Sun 11 Jul 2010
a visit this 4th of July weekend to sunny Union County, New Mexico. Just a brief dash of a trip: 2500 miles in two days driving, and then two days spent there being lazy and taking pictures of bees.
Sunny Union County is inhabited by huge bees.
Little house on the prairie.
Wed 7 Apr 2010
And here is the second day of the Route 66 trip.
Same starting point – sunny Union County – this time even earlier in the dawn.
Button copy in New Mexico is very hard to find. This example, on old US-66, might be the only one left in the state.
What do we have here? Classic state-named US shields … put up sometime between September and November of 2009! In Santa Rosa, on I-40, about ten signs eastbound have the old-style shields.
Sun 4 Apr 2010
Pictures of a trip from November, 2009. Kevin Trinkle and I poked around some of Colorado before taking a trip through New Mexico, down to Route 66, and eastward to Texas.
Here is the first day, and it involves no Route 66 whatsoever. Just Colorado and New Mexico.
Here’s sunset on the first day, on Johnson Mesa – New Mexico state highway 72 just east of Raton.
Sun 28 Mar 2010
Let us look at some Iceland photos from the fourth day, and even the unofficial fifth, as that was basically one morning of photos, and the rest of the time spent blazing our way back to the airport.
A reflecting lake on a foggy morning.
Blue skies, white clouds.
High clouds with the fisheye lens.
Sunset. The majestic body of water in the foreground is nothing but a small stream whose primary purpose is to provide sheep with water. As I took the sunset photos, there were sheep bleating about sixty feet away!
A waterfall, from the morning of the last day of our trip.
Sat 20 Mar 2010
more photos from Iceland – here is the third day, including the legendary Puffin Road!
Eighteen percent? That’s nothing – try 43% later in the day!
Infinite regression of sheep.
Strange tower at sunset.
Behold the northern lights. From on top of a mountain pass, with a terrifying opaque fog creeping up behind us – we outraced it, and we got this perfect view!
Green rainbow.
Tue 16 Mar 2010
The second day of Iceland photos, from September of 2008.
This is why they call it Iceland. Jökulsárlón – a glacial lake, with bits of glacier always breaking off and floating into the sea. This is the first thing in the morning.
Clouds above Jökulsárlón, in the first rays of dawn.
Dettifoss – the biggest waterfall in Europe!
Wed 3 Mar 2010
now for some actual Iceland, after Daniel Brim and I landed… here’s Iceland day 1.
this turns out to be the least exciting day, as far as pictures go, but hey you get to hear about how we got the door nearly blown off the rental car.
Wait, you did what!!??
Yeap, the wind in the Iceland, it’s something to behold. Must have been a constant 100 mph… I needed to do the biological function that should not be done into the wind so I opened the car door, and wham!, it gets ripped out of my hand and blown completely backwards against the fender… there is entertainment value to be found in driving another three thousand kilometers on a door that didn’t close all the way!
Less containing of entertainment value is how much the dang rental ended up costing us. Let’s not think about that. Let’s just look at some pictures.
Hooray for geothermal activity. Iceland is basically a giant pile of volcanoes.
The waterfall Gullfoss. In infrared – for both the strange colors, and more importantly the long-exposure waves.
An ancient farmhouse. I do mean ancient – it may very well date back to the 17th century. Note the ominous, fog-shrouded, sharp cliffs.
Sat 27 Feb 2010
having finished Norway, here are photos from Iceland – all as I prepare for my trip to Yukon and Alaska. Do we detect a theme here? Arctic Circle or bust!
Iceland will be done in about seven batches, just like Norway – even though I spent only four days in Iceland. And of those four days, here are … none of them.
This set of photos is just the flight between Minneapolis and Keflavík – nothing here from the ground quite yet, but here’s some clouds and some northern lights too!
Clouds at sunset. Not long after having taken off from Minneapolis, so I am figuring somewhere over Ontario.
Tue 9 Feb 2010
Let us behold day 6.
We head out to the outer islands of Langøya and Andøya, and then head back to the airport with remarkably little time to spare.
The shortest place name on Earth. Å. This is why I wasn’t too worried when I didn’t get a photo of the sign for Å i Lofoten – because here is Å i Andøya.
And here is the å for which the town is named. “å” is Norwegian for “small stream”.
A halo, somewhere over the island of Langøya.
The road to Hovden, just around sunset.
Fri 29 Jan 2010
Starting from Alta. Highway E-6 for a while, then an excursion to Straumnes, where there is much snow to be found. Then onwards to the inevitable Tjeldsund bridge.
A fishing boat, under completely overcast skies. The buoy is red, and everything else really is that gray.
A frozen waterfall at Kafjorden.
A boat in Finnsnes Harbor.
And, just to prevent the stressful effects of suspense, here’s a photo of the Tjeldsund bridge.