Daily Archives: June 3, 2007

Saturday night sunset surprise

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I had just left a Saturday evening meeting at church when I saw that we were actually going to have a sunset, unlike all those past cloudy evenings! One of the most important elements of a good sunset photo is actually the foreground object, so I scrambled to think of a good place to go. I didn’t have much time because, as they say, daylight was a-wastin’. So I bolted to Misty Waters to get an angle at the Square Buttes and the river.

When I got there I got a nice tower, the buttes, and a reflection off of the river…all lined up for the taking! I had to stand on top of the truck to get the shot I wanted, but that’s never stopped me before. It feels good to get a nice sunset photo, something that I’d been known for in the past but have had a hard time getting in recent memory. Part of it is that I’m a husband and a dad, and sunsets are occurring later and later in the day. The other reason is that the rains with which we’ve been blessed lately also block out the sun. I’m more than happy to go without blazing sunsets for a while in order to get that rain!

National Trails Day 2007

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Saturday, June 2nd was National Trails Day. I can’t say that I knew that, but I did “hit the trail” yesterday anyway. One of my motorcycles is a dual-sport bike, basically a street legal dirt bike, and I put it to both uses Saturday afternoon.

The trip took me to a few different trail heads north of Mandan. Not only did I visit the Square Buttes from the western side of the river, but I also stopped in to visit my friends who are setting up for the Price Hare Scramble race, which sadly I won’t be entering because of church. I wish those things were held on Saturdays! Then I ventured north to the Cross Ranch State Park for a bit, taking photos along the way.

The pictures I got were pretty cool, I’ll probably be posting them over the next few days. In my opinion, the land north of Mandan is some of the most beautiful country North Dakota has to offer, especially now that everything is so green. It’s a long drive on a thumping dirt bike, but that makes it easy to deal with the gravel road and the dirt trails! The last thing I wanted to do when I got back, however was sit down…