City of Rocks State Park, Faywood, New Mexico in the Evening -

Once I settled in at the City of Rocks State Park campground, an unsettled sky darkened the distance. Thunderstorms with bolts that illuminated and crackled beautifully but worried me. I sat them out in the tent wondering if the tent was a careless place to hang out in a thunderstorm. Tracking their rumbles, I saw I was not in their immediate path, so I did not have to retreat to the car. As the clouds they brought tiptoed along, a quick nap. Afterwards, a peek to the sky would reveal that the stars had come out. I immediately was reenergized.

I was playing with using the car lights to light paint.

The darkest hour is not right before dawn… unless you don’t really mean immediately before dawn. I guess it just works well figuratively to pretend that is true.