Some days getting up early is worth it

I'm an early riser but a slow mover. I'm usually up around 5:30 am during the week because I need to have breakfast (and I do mean breakfast, not just coffee) and pack a lunch, to say nothing of making myself publicly presentable, before I leave for work at 7. On the weekend I'm usually up about 6 because I'm so used to getting up early.

Today I woke promptly at 6 because I've hurt my shoulder and it's hard sleeping, and because the wind was blowing a gale, with dark gray clouds racing eastward toward Chelsea, and light rain showers.  I was pouring out some cereal when the sun shone on the hillside across the road (a number of miles away). Lo! a rainbow!

Most of the rainbows I see are to the east, not to the west. They're way over past the interstate, and sometimes far enough away that I can get a picture. No doubt there have been rainbows to the west before, but I've never seen one. There it was, growing out of a hillside that my map tells me is somewhere in Roxbury, or even West Brookfield.

I was transfixed. Should I put on a robe and shoes and try to get a picture?  If I stop watching will it disappear? I stayed at the kitchen sink watching, and it grew, and grew, and in about 10 minutes (because the sun came and went) it was a complete arc, all the way down to Randolph!!

And there was no way I could get picture of that arc, because it was too wide and too close. It's been coming and going ever since. Just marvelous to watch.

At 7:03 I caved in. Out the deck door in nightgown and robe, garden shoes, uncombed hair, camera.  On the left, the Randolph end. On the right, the Roxbury end. Use your imaginations. Click to enlarge the pictures.

Now the dark clouds have moved in for real.  Looks like a thoroughly rainy day. What an early morning treat!