Sunday, July 31, 2011

To the Cochran coke ovens, almost

In August of last year, I had gone a short distance north of the Florence Kelvin Highway before it got dark and I turned back. I've been meaning to check out that road in the daytime and since it was too hot to do much else yesterday, I went out there. There was a chance of storms, and I thought I might be able to get some nice pictures of storms too, but I usually manage to be in the wrong place to do that.


On Cochran Road, with rugged mountains in the distance.


I drove through that light shower on the way through Florence.

I made lots of stops along the way to take pictures. There are some pretty mountains on the other side of the Gila river. I think the only way to get back there would be to walk. Some roads get near them, but I don't think any go through them. I stitched together several panoramas and will put something close to the full size versions of those on Panoramio.

I think Skid and I had been on Cochran road several years ago. The river looked very familiar when I got down there. In spots, the river looked like it might be shallow enough to wade across, but the water was muddy so I don't know for sure. Also, it looked like it was moving fast enough that even if it didn't come up to your knees, it could knock you off your feet. I don't think I'll be trying to cross it.


The Gila river.

There were some nice clouds around, so almost all of the pictures are HDRIs. I think I got some nice pictures of rain showers, too. As I was driving out, I came to the top of a hill with a thunderstorm right in front of me. The lightning flashes were lasting a long time, at least half a second. I figured I should be able to get a picture of that. I caught a lightning bolt on my second attempt. Encouraged, I tried 10 or 15 more times and missed every one.


A slow lightning bolt.

With all the rain around, I was a little worried that I would get caught at a wash crossing. They were all dry, though. Click below to see all of the pictures.

2011_07_30

3 comments:

Adam Elliott said...

Gotta love those slow lightning bolts. Nice shot!

Dave said...

Love the last photo. Great shots all of them. Thank you for sharing!

Unknown said...

Thanks, Adam and Dave. Some day (when I get that round tuit), I'm going to build a circuit to catch those lightning bolts.