Last shots of 2011

The past few years, I have tried to get out on New Year's Eve and take a picture of the last sunset of the year. So on Saturday, I tried to do everything right. I made sure the battery was fully charged, and that there was plenty of extra room on the memory card. I even remembered to bring the tripod too. Everything was set.

So I got to the car and started to drive out of the parking lot when I noticed something odd. There was a strange whump-whump-whump noise, and the drive was a bit rough. Which of course means only one thing - I had a flat tire. I parked and got out to see the damage, and yup, the driver side front tire was completely flat (funny that it's the driver side tire, I walked right by it before and didn't even notice it was flat).

So I stood by my car and said several curse words. The sky above me looked like it would be capable of producing a nice sunset. But while I'm no automotive expert, I know that you can't travel too far on a flat tire. I have an air compressor that can inflate a tire, so I plugged it in and considered my options. While the tire slowly reflated, I wondered if I should be risky and try to drive on it to get a shot of the sunset. But I let common sense tell me that I should probably try to get the tire fixed, even if it ruined a photo opportunity. So I ignored the sunset and made the (luckily) very short drive to a place that could repair the tire.

I was surprised to see that I wasn't the only person around who had car troubles that day. The place I chose had a line, and two more cars pulled in after me. After waiting over an hour, I was finally told that the my poor tire was too damaged to repair. So I had to fork over money for a new tire. Happy New Year's Eve to me!

So by the time my car was deemed drivable again, I had long missed the last sunset of 2011. But I decided to take a few shots anyways, and headed towards downtown. I decided to stop in Riverfront Park in North Little Rock, to try to get a few shots of the skyline. Here is a shot of downtown Little Rock and the Junction Bridge:


I tried to find a different angle to shoot the downtown skyline. So here is a shot including a few trees on the north side of the river:


So that's the final picture I'll post that was taken in 2011......

I'd like to thank everyone who has visited this little website over the past year. I'm still amazed that people will venture over here to look at my pictures and read my ramblings.

Here are some of the pictures of previous New Year's Eves. This was taken on December 31, 2010:


The last sunset of 2009:


And 2008:


And 2007: