Moody Mojave Morning
The wind was fierce across the desert, pounding and shaking the tent so that I got very little sleep during the night. I was up as soon as there was light, but the wind prevented me from making coffee or cooking breakfast, so I was driving along the dirt roads toward the highway that would take me to town. I made slow progress, because I stopped often to gape open-mouthed at the scenes the desert, mountains, and sky were conspiring to create for me. All alone in the desert, with not another person or car anywhere in sight, it did feel as if Nature had put on the morning's show just for my benefit.
The sight of a gigantic cloud bank, dark and roiling, pouring over the mountains, creating rapidly-shifting cascades of light flashing and playing across the landscape, filled me with awe, not only at the power and beauty of Nature, but with gratitude that I should be there, in that place and time, to experience the beginning of a new day arriving with such magnificent glory.