Pride Rainbows Over Amherst

Rainbow Sundog Over Amherst 
Photo by Sharon Vardatira

Head in the Clouds Amherst celebrates Amherst’s Inaugural Pride Day on Sunday, 6/22 — honoring love, visibility, and the beauty of living true. Here’s to a town that makes room for all of us, in every color and every kind of sky.

Learn more about this weekend's celebration:
👉 https://www.amherstma.gov/3851/Amherst-Pride

Happy Pride, Amherst! 💖

#AmherstPride #PrideInTheClouds #HeadInTheCloudsAmherst

Postcards from Scotland (Cloud Edition)

When the cloud can’t help itself and spills over the top like tea from a too-full cup.
(All photos are of the Scottish Highlands, taken by Brittany Wolcott)

Longtime friend of Head in the Clouds Amherst and frequent calendar contributor Brittany Wolcott recently sent in these spectacular photos from a recent trip to Scotland with her husband, Worth. While the locals insisted it’s “never like this,” Brittany reports day after day of full sun - until the clouds finally made a dramatic entrance.

The first photo looks like a cloud pouring itself right over the crest of the cliffs, as if the two of them were about to walk into the sky. That’s fog, of course - a stratus cloud hugging the earth - but we say it counts, and counts big.

Thank you, Brittany, for sharing these cinematic glimpses of the Highlands. They’re pure atmosphere.

(P.S. If you're traveling and catch a good cloud, send it our way - we love seeing the sky through your lens.) 

A trail, a sun, a wisp of fog—
and the unmistakable feeling that you’ve
stepped into Middle-earth.

Into the cloud he goes... no GPS required.

Fog lounging in the valley like it owns the place.
(And honestly? It kind of does.)

June's Return

Connecticut River from
Mitch's Marina, Hadley MA
Photo by Stephanie Oates (Stunning Images Photography, LLC)

There’s a hush in this one - a kind of radiant stillness just before the night takes over. This featured photo for June in the Head in the Clouds Amherst 2025 Wall Calendar is a rare night image, and that alone sets it apart. Taken by Stephanie Oates of Stunning Images Photography, it catches the precise moment when color refuses to leave quietly, flaring one last time across the sky and the Connecticut River below.

“My Dad used to dock our speed boat here in the 70’s,” Stephanie writes. “So, it was capturing an old memory in a new light...pun intended. It was beautiful beyond words.”

June begins summer, yes - but it also brings Summer Solstice, after which the days grow shorter. This photo leans right into that contradiction: the longest light, already slipping toward darkness. The edges of the clouds still burn with the sun’s final brushstrokes, while the planet turns, indifferent and dazzling.

Stephanie’s image doesn’t just show us the scene. It reminds us how memory and motion can converge. A return, and a letting go. The season, turning.

Thank you, Stephanie, for capturing that threshold.