The AARoads Blog

Third day of the Alaska trip from September 3rd, 2007.

A fogbow, just past Tetlin Junction.

Mountains in the fog. Not that far north of Glennallen along highway 1.

On the way to Valdez, along the Copper River.

Worthington Glacier, as seen from the top of Thompson Pass. This panorama takes up about 130 degrees, and thus, the original image is really quite large (5850×3900 pixels, 13 megabytes). I stitched it together from four wide-angle shots.

Mountains to the south of highway 1, between Glennallen and Anchorage.

Sunset over the mountains.

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the second day of my Alaska trip, and (in my humble opinion) the best – some unbelievable atmospheric effects, in air and in space. Don’t mind the long post, and enjoy photo upon photo.

Now 35% less bear feces.

Double rainbow! Actually, we can see at least four rainbows (and maybe a fifth if one jacks up the contrast a bunch). Look inside the inner rainbow – note the repeating red bands; I count two in addition to the primary.

16×16 shield that dates to 1962… Alaska is ripe for the old signs!

Well, that about establishes the absolute lower bound, doesn’t it? Along state highway 2 is this … veritable metropolis, teeming with life. Note the 1970s white signage; for all we know, the population may have, since that time, taken the final decrement towards the ultimate goal of occupancy.

Alaska Highway at sunset.

Tok. One of my favorite sign photos I’ve ever taken – just because the setting sun illuminated this sign perfectly!

Sunset. I took this one across the waters of the most majestic lake I could find: a mud puddle next to Tok’s main drag. Note the light posts. I think my camera was at most five inches above the water.

The northern lights, over the town of Chicken. Most notable in this photo is the purple jet on the left side. Green aurora are the most common, and purple is far more rare.

One more northern lights – my absolute favorite of the bunch. There is the one aspect of the northern lights that no photos can capture: their motion – they really do dance across the sky, and seeing them in person is something else. September 3rd and March 15th are the aurora peaks, due to the Earth’s position in its orbit, relative to the solar wind, which releases the particles that (upon impact with the upper atmosphere) cause the lights. These photos are from September 2nd, 2007 – so just about the fall peak, and I certainly got an impressive display.

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some photos from my Sept. 2007 trip to the Great White North.

Here are days zero and one – I landed in Anchorage around 10pm so a few photos bleed back into the previous day, but in general they are of Day One and all the glories it contains.

Now 35% more bears.

Grim dawn weather in the southern-coast port town of Seward. The first day was pretty patchy, never getting any clearer than a moderate “partly cloudy”.

A lake, under morning fog.

Fog, fog, fog. Dunno how the white balance came out to the proverbial rose-colored-glasses shade, but I sure as Hell kept it! Intersection of highways 1 and 9.

Mount Iliamna, across the Cook Inlet from highway 1 and civilization. This is actually our second view of it – once down the spur route to Homer, and once back up. The way back up yielded much, much clearer skies.

Moose! How did I get so close to a real, live moose?? Easy – he’s sitting in a wildlife preserve. There’s a fence, somewhere between observer and moose, but I conveniently shot through the openings.

BEAR!

Mt. McKinley… 20,320 feet tall; the highest peak in North America – proudly making Mount Shasta look like an anthill since 200,000,000 B.C. About 160 miles away in this photo. Alas, this is the first, last, and only glimpse we’ll get of the peak. Non-cooperative weather intrudes as we get closer to it… from 30 miles away, all we’ll see (in the Day Two batch of photos!) is a quarter of the way up the side, barely half an edge in the ever-present fog. So take what you get: distant, nearly illusionary, glowing purple-red in the last rays of the setting sun.

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Three new Interstate sections are in the works, planned, or coming to fruition. Discussion on the AARoads Forum highlighted three recent additions:

Interstate 781 is the number proposed for a new freeway spur from Interstate 81 to Fort Drum in Upstate New York. This route would enhance access to growing Fort Drum and bypass a current at-grade connection. A page for I-781 resides on the Interstate Guide as well.

Interstate 264 was mentioned as the planned number for the old section of Interstate 70 leading south to the Poplar Street Bridge from the new alignment on its envisioned Mississippi River Bridge at St. Louis.

Lastly, a short section of new Interstate 69 freeway opened between Interstates 64/164 and Indiana 68 as both Indiana 57 and I-69. This is the third section of Interstate 69, tallying just 1.77 miles, now in existance. Construction is underway to extend the road northward to Indiana 64.

Now for some 2009 photos, here is dang near every highway in Maui… the only road I did not manage to take is the Pi’ilani highway across the southern part of the island, because it had been washed out!

As far as I know, this is the only cutout on Maui.

Maui – the land of random peacocks.

The ‘Iao Valley, as seen in Jurassic Park. Notable for the ‘Iao Needle.

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Somehow our settings for allowing comments required users to be registered with an account on the blog since May 22nd. Unfortunately, we have only caught this error just now, but have now corrected it. Feel free to leave comments on any post.

Going back to June 2008, for an Oregon/Washington trip I took. Entirely west of the Cascades.

The Milky Way. Near Mount Rainier; well past the lights of the I-5 corridor.

The arc trail, by the way, is an airplane – note the break in the trail which occurred while I restarted the exposure.

And the find of the trip – this old-style Oregon 126 eagle highway marker. Marked 1/17/73 on the back; this style dates to 1948.

Mount Rainier at sunset.

The last remaining US-99 shield in Washington state. The Alaskan Way Viaduct was renumbered to state route 99 in 1969, but this shield remains at one of the on-ramps.

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Some notes from a drive through South Alabama today:

Recent construction on the next leg of Foley Beach Express’ northward extension is already opened. The roadway stems north from Baldwin County 28 to Baldwin County 32.

Signed as Baldwin County 83 and not the Foley Beach Express, the new four-lane highway travels 1.5 miles across Baldwin County 28 west to Baldwin County 32 opposite Lehman Road. No construction is present leading north.

Mast-arm traffic light assemblies are increasing their presense throughout south Alabama. This particular assembly is one of many new signals posted along Alabama 181 between Baldwin County 32 and Interstate 10. Posted at Baldwin County 48, the new signals lie just north of a new signalized intersection for a freshly built Wal-Mart Supercenter…

Long talked about widening of Alabama 181 is now underway. This was one of the plans for former Baldwin County 27 when the county conducted a mileage swap with the state for Alabama 112. Four-laning is underway in various stages between Alabama 104 and U.S. 90.

Interstate 10 westbound’s Exit 22A ramp to Alabama 163 (Dauphin Island Parkway) northbound is closed for a 30-day period. Work began on September 14. Note the Clearview fonted base closure sign.

A now the first Clearview-based highway guide sign posted along Interstate 10. This mileage sign lies west of Exit 10 with Mobile County 39. Clearview is also found on bridge identification signs and Mobile County area street signs.