photo taken in rural San Diego County.

Sunset, over one of Canada’s innumerable boreal forests.

A pair of otters. If anyone wonders why I spend so much time between blog posts… it’s the sheer quantity of photos I have to process. I took about 200 just of these otters! (One came out.)

Full moon, perched on top of a cloud.

Aurora, and inverted big dipper. We have arrived!

As promised, a photo of the Alberta/Northwest Territories border. with all the northern staples: aurora, big dipper, yes it is time to head north and see what the world brings.

To continue from the last batch of photos: another waterfalls route marker in sunset light.

Sunset view. I have lots of this general theme because I took about 300 pictures in the span of a half-hour here.

Some flash illumination on the foreground vegetation.

Same theme, slightly different angle.

In stark opposition to the Beatles’ experience: there goes the sun.

An otter, making a wake.

The last atmospheric feature to be illuminated red is this dash of virga to the east.

Obligatory rental-car portrait.

The road looking south.

Back at the territorial border. Spotty terrestrial clouds. It now becomes our task to find a clearing in the sky from which to view the aurora.

Look who shows up to the party! Don’t mind the blurriness – this was a test photo that I took handheld, 10 second exposure, just to detect the levels of auroral activity.

Fisheye, for maximum over-the-top value. Note that it’s not even full dusk, and the lights are this bright.

Over the forests, over the hills.

Just a little bit later in the night.

Back here again? Yes, we are running the same segment of the MacKenzie Highway and here is the place where the sky is the clearest.

and this is where we leave off for the night. I got a few hours of sleep… tomorrow, we resume with bears!

Painted skies at dawn.

A seagull at the Mackenzie River ferry. Yep, they do have them even thousands of miles from the nearest sea.

Some yellow and some evergreens.

Dawn. We take the first ferry across the Mackenzie River at Fort Providence. A bridge is being built, and will be opened sometime in 2012.

Yes, there is still a large gap in the bridge.

Looking like the makings of an excellent sunrise.

Also: attention, very bad flash photo.

A well-made bear sign.

Brightly colored dawn.

A closer view.

Everything is bright orange.

Off to the side.

More orange. More trees.

One last one before we leave the area.

The leaves are definitely changing color.

Bright yellow trees.

And some orange ones.

A truss bridge on the road to Yellowknife.

This is a standard bear highway marker.

Northwest Territories changed from green signs to blue sometime in the early 2000s.

The only place I saw a pentagon route 3. The others were all 1s. And this is the only photo from Yellowknife worth displaying. Not much to see there.

Nothing to see here, just a duck and a flag.

Cutout bison seems to be made of individual planks.

Fall colors.

The bison sign proves accurate.

A pair of bison. We’re in the middle of a large herd.

A year-old bison: young enough to look like a calf, but with the dark brown coat of an adult.

No traffic. No highway patrol. Set cruise control to a reasonable velocity.

I’m not sure what this plant is, but – let’s be honest with ourselves here! – it looks like a fuzzy turd.

A look back up the road to Yellowknife, even though right now we are heading back towards Alberta.

Plenty of older green signs still survive.

The crow is eyeing the dog’s lunch.

Bring out your nuisances. The sign, by the way, points to the garbage dump.

The sign at one point said “3″ instead of “1″. We are on highway 3 – the sign was an error.

We find ourselves back at the uncompleted bridge at Fort Providence.

A large piece of construction equipment.

We are on the ferry now.

Similar view as in the morning.

This might be the oldest sign we see on the trip. Very much custom fonts here. The road turns to dirt a couple miles down, so we will not continue that way.

The only green bear I found. Turns out there is another one at this junction which I flat out missed. Fearless and indestructible AARoads contributor Jim Lindsay got a photo of it a week before I was there, so it is preserved for posterity.

One of many random two-track roads that go to who knows where.

An incident of That Gull.

Some iridescent clouds.

I believe this is a Korean Air flight. Blue tail livery, and the general trajectory seems about correct for Seoul to Toronto or New York.

