I got up in time for sunrise at the airport overlook. J's not much of a morning person, and she wanted to pass. I grabbed some trail mix for a quick mini breakfast then left in the Jeep by myself around 6:20.

There were already a few other people at the airport overlook when I arrived, and more came later. I was hoping that the thin layer of clouds to the east would light up, but they only developed some faint color. The clouds to the south, with no way to incorporate them into an image, developed a nice orange. :( The formations to the west received some brief warm light after the sun crested the horizon (left). The color lasted less than a minute because the sun was already high to get above the formations to the east.

I returned to the RV around 8:15 and had my normal breakfast. We turned on the generator at 8:30 for an hour. We were getting just a little solar-electric power due to the low sun angle and thin layer of clouds, and we had used more electricity than usual yesterday. I downloaded the images I took this morning and downselected them in Capture One (C1). Then I selected and processed from this morning for the blog.

I had lunch around 11:55 of ham and swiss on rye while reading some of the February 2010 Outdoor Photographer. (I don't know what happened to the January issue.) I made my spaghetti sauce and got it simmering, then processed images for a stock submission. We left at 1:30 in the Jeep.
We went to the Palatki Heritage Site to see and photograph the Native American rock art and ruins. The rock art was interesting and there wasn't much left of the ruins. The most interesting feature there was a crevice in the cliff wall that Georgia O'Keeffe would appreciate (far left). J learned on her previous visit that Native Americans frequently get married right there so that they are reminded of, and/or blessed by, Mother Earth. The image was created by processing one RAW image twice to balance the exposure and then combining them in Photoshop.

Then we went to the Honanki Heritage Site to see and photograph the Native American rock art and ruins there. There were lots of interesting pictographs and some petroglyphs, but the afternoon light cast some bad shadows for photography in some areas. The flute player (near left) was one of the more interesting pictographs, and I framed it loosely to incorporate the features of the rock.
On our way back to the RV, we stopped to photograph some nice red rock formations in the late afternoon sun. Next thing we knew, a paraglider flew by and made several passes among the formations we were photographing (left).

We returned to the RV at 6:35 and I downloaded the images I took this afternoon while cooking dinner.

We had dinner at 7:05 of spaghetti with my spaghetti sauce and Pepperidge Farm cheese toast. The glass of Charles Shaw Merlot was perfect!

After dinner, I downselected the images form this afternoon, then processed three of them for the blog.