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.
Sun 11 Apr 2010
The third day, in which we see much Texas.
Cadillacs in the mist. The world-famous Cadillac Ranch, just east of Amarillo.
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.
Wed 30 Dec 2009
And, finally, we have the third part of the trip – from Antelope Canyon to New Mexico. Daniel Brim and I, driving a cargo van… always fun exploring narrow old roads in a big old vehicle like that!
Here’s a 1950s Indian road sign! Complete with peeling numbers on some of the oldest engineer grade (does not fade to green) scotchlite I have ever seen. They invented the stuff in 1950 and this is not much newer than that. 18×12 inches; somewhere in southeast Utah near the Four Corners area.
This might very well be a meteor in daytime! I just noticed this when I was processing these photos – note the smoke trail in the middle. I have the photo from 1 second before, and 4 seconds after, and they show nothing – but this one definitely has that black streak, which I believe to be a smoke trail from a very bright meteor.
Behold the birds. Pagosa Springs, Colorado has this lake, fountain assembly… and swans!
Thu 26 Nov 2009
Today (yes, literally, these photos were taken this morning) we go up to the top of Sierra Grande, the mountain that I’ve had in the background of many photos. There is in fact a road that goes up there. Is it a good road? No, no it is not.
One of the better sections of the road from highway 64/87 up to the top of the mountain.
Mon 23 Nov 2009
the best of Union County’s thunderstorm season (second half, which is when I got here!), and a couple odds and ends. Taken throughout September and October of 2009.
Lightning just after sunset, and my favorite picture of the season. It was dark enough that I needed only moderately quick reflexes to try to catch a lightning bolt, as the exposure lengths were approaching 1/8 second (this one was 3/16 I believe), and the same ionization channel – which is how electricity gets through many hundreds of feet of air, between the cloud and the ground – will tend to feature several bolts as much as a full second or two apart, as the cloud discharges its entire potential bits and pieces at a time. So you have a good chance of getting something late if you squeeze the shutter on the first one you see.
Sun 22 Nov 2009
Photos from Kansas, Colorado, and Oklahoma (and the single point in which they intersect) from September, 2009 – and some New Mexico, and a really, really small quantity of Texas.
This is the New Mexico/Colorado/Oklahoma triple point. Dale takes this opportunity to breathe some refreshing Oklahoma air, and drink some water he has brought with him from New Mexico – and park in two states at the same time.
Dale parks the car squarely in a single state, and looks up at the Kansas/Colorado/Oklahoma marker that is visible from miles away – a good thing, because the dirt roads that one takes to get to it are somewhat labyrinthine.
The Oklahoma panhandle is known for the occasional thunderstorm.
Mon 16 Nov 2009
More from my New Mexico trip of November 2008, including some actual New Mexico this time.
On the mountain pass between Chama, New Mexico, and Cumbres, Colorado – both states call this one highway 17. The sky was dark blue, just after sunrise – the snow is that bright, and there is just that little atmosphere, at 10,000 feet.
Sunset over the plains of northeast New Mexico. Old US-64 (now state highway 325) near Capulin Volcano.
An undisclosed location in northeast New Mexico, home to my friend Dale. Certainly no old signs to be found anywhere.
Fri 6 Nov 2009
it’s my blog and I’ll post random photos if I want to!
two from sunset, tonight here in northeastern New Mexico.
some sign-oriented photos soon … going to be making a small trip this weekend with fellow AARoads contributor Kevin Trinkle; hopefully some good New Mexico, Colorado, Oklahoma, and Texas photos will result from that.