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Well this was a great morning. To me it's just another case of being willing to go out and look. Willingness to do so is the only way to see anything cool. Sure I'm probably willing to a sad degree though lol. The night before I was thinking of waking up early to head over to Desoto Bend to try and photograph deer and birds. I really did not think it'd get cold enough for fog. Then my sister calls and says she is seeing some moisture rising from the corn, and that she thought it was cool enough out, that maybe overnight it would drop low enough for lake/river fog(as well as corn moisture). It just got me more interested in actually waking up and heading out. I check the surface obs as I go to sleep around 1 a.m. I did not think it would get cold enough even then, as the dewpoints were still sort of high. They were better to the north and sinking south. So I go to bed, setting my alarm for 5:30("yay"). I fall asleep around 1:30, only to dream I'm actually awake and heading out to Desoto Bend. The dream was strange. In the dream the trip sucked and was not worth it. Then all the sudden I'm woken by my cat, at 4:45....the cat that I swore had already been shut out of my room. He still has to wake me up a few hours into sleep, so he's shut out of the room 90% of the time. I look at him, after 3 hours of strange sleep, and say thanks for waking me up. Before I shut him out I look out the window and to my surprise.....FOG...lots of it. I get out of bed, turn the puter on, and log onto the net. I figured I may as well check satellite and see how "thick" this fog is. I didn't want to bother if it was just really cloudy too. Of course it was clear as a bell on the infrared image. Next check, surface obs....upper 50s. Cool. That was all I needed to know. Desoto opens 30 minutes before sunrise, or 6:10 this day(hence my 5:30 alarms since it's 15 minutes away). I was up at 4:45 though, but got ready anyway. I left around 5:25 knowing I'd be early and just have to shoot around. The one mistake I don't like to make is being late. As I cross the bridge into Iowa I note the cargill steam plumes sticking out above the fog. I thought, hmm, fairly thick fog, but not too thick. Murray Hill soon crossed my mind as that is what I've wanted the most, a good view from there looking down on fog. Problem is it's a bit east of the river and not close to Desoto Bend. I've driven past Desoto for there in the past, only to run out of fog on the way there, and having to drive back to Desoto. Murray Hill is a good 35 minute drive from home. So it's a good 40 minutes wasted if it's no good(it's 20 miles from the current Desoto entrance...actually probably a couple more), rather than going to Desoto. My thought was, it is still way early anyway, I will just head up there and if I run out of fog I'll turn around. I hit some decent gaps, but soon hit thick fog again. The closer I got, the more excited I became. Once I was to Little Sioux Iowa, and in pea soup, I knew it was going to be cool from up on the hill. I reached the parking lot a good 45 minutes before sunrise. It was fairly dark out yet, but I ran up the hill anyway. This is a big hill, at least for this area(biggest around for many many miles). The hill is part of the Loess Hills. Just west of these it gets perfectly flat, before you reach more hills on the west side of the Missouri River in Nebraska. The above shot was at F4, 100 ISO for 30 seconds.
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For me it was jaw dropping up there. I wish that road was a smidge busier so I could do that with cars a few more times. That was the only car heading that direction that I saw. The lights down there in the fog are that of Little Sioux Iowa. To get here you drive through that town, then east out of it. Follow that road up into the hills. Not far into them you'll come to a gravel parking lot on the right. It's real easy to miss if you don't watch for it. It is right after you see a pull off on the left side.
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Little Sioux poking out of the clouds again. It would vanish from time to time.
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Looking north. I think that is the Soldier River.
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Glad I got out of bed and made the drive! On a whopping 3 hours of sleep.
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You can see the road that comes up here in this one. You can also see the pull off I mentioned. Go right around the corner and you'll see the parking lot. Then you have the "small" climb on foot of course.
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This area of wind was pretty cool to watch spread out.
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