More yellow trees.

the farthest east we will head in Northwest Territories is the 5/6 junction. Alas, here we see no green bears.

Ominous distant clouds.

A cloud so big it needs the fisheye lens to be fit in correctly.

A small flash of color.

A bit of a rain shower on the windshield.

A better look at one of the Waterfalls Route markers.

Shooting dandelions directly into the sun.

Very bright colors.

And we’re going to leave off there with that sunset teaser. Next up – sunset and northern lights in Northwest Territories!

did I see the northern lights? In the interest of maintaining suspense, I’m not going to say quite yet.

Sunset. Usually shooting directly into the sun is a bad idea. Sometimes it isn’t.

The northern lights. Yep, they were out. This is about as bright as they get – when the red, purple, and green mix together to form a band of white.

Directly overhead, spanning the entire sky.

I used the fisheye lens for nearly all of the aurora photos seen here.

A view from the air. Crossing the Rockies, and I’m not quite sure but I believe that is Glacier National Park. (the one in Montana)

The Trans-Canada highway. The town at lower left is Exshaw, which is well on the way to Banff from Calgary.

And we’re on the ground. Our route takes us up the Mackenzie Highway to Northwest Territories.

Yes, that is a cutout moose advisory sign!

Standard route markers for primary and secondary.

Oops. This is supposed to be a secondary route, not a primary one.

A very important intersection. 43 continues to the Alaska Highway, while 49 goes to the Mackenzie Highway. Interesting that the two numbers are patches. Maybe the numbers were something else before? Without an old Alberta map, I just do not know.

We’ve reached the Mackenzie Highway. I didn’t take many pictures along this stretch, as I was dashing northward as fast as possible to be in viewing position for the northern lights.

In other news, this is the peak weekend for the leaves changing as well.

Sunset, looking the opposite direction as the photo I started off with.

The Mackenzie highway is always given two signs like this.

Sunset over a westbound secondary route.

The road’s primary purpose seems to be to service this radio tower.

Getting darker.

Looking off to the north.

Extremely wide-angle shot exaggerates the mild tilting of this post.

That about does it for sunset.

What do we have here?

A terrible photo which I had to publish just because it is unintentionally compelling. This is underexposed by what must be 13 or 14 stops, and is stretching the threshold of the CCD’s detecting ability.

This was the intended result.

The lights flared up, and I elegantly blew out the exposure.

Another long exposure – two minutes or so.

This exposure is maybe five seconds. That is how bright they can suddenly get!

The road heading … south? Yep, we’ve overshot our mark!

Red mixed in with green.

An exposure of moderate length. Wind is causing the trees to blur.

Time to get the fisheye, as it’s coming over the top.

A tower of green.

A very short exposure of the very beginning of a burst.

Directly overhead, and coming straight down.

Just a few seconds later.

Now with some context!

I must reiterate, that this spans the entire field of view, from one horizon to the other.

A giant spiral in the sky.

A truck goes by. Very light traffic at this hour – there was an interval where I spent about 20 minutes parked in the road without any problem.

The show goes on. Usually an active interval lasts 10-15 minutes. This one was 45!

The border line, with the barest glimmer of northern lights in the background. The next day, we’ll get a much more interesting photo of this same scene.

Our first Northwest Territories sign. Usually, NWT uses a route marker with a bear on it, but it looks like for a little while they experimented with this pentagon.

This sort of thing happens up here too.

Some very fine discrete filaments.

Sometimes the red and purple fringes are more prominent.

A very long exposure.

About the farthest we’ll get from actual shields with bears on them.

There, actual bears. Better photos to come during daylight hours.

The moon sets, while the northern lights continue.

Warning: photo may contain Clearview.

and that’s it for this day! Next up … daylight photos from Northwest Territories – and more northern lights!

Minimum maintenance road.

Flooding causes standing water. Standing water causes mosquitoes and other insects. A fresh source of food means the dragonflies grow fat and happy. This one was about three inches long, with a five inch wingspan.

We’ve got ourselves a good old fashioned lightning storm. Western Kansas.

