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So I was driving after the storm, but had to shoot this scene first. It was raining out, and about to pour on me. I didn't care, that landscape with the rain and haze was awesome. My composition/framing options were limited here thanks to the guard rail and the fact it was raining, so I couldn't get out over it. To shoot this, I had to flip the car around and drive to this steep, twisting portion of the road. They have a place to pull off right by here, but they have it a bit too low. So I just pull off the highway, as much as I can and shoot from here. The pull off area, just wouldn't work. The problem with where I did this, was the shoulder was skinny, with mud next to it. My driver's side tires had to be on the white line of the highway, but I could see both directions and move if a car came. The whole time no cars came from the south, in my lane.
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I don't know what it is, but there's something cool about seeing each hill as the black crest, with the gray fog/moisture laying between them.
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As I get soaked, I finish up this short little "shoot". I still needed to get ahead of the storm I was chasing(the one raining on me now). I wind up driving in hail the rest of the way to Sundance WY. By Sundance, I finally get ahead of the rain. The problem was, the interstate goes northeast for a while, before turning east into SD. I knew what would happen and sure enough, I was right back in the rain. My tires are pretty bad now. I do not enjoy wet roads at all, as the car ain't that heavy to begin with, and the tires are a bit fatter than normal. Having them worn down to the tread bars makes for a nightmare in heavy rain. So here I am, driving northeast up I90, chasing a severe, but pretty linear looking storm, with this nagging desire to blow it off and head back to Devil's Tower for sunset. This stuff was forming a pretty good line now, which was squashing my hopes for lightning later, back near the tower. So another thought was, do I stay with the storms and shoot their lightning further east into SD? The sunset ops back at the tower were getting the best of me, so several miles northeast of Sundance, I flip around and drive all the way back to Devil's Tower. I kept getting visions of the above scene, but with the setting sun.
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The above image is after arriving back at this scene. I wasn't sure I'd be able to beat the sun going down, but made it with plenty of time to spare.
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It was much nicer now that it wasn't raining.
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I couldn't sit here, parked partly on the road forever, and I was starting to think I should be closer to the tower at sunset, so I leave here and finish the drive back. Hindsight is a crazy thing sometimes. This time it is pretty crazy how things worked out. Had I continued chasing the storms and not the sky, I'd miss all that is to follow. It's hard to know which will be best, but this time it was the sky. The landscape helped out a lot, not to mention the treat after sunset(nuts how that worked out). I was already fairly happy with what I'd caught, seeing and shooting the tower and this hazy landscape scene. I never imagined it would just get better and better.
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Mammatus with the tower!
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There is just one bad thing about a cool scene unfolding before your eyes. You can only be in one location at a time. I hate trying to decide where is best and when is best to be at each. I decided to drive into the park again and shoot from a closer location, incase the mammatus became crazy above the tower. Part of me regretted this, as the sun began to shine under the anvil and light up areas of the landscape, most of which were largely out of view here.
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Right now I really wish I were on a hill, instead of down here blocked by the big tower and hills. You could see these rays shining under that avnil, and landing on higher objects out on the plains. It was cool and I'm sure there were awesome views from the locations I'd just left.
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This is looking northeast, out of the park. It's not looking towards the sun like it appears. The sunlight on the clouds over there was just blowing things out.
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All I was doing at this point was waiting for it to get dark out. The sunset show seemed to be dwindling. I had already called and reserved a room at the Super 8 in Spearfish SD, and part of me was ready to get back there for the night. ($90 for a Super 8!...before taxes and whatever else they tacked on to get me over $100....sigh) I kept wondering, are these cloud blur shots I'm hoping for going to be worth sitting here longer and waiting for darkness? Then I notice the red come back, along with a rainbow. Some sunsets can be interesting, as clouds block the view, then the sun later shines through/under again. All the sudden you have colors coming back. It was quite the scene again, looking southeast from the tower still. I could just barely see the other end of the rainbow to the north.
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As the sun lowered further, this rainbow vanished, as did the red coloring. I just about headed back to the motel, but stuck around to shoot some blurred cloud shots during twilight. To see the best part of the chase, and a rather amazing(that it happened at all) and lucky display, click here to go to the final page. |
