My hopes for this December 1997 outing to Horseshoe Bend on Beaver Lake were to let a couple of my dogs ramble for a little while, and maybe to photograph some semi-submerged saplings with light or reflections playing off the water. When sunset was nearing and I saw that the whole sky was cloudy except for a narrow strip in the west, I knew I was in for something much more spectacular than that.

What was on the way was my favorite kind of sunset, one where the whole sky explodes with light when the sun lines up just right to light up the underside of the clouds from horizon to horizon.