Beyond Foundation Workshop: Yellowstone in Winter (Day 7)
Our Last Gasp
Mammoth Hot Springs
My alarm went off at 5:45 am!!! Great!! But the excitement of another dawn twilight shoot overcame my sleepiness. Of course, the two large cups of coffee helped as well. We gathered in front of the Best Western for the last time as a group and “democratically” chose our destination: Mammoth Hot Springs. Opposed to going up the road to Jardine.
A not so quick trip back up the entrance road (behind a fuel truck) brought us to the lower terrace. Some of the group continued up to the road to the upper terrace just as the sky began to color with the sunrise. I was distracted by a tree in the middle of the second parking lot just up the road from the Liberty Cap parking lot.
Silhouette -- Lower Terrace Parking Lot
The distraction caused me to miss the very short interval of color in the eastern sky. Oh well, I think my photographs of the tree are pretty interesting.
It was just as well that we didn’t go up toward Jardine as the weather closed in a bit and it looked like the road was enveloped in clouds. This weather and flat light created a huge soft box and made shooting both very interesting and challenging.
Lone Tree - Minerva Terrace
Deadwood -- Minerva Terrace
Some humor broke the seriousness of our efforts, though:
Snowman on Bench -- Minerva Terrace
Kate had found this snowman on the trail and had placed it on the bench. What a riot!!!
Back to Gardiner to shower, ingest (breakfast for me, images for Lightroom), ranking, and editing. Six images, at least one with a person or people in it, one to encapsulate our feelings about the workshop, and four others.
I packed up my car and said farewell to the Absaroka Lodge. It was a very nice place and a good buy. I just wish the wireless network had worked for me.
In room 301, we met for the last time. We gave our images to Dave and as he compiled the final slideshow, we reminisced about all that had occurred over the week and I showed off my Wacom Cintiq 12wx tablet 
The slideshow was awesome!!! What talent was sitting in that room. Again, I was inspired, but so sad to leave this group that I had grown so close to. I hope to see them all again!!!