Sunrise 13: Ault Park (the sun is back!)

This morning was absolutely beautiful. It was everything I could have hoped for after these last two days of thunder storms, and more :). The atmosphere was crisp and clear, with a hazy cloud formation just above the horizon. The clouds provided a beautiful reflective orange pattern and there was a “slicing” effect caused by one of the lower cloud banks (I need more words for clouds…). I guess you could say today was a “mustache kinda morning” (thanks Mike!). Always remember – shaving your beard in preparation for summer is always an opportunity to wear a mustache (even if only for a single day)! Earlier this week I had a “mustache monday”; fortunately I only ran into a handful of people. Moving on…

This is my theme song for the day. Don’t judge!

The pre-dawn atmosphere was a pinkish color, no doubt influenced by the low cloud cover. When the sun actually came up, you could just barely see it through the clouds. It was so subtle and majestic. More pictures after the jump It was so light that I couldn’t get it captured on the camera. I have to say that there is a side effect to these spring storms that I didn’t appreciate until now.
When the storm front finally rollsout of the tri-state area, the sky makes for an incredible morning display. The moon also provided a nice backdrop to the west. I actually wanted to check it out Tuesday morning because it was set to be in the western sky, setting over the Cincinnati skyline, right as the sun rose. I was curious what that would look like, but the storms cancelled those plans. Oh well, fortunately there will be another opportunity in the middle of May.

I strolled around the park and ended up setting up shop on the northern end of the pavilion.The jet trails were really thick this morning. Signs of human activity in the atmosphere.

On the way over I heard a loud plane taking off from Lunken. I caught it just in time. An old propeller plane that had its wing tips folded up. Reminded me of an old WWII plane, but I couldn’t get a quick enough look at it.

The song birds were highly active today. The cardinals looked brilliant in the morning light. This camera doesn’t have a very good zoom, so it is tough for me to get any kind of reasonable picture of a bird without getting too close.

Taking pictures of the moon is a difficult thing to do because of how small it is in the sky. I experimented around with trying to get a better “framing”. Not sure how I feel about the way it turned out, but it made for a fun learning experience. It was hit or miss whether the camera would decide that the “infinite focus” setting meant it would actually focus on the moon or if the moon would turn out blurry.

I hadn’t noticed the benches and memorial plaque until today. The plaque is in honor of the Ault Park re-dedication that happened sometime in the late 1980s. At one point the pavilion was in pretty bad shape, having been left to the elements, and there was a local movement to restore the park to the beautiful state we see it in today. In all honesty I shouldn’t be too surprised to find this small memorial because on the southern side of the pavilion there is another almost identical memorial to Levi Ault, the original guy who donated most of the land that the park sits on today.  It would only be appropriate, for the sake of symmetry, to have a second memorial on the opposite side of the pavilion.

I’m always drawn to the symmetry surrounding the pavilion and the lawn. The flag was rippling in the morning breeze.

I’ll never get bored of watching an airplane take off and fly over head. Someone once said that an airplane is just a building-turned-sideways bootstrapped onto the back of a rocket engine. I can’t disagree with that.

On the way out of the park I spotted a bird perched atop one of the pine trees by the pavilion. I’m unsure of the species of the bird. Care to take a guess?

Stats from this morning (curiously, it looks like Lunken had a power outage, the data is incomplete).
Sunrise: 6:52am EST
Visibility: 10mi
Temperature: 44F / 7C, not much wind at all
Sky: Clear and Blue with a slight twist of clouds above the horizon. Long trailing jet tracks.
Sunrise: Pink and Orange, vibrant and welcomed.
Bird Chatter: Making up for lost time. Very active this morning.
People: Several joggers were out this morning, taking advantage of the only nice day this week.
Otto Armleder Park Update: Still underwater, sorry puppies.