Right Place, Right Time, 2020

The key to getting a good shot of a rainbow is being in the right place at the right time. Generally, the sun is somewhere behind you and the rainy weather is in front of you. The conditions for rainbows change from moment to moment because the sun is always moving and the weather is usually moving and changing as well. When you are stationary, rainbows may fade in and out while you’re watching but they usually don’t last very long.

My wife and I recently travelled to Titusville to watch a rocket launch. It went off on schedule without a hitch before sunrise on the morning that we were there. That doesn’t always happen. In fact, that launch had already been rescheduled twice. To view a launch from Titusville, you look to the east over the Indian River. It was nice that the launch wasn’t delayed because if it had been, the sun would have come up and we just wouldn’t have seen much. We were in the right place at the right time.

Afterwards, we drove out to Canaveral National Seashore. It was beautiful! However, on my way out of there I got stopped for speeding! The speed limits on that road are tricky if you’re not paying close attention. Anyways, the last time I got stopped for speeding was toward the end of December 1999, twenty years prior, probably to the week and possibly to the day. I quit speeding after that last ticket because I had used up my lifetime supply of driving safety school to keep the points off my record. In Florida you can only go to driving school five times! In any case, I was very polite to the police officer and he let me off the hook. Apparently, there are no active warrants for my arrest.

I was feeling very merry on the ride back to Jacksonville! There was some light rain. When we got onto the East Beltway from I-95, there was a full double rainbow right in front of us over South Jacksonville. As I mentioned above, due to the movement of the sun and the rain, rainbows generally don’t last for long. On this occasion, we were moving in the same direction as the weather and that rainbow was right in front of us for a good ten minutes. I keep an eye out for rainbows, and I’ve seen lots of them and photographed many. They’re always great to look at, but this was an extraordinary experience.

Being in the right place at the right time is the key not only to viewing rainbows, but to seizing opportunities throughout our lives. The good news is that we frequently have the power to put ourselves in the right places at the right times. Here’s to being in the right place at the right time throughout 2020.

Happy New Year!