Cloudbank at sunrise

A beautifully-sculpted cloud flies over the Rockies at sunrise.

Autumn sunsets

Cool.  Calm.  Quiet.

Sunset over Lyons, Colorado.

Beautiful wave clouds over the front range of the Rockies.

City lights come up and the stars come out as sunset fades over Lyons.

Mount Meeker, Long's Peak, and Mount Lady Washington.

Cloud bank behind Mount Meeker.

Saw this one coming.

I am getting decent at predicting a good sunset a bit ahead of time.  Saw this one coming about an hour before it peaked and also guessed some flamey clouds would hang pretty close above Mt. Meeker and Long's Peak, so I shot with a longer focal length that I usually do.

I never get tired of these.​

First snow in town . . .

One of my friends [Hi, Christine!] always laughed at me becuase I always talked about the weather when she asked what was going on with me.  She seemed to think it odd that the weather mattered.  But then, she was living in New York City, and not being affected by it much.  I was living in Tucson, and always planning my outdoors activities to avoid the 100+ degree heat in the summer.

Even while I was living in Tokyo I watched the weather, though - in those those narrow slits of sky between the tall buildings!​

​Now that I am in Colorado, I get big doses of sky - over the plains to the east as I drive down to Boulder on the Foothills highway, or over the mountains here at home.

And I watch the weather more than ever, because in addition to my regular hikes in Rocky Mountain National Park and surrounding areas, I now have crops to tend - my tiny herb and tomato garden.​

Temps dropped fast yesterday, and the weather report was calling for frost overnight, so I went out after work and brought in all the tomatoes and a clipped a lot of herbs.  I wish the tomatoes could have had another week or so, but I think most of them will ripen on the window sill:

Hopefully, mature enough to ripen on the window sill.​

Like this.​

​We had another spectacular sunset, after which the temperatures continued to drop, and when I climbed into bed, I could here snowflakes hitting the skylights like tiny footfalls.

​We woke up to about half an inch of snow:

​A dusting of snow over the town of Lyons, CO.

Harvest Moon setting over Long's Peak

The so-called "Harvest Moon" is the full moon closest to the Autumn equinox - one of two times during the year during which the plane of the earth's orbit is not tilted in relation to the Sun, and day and night are of approximately equal length [the word "equinox" means "equal night" in Latin].

All full moons rise at around sunset, and set at around sunrise, because a full moon occurs when the sun is on the other side of Earth from the moon.

So, last night the moon rose at 6:20 PM and the Sun set 25 minutes later.  And this morning, sunrise officially occurred at 6:57 AM and the Moon set at 7:31.  Of course, with all the mountains around here, I don't see the sun or the moon come up until well after the official times.  And they both drop below the mountains to the west of me well before the official times as well.

What was special about this morning, though, is that the moon set right over Mount Meeker and Long's Peak, the two high mountains on my western horizon - the summit of Long's Peak at 14,259 feet [4,346 m] being the highest point in Rocky Mountain National Park.

It wasn't the most spectacular sunrise, with cloud cover to the east of me keeping the sun from lighting up the clouds as sometimes happens.  But still, it was a beautiful sight, with a dusting of snow on the mountains, the red rock cliffs, and the aspens golden down in town.

6:47 AM: The Harvest Moon slides down and right [North] towards the summits of Mt. Meeker and Long's Peak, over the town of Lyons, Colorado.

6:53 AM: Last glimpse of the Harvest Moon before it is hidden behind a cloud bank hovering over Mt. Meeker and Long's Peak.  Official moonset didn't occur until 40 minutes later at 7:31 AM.