The sun and the moon and the stars

 My recently retired friend was game for a early morning trek.

Not on foot fortunately.

We planned on going early Thursday up on the Blue Ridge Parkway to see the sunrise. Well, I'd never seen a sunrise on the mountains here, so I thought I'd better check that off possible events of note.

She retired in January, and goes to a South Carolina beach for long weekends and sees an ocean sunrise there. I've done that too.

Then there was an announcement on Facebook that 5 planets would be in alignment with the crescent moon on Wed. Aug. 28. We agreed we'd try to see that too by going on Wed.

As it happened...

We could see the crescent moon and several stars right above my trees, though the silly iPhone messed up the setting and washed out the moonlight. I may have not held the phone still for the whole 3 seconds it took either. 

Once we got to our seats at the overlook, we could still see the moon, but the stars were harder to see as it was getting lighter out.

First light gave us plenty of light, but where was the sun?

Our cameras picked up some orange in the sky which wasn't very evident to the naked eye.

The mist in the valleys seemed to grow as it got lighter.

There were others there also to view the sunrise. Two vehicles (one a camper) had children in pajamas walking around barefoot, while they also had some food to keep them busy. A car with an old guy who was observed smoking a cigarette which fortunately didn't blow smoke our direction also stopped. He had two dogs, one on a leash. The other was tiny and the kids enjoyed him.

Yes, it takes a village even to watch a sunrise apparently.

The weather people said sunrise was at 7:00 am. We sat there as this perfectly nice dawn light was all around us, waiting for Old Sol to make his appearance.

At 7:18 it looked like it was on the verge of  appearing.

And at 7:22 it really shot into our eyes.

So I took a selfie with the sunrise, and went to breakfast.

After two coffees, a scone, and hours of being out and about, I went home and slept for 2 hours!

Today's quote:

It isn’t more light we need, it’s putting into practice what light we already have. When we do that, wonderful things will happen within our lives and within our world.

PEACE PILGRIM