Natural Beauty

False Sierra Effect of Clouds on the Horizon

What a lucky man

to see the earth

before it touched his hand

—Niel Young

This post is much like one of Suna’s “Grateful Monday” posts. I had a really nice experience taking the kids to school this morning.

We had just turned onto the toll road when Football Fan, who is our primary source of information for all things football (from high school to pro), asked, “What’s that?”

In my serious, adult-like manner, I didn’t take my eyes off the road. “A mini-van.”

“Oh,” said Football Fan, not wanting to say that the adult in the car could be a real idiot. “I’ve never seen one like that before. It looks like mountains.”

It was then that I realized he was looking at the horizon. Young people do that, but we forget as we get older. The sunrise was peaking though a bank of low-lying clouds, creating what I false sierra because I don’t know the official meteorological term for this formation. The effect was stunning. There was one thunderhead that looked like a mesa protruding from the main bank, or maybe between us and it.

I have seen similar formations on the coast and in the desert, but I have never seen one so beauteous—probably because I need external motivation to be awake and outdoors at sunrise. Unfortunately, I did not have a camera with me, so the picture for this post is a composite.

Thank you, Football Fan, for reminding me to look up and look to the horizon, for reminding me that nature surrounds us with beauty every day if we just bother to look.