Our plan was to shoot early morning light in the main canyon, return to our campsite for breakfast, and then do late afternoon light in the upper end of the canyon. If we still had time, we were going to drive the road above the tunnel before sunset to see if we could see the bighorn sheep again. As soon as we drove out of the campsite, we noticed the moon was above the Towers on the Virgin. Since Carol had slept in yesterday, she was interested in shooting moonset this morning. When we arrived at the old visitor center, we were the only ones there. As the moon dropped closer to the canyon rim, more and more photographers arrived. Moonset was an hour later today than yesterday, so the lighting wasn't quite as good. We still got some good shots, and I had another opportunity to shoot more panoramas and HDR setups.
After the moon set, we continued driving up the canyon. We didn't really see any new areas to
shoot. The areas we hadn't shot yesterday were afternoon shots.
We would get them return to shoot them later this afternoon.
As we drove back by Big Bend, I noticed some large dark objects
in the grasses beside the Virgin River. As we neared the Weeping
Rock area, I could tell the black objects were turkeys. We parked
in the Weeping Rock parking lot. I grabbed my long lens and hiked
back toward the turkeys. They weren't too concerned with me,
but it got even better when a mother and her young son herded
the turkeys right at me. At one point, one of the turkeys walked
up to within three feet of me. The challenge was that these turkeys
were pretty hyper while they were feeding. They have small heads
and they are constantly in motion. Add that to deep shade, and
I will be deleting a lot of images.
Then it was back to camp for breakfast. Carol wasn't feeling well, so she crashed. I figured it was a good opportunity to take care of my trip post cards and emails.
We grilled hamburgers and then just relaxed as we waited for the good afternoon light. As the
light started improving, Carol still wasn't feeling well. She
said I should go ahead on my own, but then I remembered it would
cost me $25 to get into the park without her pass. I didn't have
a shot in mind that was worth $25.00. I worked on HDR images
for awhile and then took a nap. It turned out to be a very relaxed
day.
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