So I Went On This Camping Trip

And this shit happened.
The animated image above is one of dozens of lightning bolts striking Mt. Bailey in Oregon's Cascade range on Wednesday, Sept. 7, captured in 0's and 1's in video mode on my little camera and rendered into a GIF animation.
Lightning is freaking cool, at least when it's hitting a mountain four miles away across a big lake.
Here are two more strikes presented as GIFs for your entertainment.

In the interests of pretending to be scientific, let's take a frame-by-frame look at the first strike pictured above. Each frame represents 1/10 of a second in the life of a lightning bolt.

Here's the first frame:

Note the slightest brightening to the right of center in the frame.

Frame 2:

This would appear to be a cloud-to-cloud strike, a prelude to the ground strike. I'm thinking the dimmer bolt, which appears to be in front of the mountain, is an artifact possibly caused by the fact that my camera wasn't necessarily designed to capture lightning.

Here's frame number three:

This frame is notable for everything being brighter than shit.

Frame 4:

Ah, getting dark again. Just a little bit of a glow remaining...

Frame 5:

Wait, what?
It would appear that first strike from cloud to cloud was merely a feint, as this bolt hits Mt. Bailey smack in the head.

Frame 6:

And frame number seven:

And everything goes dark. For about 20 seconds, until the next bolt.
Of course while watching this show, which went on for roughly an hour and a half, I couldn't help but think of how primitive people, ignorant of scientific explanations for natural phenomena, would view such a display. Obviously, such primitives could not begin to understand the cause-and-effect phenomena behind lightning; truly it would be a fearful experience beyond their meager understanding of reality. Really, without even the most rudimentary education, with no concept of scientific thinking or rational, empirical investigation, such people can hardly be blamed for imagining great angry gods in the sky.
But enough about Republicans. I must say I enjoyed the show; only a couple of the brighter flashes actually made my kidneys tingle, and I got these cool pictures. Heck, I might even go camping again someday.