John Denver

It seems a shame that I took so many beautiful pictures of waterfalls yesterday and all I shared with you was a picture of a pig - and a fake pig at that. We were busy hiking with no cell phone coverage. 

The main point of the trip was to take Milky Way pictures. I wanted to practice taking multiple pictures of the Milky Way and stacking them. Well, we had cloud cover. The main spot known for astrophotography there is Big Meadow. There were many cars, each with someone eager to take pictures of the Milky Way, each with someone disappointed and the thick cloud cover. One by one we each gave up. I did get a really intense/weird/creepy/interesting picture of a city with cloud cover above and two spots where the clouds were reaching down to the city. It looks like it belongs in Stranger Things. 

At midnight my friend went to her car to get something she forgot and came back, excited, saying the stars were out. Back we went and I got ... a few pictures of clouds and stars. 

Therefore I will focus on the pleasure of being somewhere substantially cooler and with much lower humidity. (The heat has returned.) I will focus on the pleasure of a complete break from the usual return and the nice hikes. The park was filled with wildflowers and extremely large butterflies. It turns out my friend has hiked nearly every trail, knew where everything was, had a book on the hiking trails, and even had a pass into the park. She was the best guide one could possibly imagine. Yesterday we saw a bear cub and hours later a bear. We were in the car both times. The cub sighting was too quick to get a picture and my pictures of the adult bear aren't very good. We saw lots of deer who couldn't care less about our presence. The deer in the park near me often stay close without running away - but remain alert. These deer seriously did not even acknowledge us. 

I took plenty of panorama shots to practice stitching together. I did it with my new tripod head and I did it handheld.