May 22 -- part 4, the end of the day, with lots of editing

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Here is a link to the interactive expedition map.



We celebrated our daughter's birthday with dinner in the lodge.

Then we headed out to the rim to observe the sunset.  It's a time of day when exposure is really difficult.  If you expose for the sky, you get this.

But if you expose for the ground, you get this.  (The sky in the next image is blown out, so it's the same color as this page.....)

This is an edited version of the previous, lightened up and contrast intensified.  See the trail in the bottom right corner?  We'll walk that on the 23rd.

Closer crop of the lower right of the above, lightened more and contrast increased more.

I thought it was odd that people were down there when it was getting darker and darker, but I am far less surprised by peculiar behavior from supposedly human individuals than I was last October....  Or perhaps it's more true to say "just as surprised, but for less time, as I have been forced to become more accustomed to incomprehensible (and indefensible!) behavior...."



Here's what the ground looked like.  The naked eye (and the phone camera) could see it just fine.

Exposed for the sky, this is what the not-phone camera saw.

This is the image above, with the foreground lightened and made more contrasty.  This is much closer than the above to what I experienced, standing there at the time.

Zoomed on the trails visible in the above.

Contrast increased, so the trails are more visible (as mostly-horizontal lines).  We'll be walking down there on the 23rd.

Sunset, exposed for the sky.

Same photo as above, with foreground lightened, etc.

This next one was exposed for the ground, not the sky.

I believe the previous was taken at 8:48.  This one was taken at 9:10.  This is what the not-phone camera remembers.

I suspect this is closer to what it looked like to the naked eye.

Looking elsewhere.  Camera.

Same image, lightened.

What there are no pics of, but what was very cool, is that we went back out to the rim well after nightfall.

I saw more stars than I'd seen since I was in Tuscany in 2013.  We were hoping for the Milky Way (and there were several people out there with tripods, etc, etc, who were prepared for the long haul, and intending to capture the Milky Way after it appeared).  But the Milky Way wasn't going to come up until some time after 1:00 am, as I recall.  It was cold out, and we were tired, so we didn't wait up for it.

I'm glad I can pick out the Big Dipper, even in a star-filled sky.  It surely helps with orientation.

So many stars...................


Here's a link to the next post about the Grand Canyon trip.

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