I first saw this thunderhead around 2:00pm far off to the East.  It was just a hint, a little puff of white peeking over a nearby peak. Over the tick of several hours, I watched the glory of it build. I invited my wife to come. “you got to see this thing.” Her jaw fell and the eyes widened, “How far away is it?” I used my man eyes and gazed the distance, trying hard to scale the landscape and speculate an estimate. “Twenty maybe 30 miles”, I reckoned in a most manly way.

I grabbed my Nikon and walked to Ms Wilson’s flowering Agave one house to the west. In a matter of minutes the sun fully set and the magic of the light faded into grey. While processing images, I went to Accuweather to check the radar. This majestic wonder was still a hundred miles distant. So much for man’s estimate of glory!

He loads the clouds with moisture;
he scatters his lightning through them.
At his direction they swirl around
over the face of the whole earth
to do whatever he commands them.
He brings the clouds to punish people,
or to water his earth and show his love. Job 37:11-13

In a secular way, Edward Abbey also sums it all up pretty nicely: