It was a dark morning in Ghost Ranch, New Mexico, home and inspiration to Georgia O'Keefe. I awoke at daybreak, ready to search out the perfect scene to paint. The hike was short, only a mile or so, but it climbed straight up to the top of a butte. From the towering peak, I peered dizzyingly down to the ground.

So enchanted I was, I hardly noticed that the ever changing clouds and changed to a decidedly darker hue. I realized suddenly that the mountainside a few hundred feet behind me had disappeared completely behind a cloud: a dark, electric blue cloud that looked like something from Gotham City. It had grown suddenly silent.. then the deep rumbling started. I was exposed without shelter, a mile from the ground, with no rain jacket. So, I ran.

Like a leaping horse, I ran down the rocky trail, seeing for the first time all the blackened and barren pine trees that had been electrically stripped of their foliage. I ran, the cloud following me, the wind starting to whip, lightning cracking and snapping just behind me.

I reached my van as the first thick drops started splattering heavily around me. Ten minutes later I saw several sodden and unhappy hikers lurch to safety. But I sure got some great photos!