Last day in the Palouse

Today started out with a trip north of Colfax, to shoot this really beautiful old tree, just that the sun did not post as there was a pretty good layer of clouds....so...work with what you have! I loved the shape of the tree, I loved the cloud structure...just the wonderful illumination of the land did not appear...so ... work with what you have I kept saying to myself.....a little work in PhotoShop and a Black and White conversion in Nik Silver Efex Pro and you have the image here. After that I had a nice breakfast at the Top Notch with a few of the remaining workshop folks, Dan and John. After breakfast I needed to get some laundry done and then headed out in the afternoon, with no certain plan, but a ramble north into the dusty back country. The farmers were working and I came across a fire in the fields. This farm work is fraught with troubles and today was one big one for one farmer. It appeared as though a truck caught on fire and then the grasses went. As I pulled up three fire vehicles came racing down the dirt road.

I shot until the blaze started to get under control, but the site remined me its not all beauty here, there is danger too! I continued to ramble and ended up doing some iPhone work on old cars again. As I drove back I saw some combines harvesting and I stopped to shoot, realized my tripod was not in the car...a moment of panic struck...where did I leave it?? What was my last stop...I quickly remembered and rushed to the spot...well there it was sitting in the field with three parked combines just where I left it two hours ago!!! Whew....OK...well then as night was falling on my way back to Colfax, an owl flew out of the edge of the road and flew right into the car...I felt bad...but what could I do? I was certain it would be a coyote's dinner tonight or a raven's breakfast in the morning. My plan was to get back to Colfax and hit the car wash so that I could load my suitcases tomorrow without getting all dirty, so I did just that....then a problem happened, the car locked itself as I was washing it! Everything I had was locked inside...cell phone...wallet....keys. I found the Colfax Sherriffs office walking through town and they called a local tow service and they opened the car. So an hour later and $107.00 it was unlocked again....
I thought I should get back to the hotel fast before anything else happened! Now its lights out!