Wrapping Up the Day

After dinner and my mini photo safari at El Encanto, it was once again time to move on.

However, I was not quite ready to return to the Spur Cross.

First of all, I had to get gas for my rental. I sure as hell was not going pay an obscene $6.00 a gallon by returning a car with less than a full tank of gas. Better to gas up now and not owe the car rental place any more money than what I initially planned to pay.

While I was at the gas station, I forgot to check and see if it really did indeed sell booze.

Instead, I struck up a conversation with a fellow at the pump. We talked about tattoos.

I showed him my snake tattoo, and he showed me a design that he was going to have done in memory of his sister who recently died. Then he showed me a Native American style design that he had on his arm where each feather represented a member of his family.

Here was a fellow to whom family seemed very important.

Getting my change back from the clerk inside the mini-mart, I turned the car to head back towards the B & B.

But first I was going to stop at the Satisfied Frog to pick up a 6-pack of chili hard lemonade so that I could have one while packing and bring the rest home.

I also picked up one bottle of the Cave Creek South of the Border Porter. However, I drew the line at buying a can of Billy Beer. And seeing the sign warning buyers not to drink this beer even more convinced me to stay away.

Why would I want to buy a beer and not drink it? And besides, there were extremely few canned beers that I would even consider buying. So Billy Beer remained at the Satisfied Frog, where it seemed to have been obviously gathering dust.

Now was time to return to the Spur Cross and make my daily call to Ariana.

The sun was starting to set, and I wanted to go out and take a few more pictures before it got too dark. I never did get around to taking pictures of the Spur Cross Bed & Breakfast.

However by now it was already too dark to get a decent picture unless I changed the camera settings, which I did not feel like doing. As a result, this picture of the entrance to the Spur Cross B & B came out way too dark.

But, let's see how much I can lighten up in the computer. Quite a big difference isn't it?

Seeing that is was too dark to get any decent pictures of the B & B, I decided to try my hand at taking pictures of the clouds at sunset.

The only clouds I could see were those over the mountain way yonder.

Here's a close-up of the cloud at the right hand of the picture.

And here's a close-up of the other cloud ~ the one on the left.

I kind of liked this shot of the cloud through the mesquite branches.

As the sun was sinking lower, it was time to go up to the patio so that I could get some better shots.

Carolyn was up on the patio, too, with her camera. She had the same idea in mind ~ taking pictures of the sunset.

Carolyn said that there was lightning coming out of the cloud and hitting the top of the mountain. I did see the lightning. But my finger was never fast enough on the shutter button to capture it.

I even tried shooting several frames one after another in order to capture that elusive lightning. No such luck.

The sun was already fast fading.

I mentioned to Carolyn that judging from the wind direction, it seemed as though the cloud with the lightning was heading our way.

(And I thought about how I would be able to get to the airport were it to rain and give rise to flash floods.)

But Carolyn said, "Don't bet on it." The weather that's up in the mountains doesn't necessarily get to the foot hills and valleys.

Sure enough, Carolyn was right. A short while later, the big cloud with the thunderhead had broken up and was scattering along the ridge of the mountains.

I took my shower so I would not have to take one the next morning.

And now it was time to crack open a cold one ~ the S.O.B. Porter in this case ~ and pack my bags.

That being done, I savored my left-over guacamole, wrote in my journal before popping it into the suit case, and went to bed.

Tomorrow was coming way too early.