It has happened more times than I can remember. Someone in the outfit decides (usually wisely) that we could benefit from a some new type of equipment. But, budgets being tight, they don't buy one for everyone who would use it.

Noooo, they buy a few. And have them "centrally located" for us to share.

For me, "centrally located" almost always means, "127 miles away."

In this case, the equipment is portable transponders that allow you to track their location every two minutes from an internet connection.

Awfully handy when keeping track of people flying in small aircraft in remote terrain. We still do the 20-minute check-ins with radio dispatch, but more often than not, the dispatcher just says "I've got you on my screen, I just need to know your status."

Nice.

Except for the equipment being 127 miles away.

We've been using these transponders and their service for a couple years now, and most the time I've managed to find someone headed my way to ferry the expensive stuff down. But not this week.

So, I drive. And take the heelers, one of whom is thrilled because it has been over a half year since they've gone out with me. (The other heeler kinda grumbled, I assume because she knew she'd miss her Law and Order.)

We hit the rain just outside of Home on the Range. Three minutes of heavy downpour that the wipers could not keep up with. I felt sorry for the folks pedaling bicycles.

A bored biologist in Regional Town took pity upon me, and an excuse to get out of the office, and saved us about 25 miles of the trip. Other than the sunshine where we met to transfer gear and give the heelers a break, we were in or under rain clouds most the rest of the drive.

The clouds were blacker when we got home, with lightning dancing on all the ridges around town. If I hadn't needed gas, I might have waited for a safer time to gas up.

As it was, the lightning had killed power in town. No gas pumps working anywhere. I at least can get home, but I pity anyone trying to drive across the country who had to wait the seven hours for power to come back on.

But there was a lot of lightning. I mean, when you can snag a shot of a bolt while driving, you know there's a lot of electricity dancing through the air.

Needless to say, the heelers had remembered one reason why they no longer like going out. To make matters worse for them, I parked in an empty field just outside of town (becoming the highest object in said field) to try to get more lightning pictures.

Lightning danced all around us, thunderclaps arriving faster than a count of "One."

The little maskless heeler abandoned her post up front with me and curled next to her sister in the back.

Now, there are three ways to get lightning pictures.

First is to try to guess when and where lightning will strike, and take a picture at just the right time.

I've tried this (seriously). It doesn't work.

The second, most common professionally used technique is just set your camera on a tripod with a really long exposure and wait until it has collected some lightning bolts in its view.

Boring. Effective, but boring.

Me, I like to wait until a bolt of lightning has struck, and then try to catch the rebound flashes. Usually a failing technique, true. I get lots and lots of frames of boring gray clouds.

But sometimes, sometimes, I catch the secondary bolts:

Sometimes you're just a little too slow, but if you dink with the contrast and darkness, you can see the shadow of electrons flying up to the skies.

Or dancing in the clouds.