We start with another train – no airplane fuselages this time, though.

The gantry tells the tale. At one point, this road was US-75, and the rightmost (missing) set of signs indicated that. Then, US-75 was moved onto the I-29 freeway, so they changed the gantry to indicate that – and added the new county route designation.

when they moved US-75 well into Nebraska, they took off the trailblazer, but oddly did not move the county signs to the main gantry. too much effort, apparently.

Green grass and high tides.

This old yellow stop sign might actually still be in service… it all depends on whether the dirt path it serves is a public road, or just someone’s driveway.

Old 75 intersects current 30. The sign dates to 1994, as evidenced by the sticker on the back, which implies that 75 was moved across the river after that time.

Iowa is the only state I know which uses outline shields for interstates so regularly.

One in infrared, for variety’s sake. Old US-30/75; the Lincoln Highway approaching Omaha.

Nebraska City is about the last place in the state where you will find these “BUSINESS”-tagged state route shields. The US routes are in a lot of places. The earliest ones date back to 1984, when the bypass was built.

The newer sign assemblies are divided into multiple pieces, like this one.

The view from the highway 2 bridge across the Missouri river between Iowa and Nebraska. Why is the water brown? A sewage treatment plant upstream was flooded. Ick.

The levee is holding … for now.

There’s an on-ramp in here somewhere.

You can see the first Iowa state highway 2 marker in the distance … not long before the road sinks.

The water isn’t usually this high. Or, this brown.

Instant business route marker… just add stencil.

Somewhere in Nebraska, this flower blooms.

We’re not just looking for pretty flowers. We are driving this road because it is an old alignment of Nebraska state highway 4. It got renumbered to US-136 sometime in 1951. The green post may very well have once held a NE-4 shield.

This might be the oldest sign we see in Nebraska. The black going all the way to the outside border, the yellow faded to white – this identifies the sign as mid-1950s. It’s on the same old alignment of NE-4/US-136.

Indeed, this sign was once yellow.

We are now in Kansas, where we find this white guide sign on an old US-24 alignment.

Cloud County indeed.

This storm cloud is centered over Salina, Kansas, over 75 miles away.

A railroad runs parallel to US-24. We catch this train just around sunset.

Blue skies and storm clouds.

The storm approaches. This is about a one-minute exposure, with the clouds being illuminated by successive lightning strikes.

We interrupt this meteorological quest to bring you a picture of an old brown 16″ county route marker. They’re getting quite hard to find in Kansas.

It’s electric.

Strike after strike after strike. I combined about seven consecutive exposures here.

The ranch fence gets one in the teeth.

One last lightning strike.

And now for something completely different. This might be the last cutout US route marker in Kansas. Apparently, the US-36 shields in St. Francis are gone, so this is it.

Next morning. As dawn breaks, we are in Colorado. Along the side of US-160 is this abandoned house.

Our first photo from New Mexico. It appears to be a large beast of some kind, possibly carnivorous.

Can a Prius go 100mph? Well, down a road I’ve driven far too many times… yes!

Oh dear, US-64 got demoted.

and that’s where we leave off for now!

Endless fields of yellow flowers are the most prominent feature of the eastern Montana landscape. All the way across the state on US-212, from I-90 eastward, featured miles upon miles of bright colors.

The Milky Way. A 90 second exposure.

Very early dawn in Nebraska. Above this house: a noctilucent cloud – one of the rarest kinds to see!

Slightly later dawn.

Nothing to see here, just a train carrying airplane fuselages.

A state-named I-90 sign which I managed to miss during my previous trip through here, in December, 2007. It’s in Laurel, about two blocks off the main drag.

Not particularly old signs, but definitely an old gantry. At one point, this mentioned US-10 for sure.

I do not know why this Montana 3 sign has an extra thick border. Also, why it does not point to 3 in any reasonably direct manner. It instead points to US-87. Since US-87 and MT-3 both connect Billings to Great Falls, it may very well be the cast that what is currently 87 was once 3.

Typical eastern Montana grasslands scene.

