PP Help please

I've been digging through the hard drive and have revisited this shot. It's from fall of 09. Before I had a grad filter and a little more knowledge. I WAY underexposed it, trying to not lose the sky, had my contrast set far too high for the DR in the scene. Here is the starting point, the pic as shot, no adjustments.

Here is where I am at with the file. Went back and reduced the contrast and brightened the shot a bit, opening the blacks. Then added a grad on the sky to bring it back down. Control points (NX2) to open the water and some other adjustments. Need help in hopefully saving this shot, I love the sky in it.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

dang, that was a lesson in PP!...see if you can figure out how I got this post in ahead of John's technique

On a separate layer, I used the Shadow/Highlight adjustment in PS using the following settings:
Shadows---
Amount-48
Tonal Width-48
Radius-100
Left the Highlights sliders all at '0'.
Color Correction-+15
Midtone Contrast-+5

Then I created a layer mask and painted the original sky back in.
Flattened the layers and hastily cloned out the large weed that appeared after the adjustments.

Sorry, Jack...I deleted the first attempt while you were replying.

Could you jump harder on the highlight recovery for the brighter areas in the sky between the clouds?

Sure! Bumped up the Shadow Recovery in the mountains and left in the weed, too.

Thanks for the feedback guys. I took John's suggestions and tried my best to apply it to NX2, as I do not have PS. Here's round 2. Does it still look natural? I'm not a fan of fake looking HDR, so I really don't want to push it too far.

John Mumaw is a Photoshop GOD!

That looks just fine, Joshua. That's one beautiful sky!

Thanks for your help!

Josh, the subtle detail in the mountains looks good.

Great suggestions John, and really nice work with the last iteration Joshua, it looks very natural and certainly an image worth the extra work.

Thanks John, you made this a real learning experience.