Happy Sunday! Ritva is hosting this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge and this week’s topic is something I am desperately needing the moment and is some quiet moments.

The first Monday of September is Labor Day here in the US and this year, I decided to the Friday before the long weekend off, to extend my long weekend. That Friday, I completed a very important project I’ve been putting off for a long time. That morning, I used a special cleaner to wash and clean the metal railing next to my front door and in the evening, I applied a few coats of rust-resistant paint to make the railings look shiny and new again.

No one knew I was doing this and I made it a point to tell no one because if I told someone, I would had been left alone to my own accord. I would not had those few precious quiet moments to myself.

The next day, I visited the Crater of the Moon National Monument and Preserve in southern Idaho for the second time in a month. My mom and I first visited this out-of-the-world place in early August but we were ill-prepared for all the hiking we had to do around the park. So we called it a wrap and knew we would go back to the park very soon. I honestly didn’t know it would be this soon.

One of the places we didn’t get to see during our first visit was the Inferno Cone, I had no clue what to expect. What I did know was I must climb this onyx-color mountain. One of my aunts was ahead of me and another aunt had fallen behind, saying she couldn’t walk any longer. Behind me, I could also hear my mom doing her usual commentary while filming her climb on her phone. I don’t know what she do with those because she doesn’t use social media.

Ignoring them, I climbed and climbed because every second I was away from the family was every second I could finally quiet my mind from all the anger-driven thoughts.

At last, I made it to the top! The top of the mountain was… surprisingly flat. I looked back and noticed my mom and aunts were nowhere to be seen. So I walked to the other side to take in the landscape.

At that point, we were a little bit pass noon, meaning the sun was at its most intense. I tried to photograph with my phone but the landscape was washed out by the harsh sun. I tried to adjust the settings but nothing worked. I had a CPL filter installed on the DSLR camera lens before I left and thankfully, that was able to reduce the effect of the harsh sun.

Though it was only a few minutes before my mom and aunts caught up and started demanding I take their photos, I was glad I got to have a few minutes of being alone with my thoughts as well as getting a few shots that I actually love.