Close-up of the typical eastern Montana grasslands scene.

A different style of flower.

A strangely compelling era of Montana history comes to an end. I remember seeing, in 2005, an older-style US-47 shield here, and then was quite shocked when, in December 2007, I noted that they had replaced it with a shiny new … US-47 marker.

now, finally, state route 47 is correctly marked heading out of Hardin. a small part of us has died.

Infinite regression of purple flowers.

absurdly large dandelion. Seriously, it was about 4 inches in diameter.

This is the only example we found of a signed Indian Route. It uses the same route marker as the Montana state secondary highways – but a completely different range of numbers. The secondaries start around 270 or so.

US-212 in eastern Montana is the Warrior Trail.

This sign is neither embossed steel, nor cast iron. It is wood – and the parts not protected by black paint have weathered away over the last, oh let’s say 40 years.

in any case, the state of Montana wants you to know that if you want some heaps of dirt, you’ll just have to get your own.

We are now in Belle Fourche, South Dakota. And no – despite being 16×16 inches – these are not direct replacements for 16″ cutout US route markers. They’re just … oddly lame.

An original 1958-specification Business Loop 90 marker. It may very well be the only one in South Dakota.

An abysmally bad photo of the sunset. I took this one while discovering that a particular set of ramps on I-90 didn’t have anything to the north but the on- and off-ramps – so I was hastily beating a U-turn (probably quite illegally) before the cavalry came.

Lots of old signs to be found in the Black Hills. I need to return here sometime during the day. Perhaps in early October, to take photos of the leaves changing, and various other general-interest topics.

An oddly shaped 385.

A classic one, unfortunately hidden behind a pair of street blades. I’ll bet that, if I told you that it was in the town of Lead, that you could find exactly where.

Whoops, that’s supposed to be state route 87.

Nebraska. We drove through the night and we’re in about the middle of the state by dawn.

Foggy morning.

Another sunrise photo, through the fog and the trees.

Alas, not the original white town boundary sign.

An older Junction assembly. One can tell its age by the smaller numbers in the route markers – and, oh yeah, the general decrepitude.

What strange installations lurk in the fog?

Agricultural vehicle is agricultural.

An older faded sign.

There isn’t much button copy left in Nebraska. Most of it is here on the 129 freeway.

US-75 was moved from Iowa into Nebraska in the mid-1990s. Therefore, some signs needed to get patched.

One last set of flowers. This is in Iowa – where we will leave off for now. Next up: Missouri River flooding in Iowa, lightning storms in Kansas!

I find them at Lake Roberts, and we head up to the end of New Mexico 15 to the Gila Cliff Dwellings, find some hot springs, and generally have a quality time of things.

I took over 1000 pictures on this day – quite a lot of things to be seen!

Shelly, Dale, and Beverley at the entrance to the cliff dwellings. The ladder is a modern touch for modern folks. The original inhabitants, of course, flew from door to door on the power of their awesomeness.

Today’s theme ingredient is: forest fire.

I believe this is a desert spiny lizard (Sceloporus magister). Dale spotted the little critter first and it took me a good several seconds to note what he was pointing at. The camouflage is dang near perfect!

The Gila Cliff Dwellings. They were built around 1280 by the Mogollon people, and were abandoned sometime in the 1300s. Due to the desert climate, they remain very well-preserved; almost exactly how they looked over 700 years ago.

Dale. No further explanation needed.

A lazy evening spent at a hot spring. I took this photo while sitting in the pool. Probably not the smartest idea ever, but hey, the photo came out!

Green tree at the Lake Roberts campground.

A close-up of some of the leaves.

Lots of fossils to be found in the rocks that the New Mexico park service used to build the campground in the 1930s.

A little green and orange plant.

I don’t think the sign is particularly old, but it does have the classic 1920s block font.

A one-lane bridge on old NM-35. Lake Roberts is actually several miles to the east of 15; off 35.

This is actually the very last 15 “reassurance marker”. Here, we enter the Gila Cliff Dwellings national monument.

