloud backlit…couldnt resist so I snapped it…I like sunbeams as well as sunsets…
Pretty soon I was working on filling the second bag when my rake end snapped off my trusty tool, so I walked one filled bag back to the truck and grabbed my handrake instead…and saw this pretty butterfly on the way back…
As we were leaving and heading home…I looked over at Missy and had to take a pic of her as well…looked like she had been swimming in the clay all day….
Well we started home and started seeing sunbeams all over the place…
On the way home, they were talking on Y98 Radio about a huge thunderstorm parked over the city of St Louis and just dumping alot of rainfall on the entire area….. I spotted it from the Cuba area, about 75 miles to the west of St Louis…
As I drove into Bourbon, I turned off 44 to go by my parents house to show them the nice druse, yes they are druse fans too…and snapped a photo of the Bourbon Water Tower against the supercell clouds…
and saw this sunlit backlit cloud driving down the road near my parents home…
another one of those clouds that looks like its on fire at the top…and this sunset was taken near my home in Sullivan`s city park…I`m like Virgil, like to see Old Glory waving when I include flagpoles in my photos…
As I drove home from work the morning after the storms, I was able to photograph some sunbeams on the horizon of the sunrise…for some reason, I had a feeling about taking my camera with me to work, so I followed the hunch and was able to shoot a few pics of the sunbeams from the top of the hill on the west side of the rest area…not sure what the other drivers thought I was shooting, but oh well…
I drove on home and found the sunbeams still hanging around, so naturally I took advantage of the situation and shot a few more pics.
this is the east end of town and Oak Grove`s water tower to the left side…and one of my favorite places to shoot, normally full of horses, guess they weren`t awake yet…
and one of our prettiest restored buildings on Main Street, the Bennett Hotel, owned and restored by a good friend of mine…
We had a little sunset right before the storms came into St Louis County the night before, I was able to shoot the clouds rolling in right at sunset…
and…
