Sunrise 5: Ault Park (Cold, Wet, Dark)

As I rolled out of bed this morning, my overwhelming mood was… uninspired.  I cheated last night and checked out the weather forecast (one of the wonders of the modern world that I never got in the hang of using). I saw that this morning was supposed to be gloomy with thunderstorms, 70% chance of precipitation. Not exactly an ideal sunrise situation. Fortunately, however, there were no thunderstorms by the time 6:45am rolled around. The atmosphere was dark, gray, wet, with a light drizzle. In other words, project sunrise was a go.

I pulled another rookie mistake this morning.  In my drowsy snooze-induced haze (who wants to jump out of bed to go sit in a thunderstorm? hah) I forgot that I charged the camera battery last night.  I didn’t realize this fact until I was up at the park.  Of all days to forget to bring the camera battery, I’m glad it was a day like today.  I’m lucky to have remembered to bring my trusty LG 9900, so once again please forgive me for the quality.

The sunrise was literally non-existent.  The ambient light increased a bit over the 20 minutes I was sitting out at the overlook.  The rain was light but persistent.  After the warm rain yesterday that seemed almost pleasant, today’s rain was downright freezing.  The nice thing about it though was that it made me think about that beautiful sunrise from day 1.  I thought about how necessary these spring rainy days are, and how beautiful the park will be in a few weeks when the storms pass and the sun comes out more often than not.

(More after the jump, including pictures that I didn’t put up last week)

The thick haze across the valley, combined with the cloud cover, made it seem like it was still dark out for about 30 minutes after sunrise.  Even at the time of this writing, 8:25am, it doesn’t seem like the sun has come up.  Lunken’s runway lighting system was still on full blast, and the two airplanes I saw take off had their headlights maxed out.  The birds, persistent as they are, were a bit more quiet today.  I think there were only a few of the bird species chirping, because the ones I did hear were loud, but there just wasn’t a lot of them around.

Otto Armleder Park is having more trouble with the water.  The poor dog park building has seen better days. I’m realizing that the flooding isn’t caused by the river running over its banks, but because the water table rises. This is something that I didn’t think about before, and kind of caught me off guard.  You can raise the river banks all you want, but you can’t stop the water table from rising.

When I got home I checked the air pressure in Amanda’s bike’s tires (Turns out the bike shop was actually open on Sunday, but they’re closed on Monday!). In my haste yesterday I forgot to fill them up. 20psi! No wonder these last two mornings have been painful! I thought it was just the bruises! I pumped them up to 90psi, tomorrow should be a lot easier.

The nice thing about days like today is that not only does it make me think about better weather and warmer days, but it also lets me go back and look at those pictures from the previous sunrises with a different eye.  I’ve got lots of pictures that are sitting on my hard drive, and they exist in beautiful contrast to days like today.  So without further ado, here are some pictures from last Thursday.  Most of them involve the blooming trees, and this is important because after the recent storms, most of the blooming trees have started to drop their pedals.  Even the magnificent magnolias have begun shedding their spring colors in favor of a more conservative green leafy look.  Some of these pictures were taken in Ault Park, the rest were taken around the neighborhoods in Mt. Lookout.  If for some reason you see your home up here and you don’t like it, please let me know and I’ll remove it.  I try not to put anything that you couldn’t see on Google Streetview.

A picture from last thursday of the sunrise.  This one *really* stands out today.

I’m so glad I got a picture of this magnolia. As of this writing she has shed all her pedals, and is starting to green up.

This is at an entrance to one of the local neighorhoods. There are at least two of these stone arches in the area. I have no idea what they are from. I would like to think they are part of an old estate that used to exist in this area, and that they are connected to the stone bench that we’ve found behind our apartment in the forest, and the old vineyard ruins on the hill sides of Alms Park.  Or they were built in modern times, I have no idea.

Ever heard of a Quince? I guess you can make a jam out of them. These are actually in our front yard.

The infamous “Bradford Pear”. Of all the spring time blooming fruit trees, this one smells the stankiest. You know what I’m talking about. They look just like the blooming cherries, but their smell wafts around for miles. Ever been in an orchard of these things? If you find yourself trying hard to remember, the answer is no! 🙂

Stats from this morning:
Sunrise: 7:06am EST
Visibility: 8mi
Temperature: 45F / 7C, not much wind at all
Sky: Dark, Gray, and dark.
Sunrise: Non existent.
Bird Chatter: Quiet, with a few dedicated birds chirping through the rain.
People: None. A lonely gray morning.