I woke up in a very chipper mood this morning. When I put on my jeans, they were so loose that I had to tighten my belt a notch to make things better. My morning routine is to check my vitals before making coffee, and my blood pressure was perfect today. There’s been a great weight lifted off my shoulders, and let me tell you what I think it is. First of all, I finally finished the wood project that’s kept me busy all summer—I’ll show you on Wednesday—and secondly, summer’s finally over—well I hope it is.
Over the past couple of days, clouds have filled the Congress skies, and it sprinkled Friday evening. That’s the first precipitation in months. This morning, our new wall thermometer got below 40º for the first time, and I got to put on one of my bulky sweaters. It keeps getting better—today’s forecast is for snow in the mountains. Yep, straight from summer to winter. Today, the world is better.
My mood is so good; I don’t have any snarky stories about Queen Anne, so let’s go back down to Tucson and see where we stopped for our second November image. Last week, we visited the overlook at the top of Gates Pass before dawn. Believe it or not, I wasn’t the only photographer there. A handful of guys were hanging out with their tripods set up for a sunrise shot when I got there. I’m not usually late to one of these parties, and when I saw what they were getting ready to shoot, I wasn’t impressed—it was more of a sundown kind of shot. After snapping a few other scenes, I hopped in the truck and headed down the road stopping again at the bottom of the pass.
In this week’s featured image—that I call Tucson Mountain Sunrise—we’re looking back at the overlook. It’s the flat area between the two forward peaks at the bottom of the sunlight. Behind that, you might recognize Bushmaster Peak from last week’s image. Actually, all of it is Bushmaster Peak, but I really liked the western side’s gnarly part. It has the most character. For scale, I found a couple of young saguaros and placed them in the foreground—that means that I was wandering around in the dark, rocky, snake-infested desert to get this shot just for you.
How could you ruin a beautifully quiet moment like this? Well, let me tell you how. Just as I finished my shot and began walking back to R-chee, a guy who was parked nearby in a black late-model Chevy pick-up fired it up, and the distinct sound of a V8 with open headers reverberated throughout the canyon. Now, I enjoy loud race cars as much as anybody, but it has to be in the right context. As this gentleman drove east through the pass, it was obvious that he wasn’t racing—he was making noise just for the sake of noise. Fortunately, after the summit, he rode the brakes downhill, and the bird songs once again filled the morning air.
You can see a larger version of Tucson Mountain Sunrise on its Web Page by clicking here. Next week, we’ll make a morning stop in Saguaro National Park for another photograph in our story.
Until next time — jw