Bike riding and hiking under the almost full moon

 Friday night was the night before the full moon, which means the moon rises before the sun sets. So I got the kids to go with me for a bike ride (while my husband attended a school event, bless him). The moon was already quite high as we started out.

It didn't take long for the mountain shadows to stretch out across the valley and tap the mountains on the other side.

Despite the pending darkness, Desert Girl asked if we could go on an adventure hike down a gully. I couldn't resist. So we took off, trying to wend our way through the brush.

I had Desert Boy pose to hold the moon.

Eventually the canyon got too brushy, so we climbed out and walked on the higher ground. Along the way we found a desiccated rabbit.

It was getting pretty dark as we biked back, and I was able to adjust my camera settings to get a pretty good closeup of the moon. It's so cool seeing the lava fields and craters that are so far away.

 The next few days the moon will be setting in the early morning, and that is always a pretty sight too.

June Full Moon Hike

 Great Basin National Park holds full moon hikes during the summer, and we had never been so I took Desert Boy to the one in early June. We had to get tickets to attend the event, and we got the last one at about 2 in the afternoon. This is a popular hike!

As we drove up the Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive, we were treated to some beautiful evening views.

The summit trailhead parking lot was full. Before long Ranger Steve started the program. It was colder than we thought it would be--30 degrees cooler than the valley bottom, hence all the coats you see in the photo. It was still rather light, but we would have a leisurely stroll to Stella Lake with stops--and no lights.

The aspens hadn't yet started budding out. At our stops we learned about various things. One of the coolest things was looking at the earth's shadow as our planet spun.

It's an interesting experience going on a hike with 40 other people.

Desert Boy had decked himself out with his junior ranger paraphernalia, and before long we were hanging out with the rangers at the end of the group. Steph graciously answered all sorts of Desert Boy's questions and kept him entertained.

It was fun seeing the moon appear over the horizon.

I kept stopping to take photos of it and switching lenses to try to capture it best for the Full Moon Challenge.

As we hiked, the appearance of the moon kept changing.

When we got to Stella Lake, the moon was hidden behind the ridge. But it gradually rose, lighting up the snow-covered slopes of Wheeler Peak.

And then the moon crested the ridge, reflecting in the lake.

It was a fun experience, and we'd love to go on more moonlit hikes without flashlights.

Have you ever been on a full moon hike? July has two full moons, July 1 and July 31.

April Happenings

 As I went through my April photos, I realized I had a lot of odds and ends that I hadn't blogged about but wanted to include for when I print out my blog book for the year. April was a fairly busy month, with a train ride, t-ball, lots of bike riding (including Desert Girl without training wheels), cave rescue class, junior cave scientists, and lots of bird sightings. We also had wonderful clouds, although most of them didn't produce much in the way of precipitation.

Fortunately we had clear skies for the lunar eclipse. Generally I only take Milky Way photos during the new moon, but with the eclipse, it was dark enough I could get the galaxy (plus some light pollution from Las Vegas) plus the eclipsed moon all in one shot).

The moon turned so red during the eclipse. It was really beautiful, and I was glad I had gotten up to witness it. (If you didn't, there's another lunar eclipse in September!)

The photograph-the-full-moon challenge is going well, although I feel like in some ways I've reached the limitations of my equipment. But I will try to keep getting full moon photos in interesting locations. The next full moon is coming soon!

The kids were so excited Easter morning. We had a little Easter egg hunt in the house.

Then we got all dressed up to go to church. The kids sure clean up well!

And since we don't get enough of these, we did a family photo.

Later Desert Girl got a haircut because she was having trouble taking care of her longer hair and I was no longer willing to battle. She got a super cute haircut from Chandra. She has been taking really good care of it. And then last night she cut her own bangs quite noticeably. Sigh. Actually I laughed, which didn't make Desert Girl happy. I'll post a photo soon.

I have about four hours of EMT training every month to keep up my continuing education hours. This was one of the trainings, about pediatric emergencies taught by a pediatric nurse. It was really good training.

In the same location not much later we had a fun baby shower. It's so great to be welcoming a new baby into our community!

One of our frequent destinations is the post office parking lot, where we ride bikes, run around, and play on wagons. This photo must have been taken during spirit week, on pajama day.

The kids and I take various adventure walks. They love climbing trees, jumping over the creek, and building forts. And Desert Boy is very much into guns. I try not to roll my eyes too much.

The great horned owls are frequently in the yard. We welcome them. They are much preferable mousers than the mama skunk with her four young I saw last night.

Although we had such a dry winter, we did get a little extra snow in April, worrying us because all the fruit trees had blossomed so early. The snow looked pretty on the willows.

It's hard to believe May is almost over now. Maybe I'll catch up with it a little sooner than April!

A Night Under the Moon

 My friend Jenny had the great idea to take the kids for a moonlit hike. During the summer, Great Basin National Park offers full moon hikes to Stella Lake. Now that it's October, those hikes are over, but there was nothing to stop us from going ourselves! We decided that we would try Strawberry Creek instead of Stella Lake. One of the reasons is that we wanted to hear elk bugling, and indeed we did. In the photo above, we stopped to listen to the eerie sound.

 As we hiked, the nearly full moon rose over the ridge. We tried to have the kids keep their flashlights off. It wasn't easy for them, as they were not comfortable hiking at night with just the glow of the moon. Gradually, though, they got used to it.

 We've hiked the Strawberry Creek loop before, but in daylight. The kids fondly remembered the bridges.

It didn't take long to get to the top bridge. We stopped for snacks and photos. It was hard to get everyone to sit still! Can you see the Big Dipper in the background? (It's on the left.)

We decided to play around with long exposures and some flashlight writing. I set the camera to take a 30-second exposure, then keeping the headlight covered, ran over and wrote the word "moon." Then I illuminated us for a couple seconds. Again it was hard to keep everyone still, and I look like a ghost, but you get the idea! We'll have to work on this technique some more.

After the bridge we were out in the meadow, and it was so bright! The kids walked really fast, and by now it was no problem to hike in the moon light without flashlights.

I was amazed how bright everything was with just the moon. I dragged behind experimenting with photos.

We got to the bridge at the end right about bed time. It was the perfect length hike for the kids.

Later that night I woke up to go check out the lunar eclipse. I took a ton of photos but wasn't very happy with how they turned out. It reinforced my desire to do a 2015 Moon Photo Challenge. I'll have more up on the blog about that later, but basically the idea is to take a photo of the full moon each month, experimenting with different locations and techniques. I hope you'll join me!

Here's the full moon from under the fall colors.

The blood moon during the full eclipse.

And finally, the eclipse ending.

I was exhausted the next morning, but it was worth it.