Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Clouds

I was driving down to the surface street this morning when I suddenly realized that the only clouds in the sky were these. Here on the eastern side of the Sierras, I'm used to interesting clouds. If you remember from school, it's all a part of the orographic lifting over the mountain block that makes photographs of our clouds find their way into textbooks.



I might as well have had a bumper sticker that said "I brake for clouds" because that's what I did,multiple times. Every time I drove into another valley, I'd think, oh man, look at them now. Pull over, get out camera, shoot from car window.



Suddenly I realized that I had reached the clouds and was driving under them. Brake, grab camera, get out of car, shoot picture, see man in truck in driveway across road with tractor on trailer, wave, get back in car, go through gears to get to speed because car is coming and promise self not to stop anymore or risk being late for work. I'm bummed because my brand new camera, now two months old, needed to have the battery charged. But you can still see the lovely eastern Sierra clouds. The wind has blown hard all day and snow is forecasted for tomorrow, however, my head and knee have not confirmed that forecast. When I drove into the next valley, I realized that these clouds were the northern-most of Reno's cloud cover. Sometimes they will get a storm that will completely miss us - weird.

4 comments:

margene said...

I need the same bumper sticker. Sometimes I'm crazy enough to take pictures while driving. Great cloud shots. We're expecting snow tomorrow, too.

Purple Fuzzy Mittens said...

I love the big open western skies! I was terribly claustrophobic when I spent a few years in North Carolina. Had to get back west as soon as possible.

Birdsong said...

Such wonderful photos! I do have to wonder why they aren't storm clouds this time of the year.

:shazzy: said...

ooh, I love clouds!