Watching Clouds Go By

I like science.  Really.  Perhaps even more than the average Joe or Jane.  But scientific language—although factual and correct—is just so technical.  Take CLOUDS, for example.  According to NationalGeographic.com, clouds are formed “when humid air cools enough for water vapor to condense into droplets or ice crystals.  The altitude at which this happens depends on the humidity and the rate of which temperature drops with elevation.”  The clouds themselves are categorized by the height of their base from the ground.  The categories include cirrus, stratus, and cumulous.

Now, don’t you agree that such a technical definition is incomplete, boring, dry (pardon the pun)?  How clouds are formed and of what they are made shares nothing about their wonder, beauty, complexity, even their drama.  When they appear on the horizon, they provide not only shade and potential rainfall, but change, excitement, detail.  They add depth to the scene and help spark the imagination.  These fanciful qualities of clouds are what makes them so special.

For me, clouds are most impressive when I am on the road, and the clouds take over the horizon.

Zion National Park, Utah

Wonderful vistas themselves are just better with clouds!

Monument Valley, Arizona

Arizona Desert

Canyonlands National Park, Needles, Utah

Bixby Bridge, Big Sur Coastline, California

Pikes Peak, Colorado

Mono Lake, California

This post is my entry for Sunday Stills The Next Challenge: Clouds–visit the site to see all the other entries.  I shared my love of clouds in an earlier post as well:  “I Love Clouds.”

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 SOME QUOTES ABOUT CLOUDS!

“A cloud does not know why it moves in just such a direction and at such a speed. . . It feels an impulsion. . .this is the place to go now. But the sky knows the reasons and the patterns behind all clouds, and you will know, too, when you lift yourself high enough to see beyond the horizons.’  Richard Bach

“The sky is the daily bread of the eyes.”  Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The air up there in the clouds is very pure and fine, bracing and delicious.  And why shouldn’t it be.  It is the same the angels breathe.”  Mark Twain

“We all live under the same sky, but we don’t all have the same horizon.”  Konrad Adenauer

“A cloudless plain blue sky is like a flowerless garden.”  Terri Guillemets

“Now, if God made the clouds so beautiful, did He not mean us to gaze upon them and be thankful for them?”  Alfred Rowland

“Why do I love clouds?  Because you can’t save a cloud like you can save a leaf or a flower or a rock—clouds are now.”  Terri Guillemets

“In the afternoon I watch the clouds drift past the bald peak of Mount Tukihnikivats. (Someone has to do it.)”  Edward Abbey

“Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes in the grass under the trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.”  John Lubbock