I had a great forth of July but a better birthday. I spent my forth of July with friends in Chesapeake, Virginia with food beverage and yes no video or photo equipment. I seem to always find myself in this position and I would have thought that I would have learned my lesson after some many times of missing out on great photo ops because of not being prepared. I watched the storms pass me by as I ate a hot dog and talked with friends. We left and started home from Chesapeake and again I was kicking myself for not having my equipment with me as I saw upward lightning shooting from the top of the Westin at the town center with very vivid main bolts and many little leaders following it in an upward motion. If most don’t know this has been one of my goals this year to get photos of this and a lot of things have to come together to get this sort of lightning to happen. I made it home at 12:30am and made a mad dash for the house to get my gear and head to the other side of the lake to set up. By now I have told myself that the show was over but set up anyhow. By the fourth frame I saw an anvil crawler start from the West and move to the East towards The Westin at the town center and close the connection in the sky to the ground with one of the largest tower type lightning strikes I have seen since I have chase storms.  The lightning was so intense that an f-stop of 5.6 was way to low for this strike and to tell you the truth I think for this strike I needed to be a f-16 or f-18 to keep the bolt from over loading the sensor. My goal has been achieved but I still want a better shot then this so I will keep on trying to get the perfect shot of the Virginia Town Center getting hit by lightning. Here is the photo from last night.