I got out of bed around 7:40 after I heard hot air balloons nearby. I grabbed some trail mix and went outside.

I got in the Jeep and drove a little way to get a better angle on the balloons. There were more balloons this morning than yesterday morning, and I was able to get several nice images with two balloons in the frame. In the image to the left, two balloons are flying low among the red rock. With a better angle and a polarizer, the image didn't need as much work as the one from yesterday, and it looks much better too. Just another example of the importance of capturing a good image instead of trying to create a good image in post processing.

I returned to the RV around 8:40 and had my normal breakfast. I downloaded then downselected the images I took. Around 9:30, we had about 35 people in our boondocking spot — the balloon folks were having their champagne breakfast, and we weren't invited! The "zoo" left around 10:00. I worked up a blog entry.
I had lunch around 12:20 while finishing the December 2009 Outdoor Photographer. J made a batch of her mother's meatloaf then a batch of Ghirardelli Caramel Turtle Brownies. I helped J finish processing an image of Denali, then I processed images for a stock submission. We left at 4:00 in the Jeep.


We went to an overlook near the airport to photograph the red cliffs at sunset. It's a popular location, and there were lots of other people. The scene wasn't too photogenic with practically no clouds, but some of the formations made nice patterns and lit up nicely at sunset (above).

We returned to the RV around 6:30.

We had dinner of J's Mother's Meatloaf, potatoes au gratin, and fresh broccoli. I enjoyed a glass of Charles Shaw Merlot. We had some of the Ghirardelli Caramel Turtle Brownies for dessert, and they weren't as good as we had remembered them to be.

After doing the dishes, I downloaded and downselected images from this afternoon. Then I processed two images for the blog and started to work up a blog entry.