Thank you to all of you who have taken the time to view and comment on my images. May your heart be filled with peace now and throughout the coming year.

A while back we were in Des Moines, IA for a family gathering. While we were walking around the sculpture park, we stumbled upon American Dream Machine. This company, housed in a building that was on old Packard dealership, restores classic cars. We wandered in and were given a tour of their showroom and workshop. I don’t usually make HDR images without a tripod, but there I was — no tripod. I shot several hand-held brackets and was amazed with how well Photomatix handled aligning the images.

We were incredibly lucky. We knew that there was a chance that clouds/mist/fog would keep Denali (aka Mt. McKinley) hidden while we were there. What we didn’t know was that most people who make the journey to Kantishna don’t see the mountain at all. The normally low probability of seeing the mountain on this trip was even smaller due to smoke from wildfires. We were fortunate enough to see views of the mountain during our bus ride to the Kantishna Roadhouse and catch glimpses of it every day that we were there! On our last evening at the lodge, the clouds parted and the smoke blew the other way. Our guide shuttled us to Wonder Lake and we were treated to this magnificent view. If you look closely, you can see the half moon rising over the mountain — perfect.