Flying into Moab from anywhere can be quite the challenge, as the Moab airport is open only at daylight, and there are not that many flights that land there. As a result, I usually fly to Grand Junction a day early and drive to Moab (almost a 2 hour drive), to make sure I don’t have any plane connection issues. I had an ulterior motive in doing this as I wanted to be able to shoot the wonderful Colorado National Monument right outside of Grand Junction.
The first time that I visited there was in the 1990s, and I took a similar photo of Independence Monument, which became a favorite of mine. Unfortunately, I wasn't into photography then, and all I had was a point and shoot camera with me. When I got back into photography, I put this place on the bucket list to shoot near sunset to recapture the memory. I had been back there several times since, but I was with non-photographer friends, and it always seemed to be in mid-day. This trip, I hoped to be able to get a great sunset shot.
When I landed in Grand Junction in the afternoon, the weather was overcast and quite gloomy. I thought that I would again miss my opportunity. As the day progressed, the weather didn't improve, but I hopped into the rental car to scout out the area for shooting at sunrise the next day. By the time I got to park, the skies started to clear to the west, and I was able to check the photo off of the list. I got lucky, as I was able to capture the dark clouds in the distance heading east, with beautiful cumulus clouds taking their place.