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.

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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.

late day cloud-gazing - animals in the sky?

I was taking a few shots of the evening sky. It got pretty dramatic - heated - active - impressive.

I remember as a child, 

how our dad would get us kids watching the skies, 

CLOUD-GAZING.

It was loads of fun - great memories!

Using my imagination I could see different scenes.
The first thing that came to mind is a baby elephant.
It's walking from right to left in profile, the head is the big vertical cloud in the center, the body is the right half of the photo.   Can you see it?

Then I saw it as 2 different figures - like they were confronting each other.

The vertical cloud could be like a bull, up on its hind lefgs like it's about to pound down on the head-and-shoulders of another animal. This one looks like it's got its head down, ready to charge, like a ram. hmmmm, wonder if there's a horn or antler down there.

IF YOU SEE ANYTHING ELSE LET ME KNOW.

The Plane! The Plane!

There is a smaller local airport on the other side of the river. On beautiful sunny days it’s very pleasurable to hear the distant drone of a plane gearing up to fly up into the air, then you see it climbing up into the air in front of  the mountain, and finally soaring across the sky as though it’s chasing the clouds. Sometimes it turns and flies overhead, other times it disappears in the distance behind the mt, becoming an increasingly smaller speck.  After a bit of time passes, there’s the distant drone…  

One day in mid-May, I was walking on the levee along the Susquehanna river near the airport. Had the opportunity to see one plane as it was preparing to land. It’s exhilarating to see one of those seemingly “tiny” aircraft at such a much closer proximity. 

Sunset Series

 These photos were taken one after the other, a few minutes apart, one evening in mid-May, 2013. I didn't change any settings on my camera, but I zoomed out in the last to see more along the mountains.

 This 3rd photograph feels inspirational to me... I love the plane streaking up higher and higher.

This is my 2nd post in my ... I guess you can call it a diary.... of the mountain. It's also in early June, as a storm was approaching late afternoon. Dramatic! The wind was kicking up and you can see the storm clouds gathering, moving quickly towards us minutes before the rain reaches our side of the river. A closeup is at

http://fineartamerica.com/featured/storms-coming-christina-verdgeline.html showing the bright area surrounded by the heavy grey clouds.