Four Rainbows and a Sundog

Typical of Albuquerque skies this week

This post is for Daryl at Out and About in New York City. No, Daryl, I am not gloating, but I always (and likely forever) will think of you when I see a rainbow. (For the rest of you, Daryl has never seen a rainbow.) You know how when you collect something and for no reason people bring you a variety of said thing you collect and say, “I just had to get it. I always think of you when I see X.” Well I always think of Daryl when I see a rainbow. So Daryl, lately I have been thinking of  you a lot!

Maybe I should have saved this for a Skywatch post, but I did not want to. (And if you are here for SkyWatch, it is the next post. But this is the sky, too, so it doesn’t really matter.)

This week was Vacation Bible School. I thought about doing a post for that, but then I decided there was no point. What this meant to us is that we were driving to church around 6 p.m. every evening this past week. (And driving home around 9:30 p.m., but that has nothing to do with the sky, except there was some cool lightning one night way in the distance.)

Wednesday. So pretty I actually stopped to take pictures.

On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday we saw rainbows on the way to church. I did not have my camera Tuesday, and it was not a stellar one anyway, but the fact that it was there was nice.

Wednesday again, closer view.

This Wednesday rainbow (previous two photos) reminded me of the Northern Lights. Not the color or anything like that; I have only seen them in Iceland and they were a greenish color. But the colors in this rainbow danced and shimmered like Northern Lights.  It seems that would make sense because the color is coming from moving rain, but I have never seen such movement before. If I had not had to be at VBS for the opening program, I would have stayed to watch until it went away.

The Thursday rainbow (next two photos) was not big on the way to church, but after my part of the program, I went to do some repair to a letterbox. This is what I saw when I got there.

It was too good to not use the windmill as a model for photos. The rainbow is still there, pale and low.

On Friday, there was no rainbow on the way, but there was one during VBS. (My participation in this endeavor is to be the leader for the opening part which means I talk to the kids and introduce songs for 25 minutes–then I am finished–so I go outside and look around.)

I only got a tiny bit of the Friday rainbow. I know it was bigger while I was inside. It is difficult to see in this picture, but it’s the pink near the middle. And I can tell it’s a rainbow and not sunset because I can see green to the left of it. OK, I did not see the best of Friday’s rainbow, but my point is that there WAS a rainbow four days in a row. It makes me wonder how many other times there are rainbows that I do not see.

So that covers Tuesday through Friday, the four rainbows.

On Monday there was a sundog. First, I have NEVER seen a sundog in warm weather. I have seen more here than I have seen in my life (I see more here in a year than I saw in my life previously), but summer? Never! Not even here. The day I saw it, my car said the temperature got up to 99 degrees F. At the time I spotted it, it was still 97 degrees F. (36ish C.) I realize the sky is much colder than the ground, but it still amazed me to see one in summer.

And the funny thing was that usually when I see a sundog here in New Mexico, I see two sections–the ones 180 degrees from each other. This time there was only one. On the other side of the sun, there were stormy clouds.

And later, when I was driving, storm clouds covered it up. I am continually in awe of New Mexico skies!

You can see the sundog being obscured by the darker clouds.

So there you have it. Four rainbows and a sundog in one week.

I did this post for Daryl, but I would also like to recognize Mrs. Chili who is going through some tough times right now with taking care of her lovely mother who has terminal cancer. I know Mrs. Chili has seen rainbows, but I want her to know I am thinking of her.