The last part of our northwest trip. These are all from Washington; primarily the Bellingham area.


The only state-named shield we found north of Seattle. It’s in Bellingham.


Smoky sunset in Bellingham. Fires in the Ellensburg, about 150 miles to the southwest.


The smoke yields some unusually deep colors.


Rocket Donuts in downtown Bellingham features this rocket in front of the building.


A 1950s Chevrolet sits rusting by the side of old US-99, somewhere just north of Marysville.


We land in Seattle. A variable speed limit sign. It actually looks a lot better in real life – the refresh rate of the display is sufficiently close to my shutter rate, that all kinds of artifacts show up.


This isn’t as much a speed limit, as an acknowledgement of the speed of traffic.


I think they assembled this arrow from whatever buttons they had lying around in the shop.


The plaque for Deception Pass.


And the pass itself.


Next day, at Larrabee State Park. We were so happy to get clear skies, that we didn’t really notice that they were all sorts of strange colors.


Strange colors indeed.


Sunset over Bellingham Bay.


Intentionally underexposed (and rotated 90 degrees).


We take a detour to pick up a friend. This is the view from her house.


Continuing our theme of “objects which look like skulls”, here is a backyard flower.


A different flower.


Back to the water.


Everything is orange.


A seagull flies in front of the pier.


Same reed, different view.


Different reed, with flash.


Most of the sky is an unassuming blue, but the sun has turned pink.


Sun and seagull.


The sun now appears underneath the smoke layer.


Slightly transparent plant.


Traditional view, complete with sunbeams.


Almost set.


That’s all, folks!


Flash on the foreground.


And one without flash.


The last of the glow.


And some streetlights. Very close to the I-5 shield, in fact.


Crystal casually walks up to the rocket and pushes it over.


The sky is still brown.


Maybe even more brown than the night before.


There’s a mural on the building which houses Rocket Donuts.


The City of Subdued Excitement mural has seen better days, when it was less covered in “no trespassing” signs.


The city of many murals.


The city of Burlington put up a white guide sign, right next to the state’s standard green one.


Ancient Park & Ride sign on I-5, complete with highly nonstandard ampersand.


The license plate on the Chevrolet. I photographed it through a fence, thus the odd blurring.


Somewhere around here is a button copy gantry on I-5, which I didn’t manage to get a photo of. This set of signs, though, might be even older.


Actual button copy.


Crystal assures me that Bothell is not actually filled with deadly robots.


Silver Scotchlite route shield. Slightly yellow.


This is Mack. He is a cat.


And here is a blue jay. This concludes the animals portion of our post.


The birdhouse is usually overrun with squirrels – but not when I wanted a photo of one!


Brown sun reflects in this vase.


We close with one final aerial photo. Here is Mount Hood in Oregon, and its shadow.