We came to the desert because it doesn’t rain. Well, it rained today, just about all day. We were able to get out of the way of the rain sometimes, but other times there was no escaping the torrential downpours. Rain in the desert can be very dangerous, especially because there are lots of unpaved roads that get impassable quickly and steep canyons that fill up with water just as quickly. We did start out the day in the sun, went through many hours of driving in the rain and finally circled back into a wonderful afternoon as the storm broke up.
We started the day in Capitol Gorge just to see if we “got everything” in last year’s trip. A solid wall of rain chased us out of that canyon.
Before the rain started
We went on to Factory Butte, but the rain beat us there. Undaunted, we came up with an alternative view of the iconic landmark.
We headed off to Goblin State Park just to assess its usefulness as fodder for our photographic efforts. We drove through rain on the way there and arrived just as the rain was tapering off. Did I mention mud earlier? Goblin State Park was filled with that glorious red mud that you cannot possibly get off of anything. Ever. We never unpacked the cameras, ate some lunch at the shelter and headed back to Factory Butte. We could see the weather breaking up and knew that Factory Butte would be in the sun with great clouds in the background.
That's a little bit better.
Our prognostications were correct and the weather at Factory Butte was wonderful. The Sun was lower in the sky, great clouds in the background. We made some good compositions of Factory Butte and headed to a vantage point that would give us “the shot” for the day. Brooks set up his camera and waited. And waited. And waited. (One waits a lot when one is a landscape photographer.) For those of you not familiar with area surrounding Factory Butte, here’s what the area looks like:
Five miles from the nearest paved road.
This geologic formation is not conveniently located. As is often the case, the clouds and sun did not cooperate with our desires and we decided to pack up and move on. Brooks attempted to start the car. The car, also in a spirit of non-cooperation, did not choose to start. We found this troubling. There was no beer in the travel cooler. What would we drink? The proper course of action was to wait a bit for the car battery to recover from the daily abuse we heaped upon it and pray. I am happy to report that combination of events was successful in persuading the car battery to do its duty.
We headed back to the campground, photographing along the way and never turning the engine off. We decided it was the best course of action.
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