Independence Day has come and gone.  The only thing that’s ever the same is the Oklahoma heat.  What made this year’s Fourth of July rare was the rain.  It never rains on July 4th in Oklahoma!  Never, except this once, this year.

I was staying indoors this year, out of the heat, working like crazy trying to get Expression Web 2 to cooperate with PHP like it’s supposed to do.  I believe it’s just another example of how Uncle Billy, et al, keeps giving us software that doesn’t live up to it’s advertising and then doing nothing to fix it until there’s an upgrade he can sell to add another $Billion to his worth.  Anyway, I was busy as could be when I became aware of thunderstorms building northwest of Lawton.  The idea came to me about heavy ominous thunder clouds behind the mountains of the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge and the bright July 4th sun to the south.  I pictured an extremely high contrast situation with the mountains in full sunlight and the thunderheads behind.  I couldn’t shake the images from my mind, so late in the afternoon I gathered my camera gear and headed to the WMWR.  I was soon disapointed by the realization that I was going to be about an hour late.  The thunderheads got to the Refuge first.  This is what I wound up with.  Not what I wanted, but it gives an idea of what could have been.