Yellow rocks cut away to provide room for NM-15.

This extremely green species of tree is all over the area.

Our first glimpse of the source of the smoke. We’ll be seeing a lot more of this very soon.

The confluence of the East and Middle forks of the Gila River.

Oh, that forest fire? Well, it’s here.

The Gila Cliff Dwellings visitor center flag. Brown light courtesy of – you guessed it – forest fire.

Fisheye to rectangular conversion on this one, explaining the wacky angles at the edges.

They’re circling …

Welcome to the enchanted forest of bizarre lighting.

A small stream on the way to the cliff dwellings.

Bright light. Big tree.

The cliffs. Soon, we’ll find the dwellings.

Another extremely green tree.

Different angle on the lizard. I circled around and got this photo before it decided it had enough and took off scurrying.

The path up to the cliff dwellings involves a lot of steps.

Our first view of the dwellings.

Getting closer.

Inside one of the dwellings.

Looking out the window.

I could never quite expose this one correctly.

A very Escher-looking photo.

Getting these photos to expose correctly is very difficult, due to the huge range in light levels.

About the only cliff dwellings photo which I didn’t blow out at least one corner of!

A petroglyph. Plenty may be found at the dwellings.

More views from the cliff dwellings.

The result of forest fire brown and camera flash white.

One last view of the same general area.

A helpful warning. It’s about a 20 foot drop.

I take thousands of photos. Shelly takes maybe 37. Beverley looks for Dale. Say, where is that man anyway? Did he get eaten by wolves?

We’ve completed our tour. And the sky is even more brown and filled with smoke.

A narrow cliffside path will lead us back down.

What happens when you put red dirt under red light?

The sky is completely brown, and even our favorite green trees are distorted in color.

A fire survey crew prepares to take care of business. It turns out that, as of this day, the decision was to let it burn, as it was not threatening any human dwellings.

Not shown in this photo: Captain Obvious.

Dale has to get his own picture … of just the sign, of course!

And the secret ingredient which makes the picnic sandwiches so delicious is …

And the secret ingredient which makes the picnic sandwiches so delicious is … hey wait a minute!

By wing coloration, this is a Baltimore oriole. By geographic location, it is a Bullock’s oriole. In any case, here he is, spying on our picnic, wanting a piece of the secret ingredient action.

A tree awash in brown light.

Not a sign you see every day.

Big tree, at the picnic area.

Oh, right, huge fire. And we’re planning on going forward.

A large tadpole meets an even larger blob of vegetation.

A reflecting pool.

Deer: not exactly a rare creature.

A brown reflection.

A decorative element at a hot spring we visited. It is, indeed, a 1927-1931 New Mexico state highway marker! Most of the surviving examples of this sign are in similarly execrable condition: there is only one that is pretty decent with the original paint and route number.

We’re still about an hour before sunset, but we get this kind of lighting.

And here is the reason why!

The sun sinks lower and lower.

Hot spring pool at dusk.

One more on the theme of “sunset through silhouetted trees”.

Brightly colored red rocks.

I have no explanation. Maybe Shelly does.

Horse and foal.

Bright yellow leaves.

Back at the Gila River bridge, looking at the confluence of the two branches.

Canyon in deep shadows.

Sunset through the smoke.

Have I mentioned the ridiculous colors?

Same yellow rocks as we saw in the morning. Completely different lighting.

The sun sets as we return to Lake Roberts. What a day!

Two days of photos – one of just hanging out, the second of actually going somewhere.

Flowers still in bloom in late October at 6800 feet. Someone does one hell of a job with the gardening!

Why has Dale ascended to such magnificent heights atop this flimsy half-a-utility-pole? Because he can.

Iridescent clouds, and a radio assembly on top of Sierra Grande. (Or: a flying saucer comes in for a landing.)

Iridescent clouds were a regular phenomenon over both days.

More flowers. The bees, alas, appear to be mostly gone by this late in the season. We will see only one.

It is a little-known fact that the famous Red Phone in the Kremlin actually connects to Dale’s house. (Photo has been mildly edited to protect the privacy of this charming 1970s communication device.)

