"Summer" ~ Sunday Stills Challenge 071810

Here in the desert southwest, summer is our monsoon season. That means during the months of July and August, we get tropical moisture from Mexico and the Gulf of California drifting up into our deserts. From that moisture, we get our summer rains. And, yes, sometimes we get so much that the desert has flash floods, so we constantly listen to weather forecasts and keep our eyes on the sky. There was one day just this week that I awoke to a cloudless sky. I went up to work the horses and noticed just a single cloud overhead. By the time I left the ranch that afternoon, there were several HUGE thunderheads developing. I stopped to take photos of them. And, late that afternoon, it was pouring up at the horse ranch! We could see the rain coming down from our desert home. That's a typical monsoon day...clear in the morning and raining by late afternoon or evening. I took these pics during one of our summer visits to Canyon de Chelly. It was late afternoon and a monsoon was out over the horizon. We stayed overnight in Chinle, AZ and there was a tremendous storm that evening which knocked the power out at our hotel! We ventured out the next morning into clear skies and a desert which was awash with all kinds of delicious smells! Sunday Stills Challenge for July 18, 2010.