the 4th of July

I LOVE the excitement of the celebration, and the sense of community when everyone gathers to listen to the philharmonic perform, usually climaxing with  Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture,  just as the first rockets shoot up into the air.
 I started taking MANY photos on Independence Day, from my window. (It was much to hot and humid to be walking around outside, especially since I'd hurt my ankle, but I knew with my view of "da valley" I'd see multiple celebrations.  I kept missing them, tried different settings on my camera... didn't like the looooong "fireworks" setting. WOW, so many photos!!! I edited out quite a few.

    But first: here's the lovely evening sky. I set my chair at the window 

      and started shooting around 8:40pm.

then zooming in a little towards the right.

a panorama after the sun dropped beyond the mountain ridge

And here are some of the shots of fireworks in different spots across the Susquehanna River,

on the West Side of the Wyoming Valley.

*******

The main local fireworks that evening were at Kirby Park, across the river in Kingston, PA,

a little over 2 miles away, south of my location - to the LEFT of my mountain view.

******

I turned left & zoomed in when I started hearing all the blasts, and here are some of the higher ones I saw, just over the treetops:

The grand finale starts:

This is my favorite:

I call it " Fire Art"

(available at http://christina-verdgeline.artistwebsites.com/ )

FOG LIFTING one early morning

Here are a few shots of fog lifting... the clouds slowly disperse before the sun actually came out. They are lifting up from the Susquehanna River in the Wyoming Valley here, in NEPA. These photos catch some of the ethereal quality I find spectacular in the fog and mist. (ok, sorry, the 1st one's a little blurry, but I like to see the fogginess between the mountains as well as in front.)

The next shows a bird that has a front-row seat to the view. (This view is off to the right of the view above.)

A version of the bird photo is available in the "My Mountain" Gallery at  http://christina-verdgeline.artistwebsites.com/?tab=artworkgalleries .

A wider view.

weird cloud

Okay, this is not at my mountain, but it is nearby. 

It's such a strange cloud that showed up all of a sudden.

Almost seems like a 'creature from the sky lagoon' swooping down to swallow the sun. 

Kind of cool, actually.

Interesting.

The day was unsettled in mid-May 2013, breezy, yet with a heavy 

it-will-be-storming-sometime-soon feeling in the air.