Craving Wyoming Skies

The long, hot, bone-dry summer has been sapping my creativity, I'm afraid. I feel a bit as though my muse is gone. I seldom have the urge to pick up my camera lately, and when I do, I seldom see anything worth shooting. Perhaps, as they say, contentment isn't conducive to art.

Last week, walking to the bus stop, I saw the first photographable scenes that I've seen in months. It was late in the afternoon, before an evening rainstorm, and behind some low-hanging dark clouds, the light was phenomenal as it shone on the buildings downtown. There's a certain kind of light and a certain gray sky that makes every color richer and more saturated. That was the light I had that evening.

...Of course, I didn't have my camera with me that day.

Today, I started craving a road trip - a nice, long road trip to somewhere far from here, like Montana or Washington. The weather has been pleasant the last week or so, with temperatures blessedly dropping a bit, and I find myself wanting to get out of here and away from the office for a while. Scott and I haven't had a chance to take any road trips together, and I'm dying to reprise Claudia's and my trip westward to San Diego, or the trip my family took from Forth Worth to Canada when I was about fourteen.

On that long-ago road trip, there were four of us squished into a VW Jetta, and my kid sister kept invading my limited personal space. But what I remember most clearly were the long nights we drove in the middle of nowhere in desolate, seemingly unpopulated states like Wyoming, toward the next bit of civilization, and how vividly I could see the stars, with no light pollution or clouds interfering with my view.

I made Scott promise that we'd take our road trip before he starts working. We're tangled in bureaucratic immigration nonsense again, so it may be a while until then anyway, but I don't want this to be something we talk about but never do. We can do this. I just hope we do it soon.

I'll take my camera along.