From our house in the middle of the picture, we looked up, and the clouds looked a bit ominous, so we put on our windproof coats before heading to the top of Pilot Butte.

From the top, the only clouds shedding rain were already past and heading east.

To the west, the sun had gone down, and a few people were still around taking pictures. That’s our house, just above the fence, to the right of the woman.

The sky was beginning to get visually complex, with various altitudes of clouds and a scrambling of visual forms.

I looked a little to the right and zoomed out to Black Butte and Mt. Jefferson.

A little further to the right, the clouds seen in the photo at the top have changed.

Turning back to Black Butte and Jefferson, things had changed a little too. Was it for the better?

To the north, Mt. Hood is nearly a hundred miles away, and the increasingly hills in the distance show the atmospheric haze.

Compared to the beginning photo, seen at the top, the scene has filled in with more colors and changes in the clouds in just twelve minutes. The camera automatically labels photos with the exact time.

Zooming in two minutes later magnifies the brilliance of the clouds behind Mt. Washington

People had come down from the plaza behind us to get unobstructed views as the show comes to THE END.

Most people had left as we got back into our trusty old Subaru Outback and headed home. It was an hour well spent since we had headed out.