The road to the windmill, as we approach dusk.

Sunset in Union County.

Moonrises are just as colorful as sunrises – you just have to take longer exposures.

Next morning. What a perfect day to go to the top of Sierra Grande!

Changing leaves and reflecting signs – what more could you want?

High clouds and bright leaves.

Up the road to Sierra Grande. We are suddenly pursued by a horde of magnificent beasts.

Bovine intervention.

Looking straight up.

Sometimes, shooting straight into the sun actually works.

Did I mention the leaves are changing?

Last bee of the season.

Halfway up the road to Sierra Grande. This is what they call, literally, a late bloomer.

Solid advice on the Sierra Grande road.

Top of the mountain. We have arrived.

Dale and Esperanza – and the International Harvester Scout, and a giant radio installation, and high clouds. Don’t mind the International – regardless of how I tried to perspective-correct this picture, it refused to conform to the linearity of this space-time continuum.

Figures.

Higher than Capulin Volcano. Not quite as high as Greenhorn Mountain, which is visible in the background, over 100 miles away, just past Walsenburg, Colorado.

Dale enjoys his fancy German beer.

In the foreground, the town of Capulin. Behind it, highway 64/87 heads off into the distance. Said distance consists of the Sangre de Cristo mountains.

The survey marker on top of Sierra Grande. The highest point, apart from the broadcast towers anyway.

High clouds and installations.

Esperanza about to be vaporized by a malevolent device.

A giant heap of ladybugs. They are, ahem, causing new ladybugs to come into being.

Tall tower is tall.

High clouds: a cause for much rejoicing.

Dale surveys the landscape.

Top of the world.

Oklahoma!

Yet another person decides to climb the pole for no discernible reason. (The person who took these pictures would like to remind the world of his extremely powerful fear of heights desire to take photographs from ground level.)

Implicit in this blissful portrait is the subject’s realization that the only way down is an eight foot sudden drop.

It’s not out of focus; it’s naturally fuzzy! (I’ll have to use that reasoning for all my photos from now on.)

On our way back down.

Union County driving test.

Sunset over highway 64/87.

A few test shots before the last of dusk.

Perfectly clear skies at 6800 feet. 5 1/2 minute exposure.

Will it lightning again tonight, providing competition for the fireworks?

Where’s the bees? A lot fewer than the first day that I got there. Must be something different about the weather, although it generally felt the same to us untrained humans.

Dale and his fully operational 1920s traffic signal.

But wait, it’s empty on the inside. How does it work? (The sun is directly behind the lens.)

There are seven traffic signals in Union County. Six of them are right here in the front yard.

The tall trees are at their greenest.

The fireworks will be the only show tonight – no particularly threatening clouds to be seen.

Oops, looks like there is some side theater after all – something got set on fire in downtown Raton.

Lighting one up on the railroad track.

What do you do when one can finishes? Start up another one, of course!

A Texas special. New Mexico no longer sells the ones that go too high.

And the actual show. Unfortunately, I only got about two decent photos, as we were very close and therefore most of my shots had the fireworks half out of the frame.

Part IV will feature a trip to Mills Canyon in sunny Harding County, New Mexico. Oh yeah, then a long, long drive back home.

It happens to be raining in sunny Union County.

Fence post, and observer, at sunset.

Orange skies are orange. I had not seen this sort of sunset since just after a thunderstorm in South Dakota in 2006!

Rain to our west, too. The only place it isn’t raining is right overhead!

Red rainbow.

Wide angle. I was too lazy to switch lenses (lest I miss something!) so I just took 7 photos and stitched them.

I turned this photo upside down for that extra otherworldly effect.

This one, too.

Spot where it was zoomed into.

Bright orange fades to purple, and I elegantly blow out the red channel on the camera.

Meanwhile, in the other direction, we have a lightning storm.

Silly lightning, you’re supposed to hit the highest point around!

And that’s about the absolute last of daylight.

coming up next – fireworks!