Sunrise
Our beautiful, clear skies of last night were covered with clouds when we woke up. I got up at 6:00 and walked around the area to see how the full moon was lighting the temples from the west. I was also looking for a closer vantage point to shoot moonset. In the time it took me to walk around Temple of the Moon, the moon went from shining brightly between two groups of clouds to completely obscured by a thick layer that filled the western horizon. When I walked around the north side of the Temple of the Moon, the western face was lit with Orion shining above it. Five minutes later, the stars were gone and Temple of the Sun had also lost its glow. I should have known better than to go out without a camera and tripod--even to scout locations.
The sun rose through a thin sliver below the clouds about 7:00. We had about 5 minutes of pink around the temples before everything dulled to gray. The sun broke through the clouds again for a few minutes as we climbed a ridge on our way back to camp. We pulled over and found a great place to shoot both temples in one image and a perfect place to shoot moonset over a notch on Temple of the Sun (if we are ever here for moonset in October again).
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| Temple of the Moon at Sunrise | Temple of the Moon |
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| Temple of the Sun | Temple of the Moon | Temple of the Sun & Temple of the Moon |
As quickly as the sun broke through the clouds, it disappeared behind thicker clouds that would obscure it for most of the morning. The sky was clear in every direction except where we wanted to shoot, so we gave up and drove back to the campground. Our only stop was to shoot some colorful bentonite hills from the road.
Our sleep-deprived night confined us to camp to eat lunch and get some much-needed sleep. We were lulled to sleep by leaves pinging off the roof of the motorhome as the breeze continued to strip the cottonwood and locust trees around us.
In the late afternoon, the resident herd of deer settled in to graze on the grass between the lines of campsites right outside our window. Sunset highlighted stretches of the sky in pink as we started preparing dinner. We rewarded ourselves with barbecue ribs, wild rice, peas, and apple pie for dessert. That made up for the peanut butter sandwiches last night.
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