Just a few more pictures...

Things have been a bit slow this month - with this big exciting road trip vacation coming up - that the camera hasn't really gotten that much use...

But I did try to take it out a few times. Once was to test it out, since I was out taking pictures and nearly broke the poor camera. I won't go into it too much since it is a bit embarrassing, but needless to say, cameras don't really appreciate getting soaked in water all that much.

After the camera came back to life from its near-death experience, I tried to think of something that would test to see if it still took pictures ok. It was a stormy day, so I went downtown at dusk. I set up at the capitol building and got a few shots of the twilight with a few storm-tossed clouds in the sky. Luckily I didn't get rained on there, but there was lighting off in the distance...

Then the 4th of July rolled around. I had tried to scope out a few good locations to get shots of the fireworks, and finally decided to head up to Fort Roots to see what it would look like there. Fort Roots probably has the best view of the skyline, and I was wanting to get a shot of the fireworks right over the skyline. Well it didn't work out that well, the place where they shot the fireworks off was a bit away from the skyline, but oh well.

That shot is kinda neat since there is a small firework going off from some backyard fireworks display. And there also a helicopter (the Ghetto Bird?) flying around at the top of the frame, which is a streak in the sky because of the long exposure.

Here is a shot that is a bit more zoomed in:

The camera didn't get much use after that, but I did take it out after work one day and drove around some. The first stop was at Pinnacle Mountain, where I walked the Kingfisher trail at the base of the mountain...

After that I drove on, and ended up back at the Big Dam Bridge...I was interested in checking it out since I heard that the river was flooded and had overrun the banks by the bridge. There was even an article in the paper that said how people were still trying to use the river trail eventhough it was covered in murky and muddy flood water. The river was up really high, and most of the area there was under water:

The high water still didn't keep people from trying to fish there:

From the bridge it was easy to see how high the water was. Looking down there is a little spit of land that tons of people fish from, which was flooded. I took pictures from there last month in a spot that is now underneath a few feet of the Arkansas River.

The Big Dam Bridge is probably the best place to catch a sunset in town now, but the sunset that night was ok - I've seen better...

The sunset was interesting, however, in how the sun set directly on top of Pinnacle Mountain:

And one more quick shot of the last rays of the sunset hitting the clouds:

And then one shot with the moon rising too:

After that the camera sat and rested for a bit, which is probably good since I'm going on a road trip in a few days and will probably take a ton of shots. I'm really excited just for the fact that I have an entire week off from work, and that I'm actually traveling far from home. Most of my recent trips were just weekend trips to Dallas and back, so it will be nice to do a bit of traveling...

Yay vacations!

Now I should probably get back to packing...